Why not use Mail.app? I moved from Entourage to Mail some time ago and have been quite happy with the transition. I don't know if it does mbox, but it does work nicely with IMAP servers.

-Chris

So where is the 'apple rant' ?

It's not just OS X that has gzip default to replacing the file; that's the default for gzip on any platform.

Coincidentally, it's also the default method for the old UNIX compress and bzip2.

I use Mailsmith as my professional email client, and Mail.app for personal mail. I'll likely be switching back to Mail.app when Panther is released, since it looks like they've resolved the speed issue, and threaded email looks insanely cool.

I use Mail.app and Thunderbird. I've yet to lose email due to anything either of them has done. (My own carelessness is another issue.)

I am an unabashed Eudora partisan, although I'm using v5.2, not 6. I've been using Eudora for 10 years and have yet to lose a piece of mail.

Using Mail.app myself. Mailsmith doesn't do IMAP nor HTML mail, am I right? Those are two big strikes with me (and I'm a BareBones fan).

My vote for Mail.app too! :-) Ok, it is a bit sluggish but the tight spam filter integration alone is a big plus IMHO; personally I recieve around 900 spam mails a month at this time (and that probably isn't much for a lot other people).

I like Entourage, but I'd have to get an external spam filter which would be, I'm afraid, not a point-and-click setup with my dial-up modem connection (and I'd not be willing to buy a commercial tool). Well, and now we all know the proprietary db file as "single point of failure" can really become a problem, too. Mail.app at least uses MBOX -- although I've read, it IMAP support isn't worth a dime.

Thunderbird is great -- for Linux and Windows; I use it on my accursed XP box in the university and I'm very fond of it (spam filter even a little bit better that Mail.app's, far better IMAP support (AFAIK!)). But IMHO it's integration with OS X leaves much to be desired -- and probably will continue to do so for quite a while. (But that, of course, is a matter of taste...! ;-) Also I never ever liked Netscape's/Mozilla's/Thunderbird's approach to the whole on-/offline business; this litte connection icon in the lower right corner IMHO doesn't even come close to Mail.app's or Entourage's handling of the problem! (Then again a lot of people do not have my "dial-up problem" these days...)

I have to try Eudora 6 yet, but Eudora failed to sweep of my feet the last few times I took a look at it; I can't say much either for or against it, though. I've read good things about PowerMail (shareware) but never tried it myself. GNU Mail gave me too much the impression of a constructions site last time I looked. GyazMail looks promising but despite the fact that usefulmac.com *still* lists it a freeware, it too is a shareware program. And Mailsmith (like everything from BareBones!) is way too expensive IMHO.

we feel for you dude....

Mail.app is slow, and even if Panther fixes that up it's search capabilities are a joke.

I love Mailsmith, but it's not for everyone. If you can embrace the idea that "No, it can't do that by default, but with this little apple script ..." you'll probably love it too :)

Mailsmith actually *coverts* HTML email to plain text for you (the they haven't included a plain text version in the mailing), and you always have a small browser button available to view the original file in Camino, Safari, et. all.

Where mailsmith shines is it's apple script support, text editing/manipulation and a powerful search feature.

One thing to keep in mind though, Mailsmith's mailbox format is *not* mbox. It's proprietary, although it is some kind of ASCII with binary metadata, so if push came to crash you would be able to recover all your information. (it also has the ability to export as mbox, so you're not forced to stick with it if you find something better.

If your biggest concern is mail box stability and transparency, go with Eudora. I've been using it on the PC for 8 years now with nary a problem. I'd probably be using it on the mac, but I could never get used to the different keyboard shortcuts, and the text editing features kind of blew.

The IMAP Gods have frowned on you! I personally use IMAP with SquirrelMail/Mail.app. I, of course, have SpamAssassin and ClamAV built into my mail server's queue along with Qmail-Scanner (which blocks certain attachments, etc.).

Mail.app works fine for everything I need it for and when I'm on the road without a laptop (it happens) I access my mail through SquirrelMail.

Every month or two I back up all of my email with a python utility called archivemail, pipe it through hypermail, spider it with htdig and throw it into a password protected/firewalled server for my browsing enjoyment. As far as I know I have at least three copies (HTML, mbox and gzip) of all of my email going back to about 1999 or so.

--Joe

Are you sure the G4 drive is bad? How can it be if you can still get some files off of it and still use Darwin? How did you determine there were bad blocks? Has your brother looked at it yet? If so, what was his diagnosis? Are you sure it's not simple directory corruption?

I used Mail.app for a long time, but I got really, really tired of having notes from my Visor being forced to sync to Palm Desktop, while everything else synced to Address Book and iCal. Plus, Address Book with only the one address field. So, I'm back to Entourage.

(Glad to hear you got all your mail back! (: )

I used Entourage until I hit the mythical 2GB limit and lost it all. I used splitter and some other tool to recover most of it, but I spent a good two weeks on the project.

I now use Mail.app, address book, and iCal. My only complaint is speed. So I am also looking forward to the Panther releases.

I have not used mailsmith, so I cannot comment on that particular app, but I will say that I've been thrilled with BBEdit (also by BareBones)...

And my good friend sara forgets that you can add more than one address field in Address book. GOts to use that [+] icon ;)

Wow - I'm going through something similar with my G4 Cube at work, except Mail.app is all hosed for me. Whenever I run it it shuts back down. I haven't yet figured out how it has gotten itself in such a bad state.

Now this comments thread has me worried about Entourage. Perhaps I should retreat back to Eudora. Too bad - I loved Mail.app's spam filter! (I use POPFile on my PC).

Here's a tip for Entourage users. If you drag an Entourage folder (BTW, the Inbox is a folder) to the desktop. It will be converted to an mbox file. Very handy for non-proprietary format email backups.