TimeTree is one of the few good free calendar apps. It doesn't have a ton of features. However, it does work great for couples, coworkers, and similar types of people. Is it the best calendar app for the Mac? Let’s keep looking around to make sure. BusyCal offers a 30-day free trial, and it is available for purchase for $49.99. In 2018, Mail is a seriously great email app, you can delete it if you want, and the App Store is awash in alternative email applications. Now, of course, the challenge is to find the best email app for your iPhone needs.
Email is, in many ways, the hub of modern life. Finding the best email app for your needs is key to a having a more manageable and productive digital experience, whether you're communicating with friends or restoring forgotten passwords. With Google's recent announcement that it will pull the plug on Inbox by Gmail in March 2019, and both Newton and Astro meeting their makers even sooner, you may be in the market for a replacement.
The best email apps help you manage the most important aspects of your digital life without making them more complicated. Some let you turn your inbox into a to-do list. Others are deeply customizable, giving you greater control. What makes the best email apps different from one another, and which one is right for you?
What Makes a Great Email App?
For this list of the best email apps, we only considered email clients, leaving out email services and email assistant apps. An email client is a piece of software you install on your computer or mobile device to access email, even if that email is hosted by another service. An example is the Mail app that comes pre-installed on iOS devices. By way of the Mail app, you can access a Gmail account and a Yahoo Mail account. Gmail and Yahoo Mail in this case would be email services, which we did not consider for this list of the best email apps. Client apps almost always let you access multiple email accounts, giving you the option to see all your messages in one consolidate view.
We also homed in on email apps for personal use, which nixed from consideration a few apps that tend to be more prominent in the business world, such as Microsoft Outlook (desktop app) and IBM Notes. They both have their place among email aficionados but tend to be more well suited for organizations than individuals.
As mentioned, we did not consider email assistant apps, or services that work within your existing email to make it better in some targeted way. An example is SaneBox, a service that works inside your existing email service to automatically sorts incoming messages (among other things). Another example is Boomerang, which adds new features and tools to Gmail and Outlook that help improve your writing and help you remember when to follow-up on messages. Both these apps are highly capable, but they aren't clients and so they weren't considered for this list.
There can be some confusion about email clients and services, however, because some apps cover both ground. Gmail, for instance, is not just an email service but also has a mobile email client app by the same name. The Gmail mobile app lets you read and reply to messages from not only your Gmail account, but also your Yahoo Mail address, Microsoft Office 365 account, and others.
In addition to being email clients, the apps in this list meet other criteria, such as being in a state of full release. In other words, no beta products allowed. (Don't worry. We have an eye on some of the more interesting email apps in the works, such as Pigeon and Superhuman. But we can't accurately assess them until they're fully released.) Ease of use played a major role in our decision-making, as did stability. We also looked for apps that had at least one standout feature or reason for choosing it, which is listed in the 'best for' line in each app's description below. Finally, if you're in search of an app with a specific feature in mind, see the comparison table at the end of this article.
When it comes to email apps, there's no reason you can't choose several to use for different purposes. You might have one app you adore installed on your personal computer, something else for work email, and yet another on your phone. Which ones you choose will depend on how you like to interact with your email and what you do with it. Whatever the case, the best email apps have you covered.
The 15 Best Email Apps
- Airmail (iOS, macOS)
- Edison Mail (Android, iOS)
- eM Client (Windows)
- Front (Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, web)
- Gmail for Mobile (Android, iOS)
- Mail and Calendar by Microsoft (Windows)
- Mail by Apple (iOS, macOS)
- Mailbird (Windows)
- MailMate (macOS)
- Outlook Mobile (Android, iOS)
- Polymail (iOS, macOS, web)
- Postbox (macOS, Windows)
- Spark (iOS, macOS)
- Spike (Android, iOS)
- Thunderbird (Linux, macOS, Windows)
Airmail (iOS, macOS)
Best email app for customizing your inbox
Airmail started out as a simple email app, but over time, it grew with features, and today it's one of the most powerful email client apps available. Customizable notifications make sure you only get alerts when you receive emails from your most important contacts. Swipe gestures are also customizable. Airmail can help you write faster, with built-in templates for your most-used responses. And, it works with your favorite productivity apps, including Fantastical, Evernote, OmniFocus, Dropbox, and others.
Price: $4.99, $9.99
Edison Mail (Android, iOS)
Best email app for categorizing messages automatically
Edison Mail is a mobile email client app designed to give you assistance with sorting and organizing your email. It can automatically sort incoming messages into appropriate groups, such as messages that contain tracking numbers for shipping, those pertaining to subscriptions, and receipts. An undo-send button gives the app universal appeal, and option to turn off read receipts make Edison even more valuable to people to like to be in control of their email. Don't confuse this app with the Edison Assistant (formerly called EasilyDo or Smart Assistant by EasilyDo), as the latter is does more to help you organize your life beyond email alone.
Price: free
eM Client (Windows)
Best email app for merging email, calendar, contacts, tasks
If you're looking for a powerhouse of an email app for Windows, eM Client is a great option. It not only combines email, calendar, contacts, and tasks in one place, but also supports touch interfaces. While the price for a Pro account may sound a little steep, eM Client offers some functionality that's rarely found in other email apps, such as language translation. That's reason enough to choose eM Client if you frequently send and receive messages in multiple languages and aren't fluent in all of them.
Price: free; $49.95 for Pro
Front
Best email app for team collaboration
Front app lets teams manage a single inbox collaboratively. With Front, you connect shared inboxes, such as catchall addresses like contact@company.com, and then anyone with access can answer or assign messages for other people on the team to answer. Front also lets you connect social media accounts, which teams may also tend to collaboratively.
Price: from $15/month per person, minimum 2 people
Gmail Mobile (Android, iOS)
Best email app for searching and organizing messages
While Gmail is the gold standard among webmail services, its mobile app is surprisingly light on features. But that's not the deciding factor on whether to choose the Gmail app for your phone. The real selling point of this app is how fast and capable it is at searching even the most bloated inboxes. When you use it with a Gmail account (or two; it supports multiple Gmail addresses), you get the same great options for automatically sorting mail into tabs that the service creates for you: Primary, Social, and Updates. With limitless ways to sort mail with filters and labels and exceptional spam filtering, Gmail makes it a breeze to see your most important messages quickly.
Price: free
Mail and Calendar by Microsoft (Windows; mobile equivalent is Outlook Mobile)
Best email app for keeping email simple
Mail and Calendar by Microsoft is a Windows desktop app that keeps email simple. Formerly called Outlook Express, this app covers the basics of email without adding excessive features. It offers threaded email conversations, notifications, and flags to mark your most important messages, along with Outlook-style calendar integration. It's also touch-enabled. If you're a Windows users who prefers to not be distracted by added features, it's a good option.
Price: free
Mail by Apple (iOS, macOS)
Best email app for annotating images, signing documents
The Mail app that comes preinstalled on iOS devices and most Macs may seem like a basic email client, but its simplicity belies the powerful tools under the hood. With its Markup tools, you can add annotations to images and sign documents right from your inbox. You can also use Apple's Mail Drop feature (the same one that works with iCloud) to send extremely large attachments without it eating into your allotted email storage space.
Price: included with Mac and iOS devices
Mailbird (Windows)
Best email app for increasing productivity with integrations
Mailbird is a Windows email app with a contemporary design. You can personalize your inbox with custom layouts and sidebar themes. It also includes integration options with popular productivity apps, such as Asana, Todoist, Slack, and others. While rich with features, such as the ability to snooze messages until later and automated scrolling for speed readers, some advanced capabilities are restricted to higher tiers of service. For example, an undo send option is only available to Mailbird Business subscribers.
Price: free limited version, $12/year for Pro, $59 for lifetime Pro, $20/month per person for Business
MailMate (macOS)
Best email app for composing in markdown
Well suited for those who love plain text and keyboard shortcuts, MailMate lets you jump through your inbox without lifting your fingers from the keyboard. It also supports Markdown formatting and unique views, such as the ability to surface all messages that are similar to the message you're currently viewing. MailMate is perhaps the best Mac email app for power users who value plain text over features such as snooze and undo send.
Price: $49.99
Outlook Mobile (Android, iOS)
Best email app for viewing a focused inbox
While the Outlook desktop app is as powerful as it is bloated with features, the Outlook Mobile app offers quite a different experience. When you use it with a Microsoft email account, you can take advantage of its Focused Inbox view, which automatically finds emails that are likely to be important to you and filters out other distracting messages, keeping them in a tab called Other. The Outlook mobile app also has customizable swipe gestures for deleting, archiving, marking as read, flagging, moving, and snoozing messages (the snooze function is actually called 'schedule,' but it would be snooze in any other app).
Price: free
Polymail (iOS, macOS, web)
Best email app for collaborating with a sales team
Polymail's strong suit is that you can use it collaboratively, especially among sales teams. Create email templates, for example, and you can share them with everyone on a team. For groups that use Salesforce, you can connect the two apps and get information you need from Salesforce while writing messages. Teams can also track email stats together to see how much time everyone spends in their inboxes, or how likely each person is to get a reply. Another great feature is Polymail's ability to watch and report back when recipients open your messages, and who among them downloads attachments you send. You'll also notice in the chart below that Polymail is packed with features, everything from the ability to snooze a message until later to an undo send button.
Price: free; paid plans from $13/month
Postbox (macOS, Windows)
Best email app for organizing multiple inboxes
Since its inception as a spin-off of Mozilla's Thunderbird, Postbox has grown into a powerful app, rich with options for keeping your mail organized. A tabbed interface lets you keep multiple messages open at once. Tags and folders help you categorize and sort mail. Another stellar capability is how Postbox can display a contact info sidebar, letting you dig into the detail about the sender. There's a lot to explore in this powerful and well designed app.
Price: $40
Spark (iOS, macOS)
Best email app for cutting down time spent in email
Every email doesn't need a lengthy reply. Sometimes a thumbs-up or crying face is all you need. With Spark, that's all you have to send, and in the end, that saves you time. After you read an email, tap Quick Reply to send an instant emoji response and archive the message in one step. Spark also saves you time in how it handles calendar invitations. Instead of a standard invite email, Spark shows you a preview of the event in your calendar with Accept and Reject options. This app has a wealth of other features, too, such as undo send, snooze, reminders, and more.
Price: free
Spike (Android, iOS)
Best email app for making email more like messaging
If you prefer text messaging or team chat to email, Spike (formerly Hop) is worth a try. This email client for Android and iOS devices turns message threads into chat-like conversations, so your emails look less like a verbose expanse of text and more like what you see in iMessage or WhatsApp, with GIFs, voice memos, one-tap image sharing, and everything else you'd expect in a chat app. And similar to team chat apps, Spike lets you create channels for organizing conversations around a certain topic. Spike works best when you use it to message with other people who are also using it, too.
Price: free
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Thunderbird (Linux, macOS, Windows)
Best email app for working in tabs
From the makers of Firefox comes an email application that copies one of the best features of web browsers: tabs. Thunderbird isn't the only email client to use a tabbed interface, but it is one of the best. When you quit the app, Thunderbird saves your open tabs and reloads them the next time you launch it. An extensive collection of add-ons let you expand what Thunderbird can do.
Price: free
Originally published 2 June 2015 by Paula DuPont; updated in 2017 and 2018 with new apps and current information. Zapier senior writer and editor Matthew Guay contributed to this article.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a disorder that is commonly associated with children, but more than 9 million American adults also live with the condition. Adult ADHD can cause problems with executive function. This means people with the condition may have a hard time initiating tasks, following through, remembering things, or managing complexity.
Many people have found success in delegating important memory and productivity tasks to their mobile devices. Apps are available to help you organize, prioritize, and build structure into your life. We’ve rounded up the best apps for ADHD to help take the load off.
iPhone rating: 4.7 stars
Price: $4.99 with in-app purchases
Distractibility plays a big part in ADHD, but Due can set you back on track with reminders to do the important things. Increase your productivity by taking the variability out of the must-dos, like taking medication. Adding a reminder is easy, the app design is super clean and sleek, and the reminders are persistent. When a reminder goes off, it continues to ping you in set intervals (say, every 10 minutes) until you mark the task as done. A simple concept with a big payoff.
iPhone rating: 4.1 stars
Android rating: 4.5 stars
Price: Free with in-app purchases
Think of Evernote as your modern-day Trapper Keeper. Type in to-dos, add reminders, scan handwritten notes, take pictures of items you want to follow up on, and save websites and videos. A search function makes finding everything you’ve saved a breeze, so even if you’re not the best with organizing your folders, Evernote can help you find what you need when you need it. Evernote is a great choice to jot down those stray thoughts to pursue later so you can stay on task now.
iPhone rating: 4.7 stars
Android rating: 4.4 stars
Best Calendar App For Iphone
Price: Free with in-app purchases
Sometimes even the simple tasks have multiple steps. Increase your chances of getting them done, and increase that motivating feeling of accomplishment, by creating task lists with their own subtasks. Assign due dates to each and add notes that lend helpful information, like locations, passwords, details, messages, or addresses that you need handy to complete the tasks. The app can remind you of upcoming due dates with your choice of mobile notifications, emails, or texts. The app’s map feature is a game changer for running errands, too — it plots your tasks so you can plan the most efficient route for checking items off your list.
iPhone rating: 4.6 stars
Android rating: 4.4 stars
Price: Free with in-app purchases
Keep all your photos, documents, and videos in one searchable spot with Dropbox. The in-app document scanner is a no-brainer for filing receipts, contracts, business cards, lecture notes, event fliers, and other important print materials. You’ll never have to worry about losing them again, especially since Dropbox syncs across devices. As with an online word processor, you can leave comments to remember what was important about a file or document, and you can tag yourself in comments to trigger email notifications to follow up.
iPhone rating: 4.8 stars
Android rating: 4.3 stars
Price: Free
Asana is a free organization and collaboration tool. Use it to create to-do lists and add due dates and details. Asana is great for adding structure to your professional life, too, as it allows for team collaboration: assign tasks to others, view tasks in project boards, and keep tabs on what’s been assigned to you and others. When you’ve assigned out a task, it remains visible, meaning you won’t lose track of or duplicate tasks.
Android rating: 3.9 stars
Price: Free
Time spent on your phone is one of the ultimate productivity sinks. RescueTime is a productivity app that encourages positive changes based on insights into your behavior. The app automatically logs and categorizes the time you spend using your devices, including your phone and laptop or desktop computer. Mobile notifications alert you when you’re approaching or have exceeded your designated limits, and the “Productivity Pulse” is a daily score that makes it easy to compare and measure improvement in your productivity across time.
iPhone rating: 4.7 stars
Android rating: 4.6 stars
Price: Free
Wunderlist is a checklist and reminder app that’s designed to look similar to your email inbox, so the learning curve is minimal. For each task, set a due date, a reminder time, and subtasks that need to be completed for you to get it done. The app includes a section for notes and attachments related to your tasks. Sort your lists into labeled folders while completed to-dos are automatically archived to maintain a clutter-free digital space. The app also has a widget that allows for swipe-down visibility of your lists from any screen or app. The simple, straightforward design of Wunderlist keeps your focus on your tasks and not on the app.
Best Calendar App For Families
iPhone rating: 4.7 stars
Android rating: 4.5 stars
Price: Free with in-app purchases
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Get things out of your head and onto a list that stays with you, pings you, and motivates you to be productive with Todoist. With the quick-add feature, you just type in a task, reminder time, and hashtagged list category, and the app takes care of all the organization. You can also set recurring reminders, so you can spend less time working in the app and more time getting stuff done. Track your productivity with Todoist’s progress summary, which clearly displays how many tasks you’ve completed and how many are still waiting for your attention.
iPhone rating: 3.7 stars
Android rating: 4.6 stars
Price: Free
This time management app keeps you from using your phone as a distraction. Brain Focus blocks apps and quiets your notifications so phone distractions are not an option when you need to focus. The app uses the Pomodoro method of setting time on-task and time off-task, otherwise known as a break. Use it when you need to focus, and the app will count down your selected time while locking you out of the apps you’ve selected as distracting. Brain Focus also uses your countdowns to track how long you’ve spent working in self-selected categories, such as work, school, chores, reading, meditation… whatever suits your needs best.
If you want to nominate an app for this list, email us at nominations@healthline.com.
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Amanda Doyle is a Boston-based healthcare editor, former dance fitness instructor, and previous neuroscience researcher. She’s passionate about equity, kindness, conscious language, and destigmatizing the human experience.