When comparing Mozilla Thunderbird vs MailMate, the Slant community recommends MailMate for most people. In the question“What are the best e-mail clients for macOS?” MailMate is ranked 1st while Mozilla Thunderbird is ranked 4th. The most important reason people chose MailMate is:
While most email clients support searching content from their To, From and Cc fields, MailMate lets users search down to the different sections of these fields. For example, you can search for the address only, or the name only, or even any one of the embedded headers. Subjects can be searched by prefixes, or by specific words which may be contained within and so on.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Free (as in freedom and beer)
Pro Available on Linux, OS X and Windows
Pro Very reliable
Version after version, Mozilla Thunderbird works as expected.
Pro Good filtering system
Mozilla Thunderbird offers a flexible filtering system with the ability to set flags and read/unread, as well as sort/assign to new mail directories. There are also numerous plugins available to assist in the filtering.
Pro Large assortment of plugins available
Mozilla Thunderbird offers a huge amount of extensions to expand the usability and options of the client.
Pro Great flexibility
More options and extended settings than most power users could dream of. Get it working how YOU want.
Pro Tabs for navigation
Pro Lightning Calendar and Address Book integration
Pro Consistent and involving a moderate learning curve
The app design of Mozilla Thunderbird has not changed significantly since its beginning, making its learning curve almost non-existent.
Pro Send large files easy
Install pCloud plugin for Thunderbird and your files (upto 20 GB free storage included) will be received as download links
Pro Extremely powerful search features
While most email clients support searching content from their To, From and Cc fields, MailMate lets users search down to the different sections of these fields. For example, you can search for the address only, or the name only, or even any one of the embedded headers. Subjects can be searched by prefixes, or by specific words which may be contained within and so on.
Pro Keyboard focused
MailMate is extremely keyboard-focused. Almost every action can be configured to be achieved through a key combination in the settings. With the help of the keyboard shortcuts you can easily navigate through thousands of messages to find the one you need.
Pro Markdown support
Markdown is a way to format text quickly using only the keyboard. Different text characters create different text: for example, putting asterisks (*) around a word or group of words will italicize them, while double asterisks (**) will bold that text. Markdown is a basic formatting system that can then be adapted to HTML or other formats.
Pro Clean, no-fuss interface
MailMate's UI is very basic. The icons are limited to some default MacOS standard folder images and the interface is very clean and simple, showing only what's needed without any fuss or distracting colours. Instead, opting for a mostly grey interface, with a sprinkle of some other colours here and there.
Pro Smart folders on steroids
- you can choose out of tenths of mailheaders (several hundreds including virtual headers)
- "<header> is (not) in <folder> <header>" operator which enables you to do cool filters
- each smart folder can have smart subfolders by an user definable key
Pro Reliable
Both MailMate's speed and performance are highly reliable.
Pro Great documentation
The official documentation for MailMate is very thorough and helpful. It covers all options and features in a clear and efficient manner.
Pro Columns (which have gone missing in Apple Mail in Catalina)
Pro Faster
Faster the Mail.app specially if you have many emails
Pro Nice tagging support
One can define tupels of IMAP keywords and tags (which are shown in UI). In case of Gmail one can define triples of IMAP Keywords, Tags, and gmail lables.
(in Thunderbird one can only define the tags, whereas the corresponding IMAP keyword is not user-definable.)
Pro The only mail app compatible with BusyContact in Catalina
Cons
Con Development slowed to only focus on stability and security
Mozilla Thunderbird has slowed down its development of features to only focus resources on security and stability.
Con Outdated interface
Thunderbird's interface is very outdated and unpleasant. It feels more like a Windows XP application than like a modern MacOS one.
Con Terrible integration with macOS
Simple things - drag/dropping pictures doesn't work, for instance.
Con Subject lines can (temporarily) disappear from the list
This is sporadic behavior.
Con Serious bugs
Clicking on a subject line can bring up the wrong email.
Con Hard to master
For occasional users who only write emails to friends and loved ones, MailMate's features may be a bit of an overkill since it's designed for power users who spend a lot of time writing and reading/organizing emails.
Con Not so "native" Gmail support
Because it's more IMAP native, and Gmail uses some non-native IMAP stuff (according to MailMate's documentation).
Con Ugly!
Seriously dated UI and looks too much like Apple Mail
Con No POP or Exchange support
MailMate supports IMAP and IMAP only, there's no POP or Exchange support.
Con A little steep price
$50