PETERNSTEINMETZ  I'm also a fan of BareBones and purchased Mailsmith back when Mail was very slow. I would likely consider going back if it supported imap.

I believe there are several open source libraries to do imap, so don't quite understand the lack of this support still at this time.  
(Version 2.2.3)

ZX81  This version crashes on launch on my MacBook Pron (Mac OSX 10.5.8).  
(Version 2.2.2)

LIKOS  Hi.

I like Barebone's apps. Text Wrangler is awesome as is BBEDIT for serious work. I would like to comment to Barebones about releasing a previous paid for app as free.

It is a nice gesture that the app is now free. email is something that for most of us here is indispensable. To offer up this previous paid app for free is nice but allot of us would like to know what the future is for the app. Are you planning to make a paid version? Are you planning to keep the free version? Are you going to open source the code?

Basically even a free mail client requires a commitment to maintain before most of us will be willing to switch. Because lets face it at some point we are going to have huge archives and if there is no support for issues the whole thing will be useless.

I don't want to rain on your parade. Quite the opposite actually. This happens to be what I first thought of when I saw this here. Wow that's great but what happens in 6 months if I do switch to Mailsmith? Mail.app will still be supported, even if there are glaring bugs. Will Mailsmith?

email apps are different from most anything else. BBedit is a great tool but if tomorrow it stopped getting support (God forbid) all the work will be readable in something else. Unlike mail clients where its more difficult to move your archives over should it stop getting support.  
(Version 2.2.1)

ESPIRIDION  From what I understand, Stickshift Software, LLC was created by a person (or people) from Bare Bones.

As has been mentioned, it seems to be a case of too little too late.

I purchased Mailsmith years ago. IMO it was worth it considering the alternative email clients back then, and the inclusion of SpamSieve.

After 4 years without any updates this new version is available, now free of charge, but I have no desire to go back to Mailsmith.

Once upon a time Mailsmith and PowerMail were two of the best email clients on the Mac platform. PowerMail's fast searches were impressive, and Mailsmith's sophisticated filtering/processing/scripting is great for power users dealing with text-based email.

It's great to see a new release, but I'll keep on using Entourage.  
(Version 2.2)

WCITYMIKE  Looks like it's not even a Bare Bones product anymore. I'll be keeping an eye on the product because of its former grandeur, but the product essentially outright died, due to it being pretty much abandoned by BBSW for years and years (without them even having the courtesy of telling their users it was a dead product, maintaining the pretense it was still alive and being worked upon) ... and in the interim, the entire world of e-mail has made huge, giant leaps forward. I'll be downloading it to see what the 2.2 iteration turned out to be like, but I don't expect much from this formerly notable client. The changes would have to be mindboggingly and unexpectedly revolutionary.  
(Version 2.2)

TUISHIMI  FREE brings the rating, despite lack of some features, right up to the top of my email client list! Always liked Mailsmith, never wanted to pay that much for any email client.

This is a fantastic product.  
(Version 2.2)

DYLAN MCNAMEE  No IMAP support sinks its relevance to me. Too bad, too - I always enjoy BareBones interfaces.  
(Version 2.2)

ORION MK. V  Too little, too late. I've moved on.  
(Version 2.2)

CHRISB1  Finally universal and now even for free but maybe too late for the most of us (former Mailsmith users and beta testers)! :-(

Christian Bürli [macparc.ch & macfix.de]  
(Version 2.2)

PARALENTOR214  As with all Bare Bones products this is slick and sophisticated underneath a simple interface. It would be nice to see a spelling dictionary incorporated into the next version e.g. the one Camino Browser integrates is a godsend. Being able to correct words as you type them instead of going up and running spelling is a serious time saver.   
(Version 2.1.5)