PowerMail for Mac6.2.1

A great program--fast sleek, and intuitive -- does just what I need. I currently use it with Mavericks -- Does anyone know if it is compatible with Yosemite?

Handling thousands of mails on more than a dozen accounts with the only bayesian filter that beats Apple's own (and started earlier than them*), Powermail has been my baseline for years. Once that I was setting a linux emailer unproperly and its first connection erased more than 1000 mails from a server where I did want to leave them, I connected through IMAP with Powermail and re-uploaded everything, in a single pass. I just never found a software as powerful than Powermail. (*) Powermail search capacity also is instant among Gbytes of mails (and compatible with Spotlight, of course)

Finally! Kneel down with me and praise The Lord! The mercy he has bestowed on us in His infinite wisdom: An update of PowerMail...

Update to earlier review. The 6.1.1 update has major keychain issues. The great folks have corrected the issues with the 6.1.3 update. Version 6.1.3 is a fast and stable as ever. Great app.

OS10.6.8 users with Powermail 6.1.0 BEWARE!! I love Powermail. I've been using it since version 3 and have never had any issues with it. However, the 6.1.1 update wreaked havoc on my mail. Couldn't send or receive. Constant error messages. I had to use a backup and revert to version 6.1.0 in order to get ANY mail services to work again. Beware of this update and have a backup before applying it.

I of course could not bear to stay with MS Outlook, so still stuck with PowerMail. I sent a humble request for support to CTM 10 days ago. No reply. Managed to solve the problem myself. Also asked them if PowerMail is still being actively developed. Also no reply. Is this abandonware?

Working at the International Desk of the largest non profitable NGO in Mexico means to me to deal with thousands of emails every year. I tried several email clients during the last years but none was strong enough to professionaly cop with my heavy work... until I found PowerMail. It's really amazing, how quickly I can find now (in seconds!) the right mail I need. I'm absolutely satisfied with it: it's got a intuitive interface, it doesn't split my several accounts, it's simply powerful and it perfectly integrates with Spamsieve and Devonthink Pro Office. The people at CTM have defined a high standard. It's not a matter of "works" but of quality and efficency. Thanks a lot!

I've given this program heavy use over the years and been very happy with it and with the customer support.

Finally CTM seem to be working on an update. Its alive! My humble request - apart from the obvious update needs - would be to have a Swiss-precision GNUPG integration or at least a plugin. Having gone through several e-mail clients, to me Powermail is still by far the best e-mail client on OS X.

I just can't be bothered anymore. Mail is not that good, but it doesn't get in the way and most importantly, it's puts IMAP at the same standard as POP. It beats me why they never opensourced PM.

How about 64 bit?

Where are the updates? There is so much to do! Guys, get it going!

Used it for years - best and fastest.search.ever! Clean & felxible if you don't care about html display where it sometimes chokes BUT - a big but- ridiculous price, including for upgrades. I wont pay for v.6 after $30 for v.5 Poor integration w/ Mac OS, steep price, almost zero support. Cut the price include lifetime upgrades and the app won't die the death it seems doomed to die. A real pity, because it could have a niche.

Still my favored email client. I just love how fast it start's - boom and it's there -, how fast it executes my many pop-accounts and I especially like the great search engine. The attachments are stored external and not within the database. Though I agree, that the database limit of 2gb can be a limitation, I see myself not approaching that limit for the next ten years with 9 years of email already behind me. Databases need mantaining and I cannot follow the complaints here. I have supported users of Apple Mail and Entourage for years and to me PowerMail is the one app I trust the most, when I think back about database problems I worked on. I never had problems with PowerMail, this app runs not only very fast but also absolute stable here for years. I wish, CTM support were more active. They are there somehow and they show up, when problems arise (seldom enough), but there is more to support than only putting out fires. And there could be so much more to PowerMail, than 'only' maintaining the app, but thanks for keeping it alive anyway. But I so much wish CTM would make PowerMail a more modern and competing app. They just need to listen to their user base here and on their discussions a little bit more.

Powermail is a relic of a bygone era. In the old days it was passable, but these days it is struggling to keep up, and has been for years. There are so many things wrong with it that there is not space to list them all, but suffice to say that so much of what a modern day mail client should be is simply missing, or implemented in a half arsed way. Finally, I can't finish without commenting on the interface - It has always been horrible, but now it's even worse. Instead of a full interface redesign/rebuild for OS X they just slapped in a few nasty looking generic icons and that was that. It looks like what it is - An old app, patched up to try and look like something that's current. "Screaming fast" it may be, but these days that's not enough. I love the way that as a feature it lists "Mail archiving o circumvent the 2GB Single- Database limitation". Rather than actually not have that ridiculous limitation in the first place, they chose to make you archive your stuff to get around it. That should tell you all you need to know, and should also ensure you don't waste a ridiculous $59 on this relic. Queen Elizabeth's snatch is fresher than this....

Very bad program. The mail database is limited to 2 GB. When you exceed this limit the program crashes and will not relaunch. All your mail is lost. The developer says it would be too much work to fix this problem. To compete against the competition, they need to rewrite the software to meet modern standards and expectations.

Powermail has always been blazingly fast, both in mail handling as in searching, and searches are highly customizable too. It still is. Unfortunately, the developers have not been able to keep up with changing conditions. Powermail is still *terrible* in IMAP (it only supports one IMAP account at a time, and that one often crashes, while the handling is extremely poor if it doesn't crash). Powermail does not fully support Unicode (you cannot write in Unicode), or html. Its text engine was developed in the last-century, and the unicode update of WASTE has not been used in updates of Powermail. It is telling, too, that we're still at version 6 in October 2010. The folks at CTM probably just keep those customers who did not yet abandon them happy. Not the time to buy into it, then. I've had versions 2 to 5, but passed on 6 (after a try-out). I would happily fork out the full price if it were up-to-date.

$59 and after all this time it's still a CARBON app?! 8^(

Give PowerMail better implementation of HTML, like the ability to display images in-line, and it would be a world beating e-mail client: as it is, unfortunately it's no more than an interesting curiosity. We all agreed with the tenet of lean, fast text-only e-mail, back in the days of slow modems and limited bandwidth but the world's moved on - if PowerMail had, we'd all be using it now.

Developer, can you please add the option to sort all messages in the inbox by EMAIL ADDRESS, not just by "sender"? I run a business, and deal with hundreds of different customers every day. I need to sort by email address! Can you please add an optional "Email" column? You'll be my hero! I'm sure that countless other people would also appreciate this sorting option. If you add that option, I will buy the program immediately. Thank you!

The 'Download Now' link yields PowerMail v6.0.2, not v6.0.3b1

I would like to make the following suggestions for Power Mail: Add a feature suggestion option to your website. Respond to customer emails. V6 seems to have issues with some HTML links to webpages that makes me open the message in safari in order to click the link. Create a new 3 window Browser layout that puts the email message to the right of the mail list. There is no reason to have the pop up button at the bottom of an HTML email. Please create a separate button for each option, there is plenty of room to have multiple buttons instead of one. You should also add Color Label assignment to the contextual menu of messages. Power Mail beach balls when getting new mail, is there a way to make it so it does not lock you out of using the program while it is getting new mail? Besides these small issues PM is a very fast and reliable mail app. Coming from Claris Emailer, this is very close match and is much better behaved then Apple Mail. And most of all it is very straight forward to back up your mail or quickly switch user accounts, unlike Apple Mail.

I used to love this software many years ago. I think that I used versions 2, 3, and 4 and paid CTMDev in 1999, 2000, and 2002. I got tired of their upgrade policy and skipped version 5. Apparently those who purchased version 5 have gotten quite a bit of free updates, but my experience stopped at version 4. PowerMail and Mailsmith were my top choices for my email needs. Now at version 6 I decided to give the recent betas a try. So far I see no reason to go back to using PowerMail. It's still incredibly fast, but by now Entourage has consistently proven to be better for my needs. I backup my email to a FileMaker database using EEAX, and recently began exporting that database to a ProVue Panorama database. Both allow me to search incredibly fast, and Panorama's database is 71 MB compared to FileMaker's 186 MB. This tests were done using an older backup of approximately 30,000 messages. My biggest disappointment right now is that I imported 984 emails to try the beta version. The last version I used was 6.0b3, build 4585. After upgrading to version 6.0 build 4587 from PowerMail itself, my windows were the wrong size, and my messages were gone. This is not a huge problem since it was only a test, I am able to use the old beta and read those messages, and the messages themselves are in the "PowerMail Files 6.0b" Folder. After the upgrade a new Folder named "PowerMail Files" was created. Perhaps this issue only applies to the current upgrade, but it's a bit annoying. Years ago it made sense for me to purchase an email program. Today even Apple's Mail -which I didn't like in the past- has gotten pretty good. Mailsmith has not been updated in close to 4 years. PowerMail has come up with this update, but is it worth it to go back to this email client? Any insight from current PowerMail users? If there's a compelling reason to use PowerMail, please let me know and I'll give it another try. I could ask CTM directly, but based on my previous experience they were not good at answering emails after the sale. Has this changed?

Rocks! The return to leadership! Still a beta, but pretty good. Apart from the RTF option, would love to see more HTML implemented, like backgrounds and inline display of images for outgoing messages. Another real benefit would be the 3-vertical pane browser layout. PowerMail is good stuff, worth it.

Same here - the beta DMG will not mount using OS X 10.4.11 PPC

This Beta's DMG is not recognized. I sent an email telling them about it, but have not heard back yet.

Being an avid PowerMail user I would love to see the product being developed and updated continuously. After recent Mac OS X updates I noticed PowerMail crashing on a variety of occasions and beginning to hang randomly when sending e-mails with attachments. I think that may be it could be time to post an update.

Hmmm, PowerMail's price has increased by $6...it's $65 now; it's a European company, I believe, and PowerMaul is priced primarily in Euros. With the American greenback growing steadily more anemic, everything European will get more and more costly for us here in the States. Anyway, it's just too expensive for a mail client, imo, and while it's certainly feature rich, I, too,don't need much of what it has to offer.

Powermail website is down! Have CTM bit the dust? :-(

I have used PM since I left Emailer in 2002 and love its features -- speed, excellent search capability and many other features.

While it's got a plethora of little features, no doubt useful for some, I, for one have no real use for a lot of them and, I'd venture to say, most people wouldn't either. I do care about my email and Gyazmail, at $18, works beautifully for me. At $59, Powermail is, I think, dreadfully overpriced. But, who knows, you might feel differently...I'm sure that it's worthwhile for some, but not all that many, I'd guess.

i wanted to follow up with my earlier comment about it not checking on schedule. the new version. 5.6 works as expected, and everyone should use this app! still the best email client out there for people who like to be effecient.

Hello, first I thought that it will be a good mail programm. Then I saw more and more that many things are missed. So it's for example not possible like in many other mail programs, to make rules by List-ID (ok not all list have them but many), also not possible to sort by Thread (only with many tricks), read- and sending confirmation is missed (sometimes needfull), not possible to create folders when you create a rule and so on. So many things are missed and think for hat price it's to expensive. Think many things must be done. Greetings out of Munich Hans

the fastest cleanest mail app i have used, but alas, does not play well with leopard. it will not check for mail on schedules, and having written the dev twice on this with no response, not sure when it will be good to go. it does work, you just have to check for mail manually until they update something.

I have written to CTM several times during the past year or so, but no response: A major, major shortcoming of PowerMail is the lack of a GNUPG plug-in, like Apple Mail has it. I would expect that to be implemented with no further delay.

I've used it. It is screaming fast and has lots of nice features. But the poor IMAP implementation keeps me from now using it, or paying for an upgrade. Please developer, please: fix your IMAP implementation. There's an entire base of people out there who would dearly love the features of PowerMail but simply MUST have better IMAP than you currently offer.

I have used PM for nearly 5 years and love its speed and ease of use. Searches thru 10s of thousands of messages take seconds. They have constantly improved this app. It was a length process for them to convert to Universal Binary, but it is rock solid on my iMactel.

This company isnt even trying anymore. They can't even be bothered to update their pre-panther user interface, let alone add any modern mail client functionality. I wouldnt use this software if it were free, let alone pay for it.

SOS! Please add the option to sort all messages in the inbox by EMAIL ADDRESS, not just by "sender." Why is this not a standard sorting option? I run a business, and deal with hundreds of different customers every day. I need to sort by email address! I'm sure that countless other businesses would LOVE this sorting option. Thank you!

Anyone buying Powermail.app should first the review by Tom Gaden on his blog - http://www.timgaden.com/hawkwings/2005/12/27/powermail-a-better-mail-client-than-apples-own/ After I read his review and tried out the Powermail demo, I have decided today to purchase this software. This is based on my experiences with Mail.app :) Powermail handles IMAP very well atleast when combined with my Fastmail account.

HI I tried to buy a license for a single Powermail account. By mistake I put only my credit card details and nothing else and the system accepted my order !! This is what I got on the next screen - We appreciate your business; please save the following tracking number: 063C4E525 corresponding to your PowerMail 5 order. How do i get in touch with developers , I have heard that it takes time for them to reply. I tried joining their discussion list but don't know where to post.

I had some initial issues with their homepage & support. But it's a minor problem for a great product. If you have thousands of messages and have to frequently search though them - you'll love this. Blazing fast searches. Great scripting abilities. I am already looking at replacing all my email clients with PowerMail.

I am quite impressed that this new 5.2.3 release appears here on MU *before* it becomes bisible on Powermail's own site :-)

We have been looking for a better email client for our incoming business for a long time. An average month is 1000 emails with 2GB of attachments. We have nearly every client there is. The winner was Mailsmith. We bought it and used it. We would still be using it except for it's terribly slow searches. Second place was PowerMail. A content search across 4,000 messages takes 1 second. No kidding. Awesome. We bought it and have liked it except for the issue of NO CUSTOMER SUPPORT. It's been eight days since we bought it and emailed the support that their "Tools" links were down at: http://www.ctmdev.com/support/main.php?S=tools&PROD=powermail I never got a reply and they haven't fixed the link. Not sure if I would recommend PowerMail to anyone else (until they get their act together)

I've been using PowerMail for several months now. I have an IMAP account, so I am using PowerMail in a way that taxes it's abilities - but I truly like the program and do not wisah for another. PROS: Super fast indexing taht will find anything anywhere in the database, attractive output even with plain text (much better than Mail.app or Thunderbird), fast synching to IMAP server, easy spellcheck integration, many AppleScript options, numerous mail handling features, very intuitive and configurable process control. CONS: IMAP mechanics of moving mail are completely manual, must bcc yourself to save copy of sent mail, connection to server fails when machine sleeps. I suspect as a POP account this client is a first rate program. AS an IMAP one, it is lacking unless you, like me, accept the demands and enjoy the advantages.

Can someone please come up with a new set of icons for Powermail? Icons that come with program are just plain hideous. some of the more annoying Icons: 1) Orange Stamp next to every email in message list (should have option to remove) 2) Blue @ symbol next to every name in the to and from fileds (should have option to remove) Great program --- however program is as esthetically challenged as Eudora

Immediately after I left Emailer, I went to PowerMail and have used it ever since -- that's over 3 years. It's constantly being improved. I appreciate many things (search speed, for one) about it and strongly recommend it.

I tried to register this programm. my mastercard was charged, but i never get a password. All my mails are not answered!

The only mail application where I can download only the firt 5Kbyts of each mail, sort the spams (with SpamSieve) on that info, get back to the POP server and erase them there selectively without having even downloaded all -with this and the Spotlight support I'm perfectly happy :-)

I can only guess, your are commenting the wrong app. As long as we are speaking about PowerMail, you should just go to accounts configuration and choose imap-protocol instead of pop.

Helllo, can anyone here me? Where to heck is IMAP support? 9 years in development and its NOT EVEN EXISTENT!!

I've been trying PowerMail 5.1, and though I think it is a fine program, I am struggling to understand why I would pay $59. It seems fast, but missing some key features before I would consider it: live searching and messages in HTML. I've also been a bit spooked by many reviewers who talk about how difficult it is to get email support. I'd buy it if they brought the price down to something more in line with the level of program it is. I'd suggest maybe $29.

Complaining about Carbon is really pretty silly. Do you have a tangible complaint about the app that would be fixed if they moved to Cocoa toady? I guarantee nobody here has a single significant complaint that would be resolved by Cocoa. Get over it, seriously.

A lot of major apps are Carbon, even Apple ones (iTunes, Finder...). It really does not matter from the user perspective, as almost all Mac OS features are available for both Carbon and Cocoa apps.

Many seasoned Mac developers have rewritten their software from scratch using Cocoa APIs. The rest of the pack just doesn't have any excuse for not doing the same.

This is a Carbon app. I think the least we can expect from a vendor this late in the game is they update their software to Cocoa, both so it looks better and performs better. There's only one reason for not doing this: legacy code. The vendor's been in the game too long and doesn't want to start from scratch. But OS X is not an update of MacOS, even though Apple bridged the transition to help vendors stay in the game a bit longer. But Carbon is supposed to be temporary; it's not meant to be a permanent solution. OS X shipped for real three years ago, and that is enough time for this and all other vendors to 'get with it' and start offering 'real' OS X applications. Otherwise they can 'advertise' in the other 'MacOS' section of this site, for this is not authentic OS X software.

If you liked Emailer, and many, many of us did, you'll love this app. The PowerMail people are constantly adding new features. A lightning-fast search is one of its many attributes.

Works completely as advertised! Well worth its shareware fee for the serious Mac e-mail user! One of the few Mac products that is really suitable for a professional business environment. An excellent valuse for the professional user who owns a Mac! Superior to Mail.app!

Repeat after me: Any email client that does not contain IMAP filtering or message threading is NOT powerful. Fast searching is great but basic functionality is more important. ALL the free alternatives, including Thunderbird, Mozilla, and Mac Mail contain these features. To me, purchasing this is a downgrade. If you don't care about these features you are still paying too much, period. To top if off you get close to no support and the mailing lists are near dead at this point.

Price is between ripoff and fraud. From July 8th on even higher pricing. (25% up in EUR). Beware. IMAP is not working with certain mailservers (thunderbird does). Crashes in certain situations when trying to finish a mail. Interface leaves open many desires. After using version 4.2.1 and trying version 5 I moth Powermail.

All these extra stupid features but not email threading or filtering for IMAP. Please, lets get the basic features onboard before the useless features!

I find the UI quite unintuitive, and it seems a little bit pricey. Also, if the update policy is anything near what has been said, that doesn't seem the best way of treating loyal customers.

Just a comment, since Constantin mentioned that $25 for an upgrade may seem steep. It's actually $29 until 05/31, so I guess they may raise the price after that. I'm not upgrading so that doesn't affect me. I have already paid for the program AND paid for an update, and I will NOT update to version 5. Yes, there were some free updates with version 4, most of which were not impressive. 4.2.1 was finally a good version. While it is true that other software companies charge for a yearly upgrade, it's also true that there are many good and free alternatives in the email market. Add to that that many software developers offer updates/upgrades constantly, and occasionally charge a very reasonable amount for an upgrade (e.g., DragThing, Graphic Converter, Path Finder, etc.). I supported this company when I purchased version 3. I supported it when I paid for the version 4 upgrade. I was finally happy with 4.2.1, and I will NOT pay for a version 5 that should have been a 4.3 free upgrade. I actually purchased Mailsmith (with SpamSieve) after being terribly disappointed with some of the 4.x versions. Some were really pretty bad. I would like to know about this new SpamSieve integration, since I use it with 4.2.1 and it's working quite well. I do think it's a great program, but the upgrade policy should be reconsidered. Mailsmith is also great, so as long as 4.2.1 works, and/or Mailsmith works, I will not spend another dime on a PowerMail upgrade.

I now have used Powermail 5 for a couple of days and there are a lot of things to like and a few to lament. Overall, the focus of the program has changed to make it more accessible to novice users. I now can recommend the use of Powermail to anyone who wants a powerful, fast, and effective e-mail client. While PM starts off simply, there are many excellent features waiting below the glossy interface for you to take advantage of and grow into. As always, my POP, SMTP connections have been rock-solid. Even multiple MB files have transitioned without a hitch. As usual, Powermail gives good feedback as to its activity with your mail accounts. The ease with which it will switch between locations is great, allowing you to use different SMTP servers for example when you switch from the office to the home (which is required by most ISPs these days). With the addition of SpamSieve, the best Spam filter on the Mac platform has been seamlessly integrated into the best e-mail client. This is a welcome upgrade, considering that the older method of using AppleScripts to designate spam was a bit more cumbersome. Furthermore, placing the spam folder at the end of the list eases the visual clutter. Since I had SpamSieve already trained from my earlier use of the program, the new integration was seamless and effective. The new toolbars in PM5 take some adjustment for folks like myself who liked the compact and orientable predecessor. It's a visual transition akin to OSX versus OS9... New users won't notice this though, and you can now customize the toolbars in Powermail. As always, the filters of Powermail are very fast and very simple to set up. The filters and the subsequent reactions of PM5 have been beefed up with more choices. Now, conditions and reactions can be added and subtracted individually instead of the old system where reordering or changing filter actions was more cumbersome. So if you like auto-filtering mail, Powermail has the goods. The Foxtrot search technology is blazingly fast as ever, even if you throw in some wildcards to broaden your search. Lookups in a 16,000+ e-mail database take less than a second on a 3-year old laptop. If it's in there, Powermail will find it fast. In closing, I found the new version of Powermail not only better in terms of features but also easier to use for novices. If you do not mind paying for a quality piece of software, then download Powermail and see if you like it better than its competition. Lastly, while $25 for an upgrade may seem steep, it's not out of line with most programs today. Consider that CTMDEV actually does a lot of work within a given version (at least 3 in PM4)... and the last time we had to upgrade was in 2002. Compare that to Quicken, VirtualPC or other commercial programs where yearly upgrades are more expensive and usually bug-related. I happily paid for my upgrade, companies like CTMDEV should be supported.

Correct me if I am wrong but it appears that email filtering still does not work with IMAP mail boxes, only POP.

I tried this application, and gladly PAID for it. It is blazing fast at searches on large databases, and I need and want that. It has excellent filtering, far more powerful than Mail, both incoming and outgoing. The Recent Mail browser (shows all recent mail, even if incoming filters have filed the mail into folders for you) is worth the price alone. Integration in v.5 with SpamSieve is seamless and efficient. If Mail meets your needs, then don't pay for another product. But if you need the features that PowerMail offers, then it is easily worth the price.

I've just tried this application. Why pay for this? Mail.app does the same and much more and has a pretty good spam filter built in to boot and one they don't try and charge you for, plus the now kick-ass search function means you don't need to fork out power bucks for PowerMail. Don't like Mail.app? Then try Mozilla's Thunderbird - same as PowerMail without the 'eliteware' jargon and price tag. Few need this app unless you're one of those reviewers like Constantin below who like to divide people into email 'beginners' and 'advanced' in order to make himself feel important. Email is not programming. Email is simple communication: You Write, Send, Read, Print, Forward, Delete, Bounce, Search, Import, Export, Filter & Save etc. and no amount of PowerMail Jargon "Evolve our codebase on a regular basis to meet customer needs", or wordy Constantin uber types will that plain and simple fact.

I actually rather like PM 5 and plan to pay the (much much much too high) upgrade price of $29. I most appreciate the new option to export attachments along with messages. The spam filter "assistant" and improved filtering capabilities are welcome, and it's nice (finally!) to be able to edit PM's toolbars. The new toolbar icons could use some work; at present, they're a bit garish. (The "spam fly" is a good example of the new toolbar icons--ugly yet cute, overdone yet appropriate.) PowerMail's killer feature for me is its Mail Schedules and Locations. This allows me to set different server settings for different locations (e.g. home and school). This is WONDERFUL for iBook/PowerBook users who, like me, must use different outgoing servers when connected to different network locations. I know that other programs offer similar "locations" features, but I've always found PowerMail's implementation to be the simplest to set up and use. Ratings note: I'm already a registered SpamSieve user and PM 5 works seamlessly with this essential app. But PM 4.2.1 also words seamlessly with SpamSieve and doesn't cost an extra $29. The combo price for the upgrade and SpamSieve is $45. This is a bit more reasonable because SpamSieve lists for $25, making the PM 5 upgrade $20. Value rating for the PM 5/SpamSieve combo: 3.

Here's a suggestion: try writing a program description in plain language instead of marketroid drivel. "Evolve our code base on a regular basis to meet customer needs." Ugh.

Did I miss something here? There seemed to be no way to sort by reverse date?

Just one word: Mail.app So much powerful then this thign coming from the past. For Constantin: you're right in one point, except that Mail.app is for beginners AND über (which means superior non German talking readers..) users. You obviously didn't spent too much time on Mail.app for saying that, did you? pfff

Was a great client under MacOS 9 but on MacOSX, the interface is ugly and osx is bundled with a very good email client (where is the bayesian filter on PowerMail? I hope it is shipped with for $49...).

Back again. After deleting the search index via the finder and rebuilding it, PowerMail is as stable as ever. Some further comments: The Foxtrot-based search function really screams! No matter how convoluted the search, Foxtrot returns a result in less than a second (pretty impressive for 13K+ messages, a 60MB message DB, on a 500MHz G4 Laptop). As for MacMend comments, I doubt that the reviewer has spent the requisite time with PM before deciding it was a geek tool. IMHO, it can be everything you want it to be, from a simple mail client to a swiss-army knife. I used Claris Emailer previously, and while the import of the address DB was more complicated than I would have liked, this is a once-only event, like getting into a car for the first time and adjusting the controls to your liking. I consider it a feature that PM does NOT generate HTML-based mail. This is an e-mail client. I reserve HTML for my web-site, where it belongs. Furthermore, PM makes it easy to or whether not to render the HTML. This prevents folks that plant web-bugs from verifying your address for example. I agree that PM should be bundled with SpamSieve, *whenever it is necessary*. For example, now that I have enabled SpamAssassin on my mail server, the slew of non-identified Spam has gone down to a trickle. Speaking of filtering, the filters in PM are very, very fast also. I still hope for some additional versatility here such as Boleean AND/OR/ etc. switches in the future. Lastly, I'd like to mention that the technical support for this product has been been great in my experience. E-mails are replied to promptly, and the folks doing the support actually read your message and communicate solutions effectively (i.e. they don't send you a canned response). For me, PowerMail is a premium product that deserves its premium price through its intuitive UI, the excellent search engine, the adequate filtering, and the support for all sorts of mail accounts ranging from simple POP sessions to IMAP, SSL, and beyond. Übergeeks addicted to BBEdit will probably opt for Mailsmith. Most beginners will be happy with the rudimentary features in Mail.app. Anybody in between should opt for PowerMail.

Oh no what was a great app when I was using Claris Emailer is now a geek tool, no easy import of mail accounts, mail import comes in complicated form from mail.app. adress book import is good, but no mailer can compete with entourage import!! No built in spam filter (bad move) the extra filtering you can do would be great if you already had a filter foundation to work with. they evn suggest you spend more money on spamsieve in their FAQ. Oh yeah and no http mail (as bad as Mozilla) This is a product that has gone eliteware, you have to know too much to make it work, I am sooooo disappointed, because i loved it 1000 years ago or when ever it last kept up with what ordinary mail users want.

Powermail to date has been a very powerful e-mail program. With fairly flexible filters and mail options built-in, PM shows that a a great deal of thought has gone into striking the balance between a Über-geek tool (i.e. w/full-blown Boleean instructions) and something a mortal can use (pull down menus). The current version has a fairly stable IMAP client after some false stops and starts. The POP implementation is great and the only missing feature is a SSH tunneling capability. BTW: I find the sorting capabilities in PM to be quite powerful. Its SPAM detection/elimination works great when used in conjunction with SpamSieve. PM has been very stable in the past, with only occaisional breakdowns. However, the current beta is giving me a lot of trouble. It quits every time I try to use the search function - even after DB rebuilds...oh well.

PM was very good before, but with the improved search function, it's really moved ahead. I switched fulltime to PM from Emailer when 10.1 came out and couldn't be happier.

Nice e-mail client. This new version seems to be stable and works well. I am still testing its features, but at this point it functions as advertised. The shareware price is high and may deter some users. This is a good app for the person who handles high volumes of mail on a daily basis. Works well with SpamSieve.

Nice Mail program, includes a lot of features apple mail will never have. The downside: Unexpected quits without reason, unusable search function, longstanding annoying interface quirks, high price. Try apple mail, if its sufficient for you stay with it. Then try GNUMail, if you dont like it try Powermail and the other 10 availible mailclients.

I have been using PowerMail now for about six years (!) and have been mostly happy with it. However, I am NOT happy that they decided to charge previous users to upgrade to version 4.1.3 when they didn't really add any new features and mainly just fixed bugs which should have been fixed for free. I'm not willing to pay $29 for this version. I am thinking more and more about switching to Apple's mail program which is free. If CTM wants to charge loyal users for upgrades, they need to really make them upgrades. I would be happy to pay for a version with better (more useable) imap support, a nice SPAM filter, etc., but they haven't bothered to add these features yet...

PowerMail 4.1.2 is a solid, dependable alternative to other Macintosh email programs. I started using PowerMail when Qualcomm dropped the ball and failed to update Eudora for OS X in a timely fashion. I also have Apple's OS X Mail and Microsoft Entourage loaded on my machine. But PowerMail shines because of its easy-to-use interface and its clean design. Switzerland-based CTM Development gets an A+ for responding to users' requests, issuing frequent updates with new features, and just listening to what users want. In this world, you generally get what you pay for. PowerMail is worth paying for. Download a demo. You might just like it better than your current email program. That's how I switched to this great program that really performs. The only negative? I wish PowerMail had an updated manual. When I recently had to send the same email message to several folks, I posted a question to PowerMail's Discussion List because I couldn't figure out how to send a Blind Carbon Copy. Folks on the list were quick to help me out. But a manual would really be great.

Very impressive. Speedy, efficient, and contains very nice features. However, the interface is a little different from most other email clients, and takes a little getting used to. Also, the registration fee is way too high. However, Outlook annoys me so much that I may consider switching anyway.

Besides all the freebies, we own single licensed copies of Entourage and Eudora (neither of which we do not use) and seven licenses to PowerMail. None of the other POP clients does so much so simply. The new Mail comes comes close but I found its searching to be unreliable. Version 3 had some serious limitations but Version 4 addresses all of the serious ones and most of the minor ones as well. For serious users of e-mailer, the value of version 4 is excellent even considering the the free alternatives.

I forgot to mention that the lack of support of multiple IMAP accounts in 3.x was (is still?) abhorrent and another reason for switching. I'm sorry I can't review PowerMail 4.x. If I start using it and it expires, they will extract a $30 upgrade fee from a $50(?) program that I have barely used because of the issues outlined above. I wish them the best luck...

Very expensive app, but given the importance of e-mail to work, fully justified. I went to this program when I needed to read e-mail in both Classic and MacOS X, at a time when Eudora was just not being fixed and a satisfactory rate, but had to leave the application because of stability issues which 3.0-3.1 didn't fix (hopefully 4.x will). It's main strength is the ability to seemlessly import other application e-mails and the tight integration with Apple's Find By Content system a la Cyberdog. It also has supposedly great support of international encodings, but that wasn't a factor for me. Weaknesses include an app specific address book (hopefully they'll integrate this with Jaguar's address book functionality, but I'm not holding my breath). And styled e-mail (it uses Apple's built in HTML renderer in a limited way and poorly at that). Some may consider the last a strength, while the others may have been fixed in later releases. A major weakness for me was Exporting capability (I could only export to Apple's Mail program one mailbox at a time--ick!). To understand this as a weakness, you must see that being able to leave this program is a strong selling point for me, I despise Outlook Express and Entourage for their locking my e-mail behind a database with non-existent documentation and forcing cruddy AppleScript routines for removal. Crashing made me leave PowerMail 3.x, and the difficulty of exporting made me freeze it. IN all fairness, because PowerMail is scriptable, I could get around the latter problem easily if needed. I gave it a 5 for ease of use, but really I should have given it a 4.5 because I feel that Apple's Mail program sets a new standard for mail programs (in the use a panes alone) that PowerMail needs to live up to, while fixing Apple Mail's quirks (non-intuitive location of mail accounts and filters, lack of find by content capability, overly unix-like creation and management of Mail folders, etc.) Apple's built in Mail program should be more up to snuff in Jaguar (including a much needed revamp of filters and address book), hopefully PowerMail 4.x will improve import/export capability and the added improvements in base e-mail clients like Apple Mail and Outlook Express (or even the advert version of Eudora) will improve this product and other commercial e-mail products coming from a Unix slant. BTW, the trial is not as easy as it might seem. The number of days never seems enough for testing features the way people use e-mail (try to keep the ship afloat for 30 days is itself a task).

Not cheap, but the best advanced e-mail app out there. I use it since 3.0 and didn't crash once. It's the best $50 ever spend in my life. I can't believe I used M$ e-mail crap all those years before.

It's the best! Realy! :-)