Entourage classy but just too slooooow
Khoi Vinh has had enough 
. Although he is a long-time Entourage user and finds that the app is “a class act” that “frequently showcased the very best of what Microsoft’s Macintosh Business Unit had to offer”, he’s dumped it. It was just too slow and the new Intel Mac version too far away.
He’s liking his new email client, Mail.app, a lot:
There may be a fantastic new iteration of Entourage in the works, but I need a fast, nimble and Intel-friendly email client today. So I’ve switched over entirely to Apple’s Mail; there’s just no arguing with its lightning fast search performance, its Mac OS X native fit and finish, and the fact that it’s available right now.
Of course, there are some things that he doesn’t like. The perfect email client is yet to appear. In particular Mail’s Smart Mailboxes don’t seem so smart to him.
But it has proved the right move. Most of all, he’s loving the improvement with IMAP accounts:
Tags: Apple Mail, email, entourage, imap, Junk, mail.app, microsoft, smart mailboxes, switcherMail is very responsive with IMAP, to the point where it’s a nearly seamless experience, more or less exactly how IMAP was intended to work. This allows me to move easily between work and home computers while keeping my mail database in sync, and without effort. Brilliant.
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October 19th, 2006 at 12:11 am
I apologize for the off-topic comment. Why do people (not just you) insist on calling it Mail.app? Every application has the .app extension. You don’t refer to Entourage as Entourage.app. We don’t call it Finder.app or Safari.app. :-) If Mail (with a capital M) is ambiguous, just use Apple Mail as you do in the sub-title of your blog.
October 19th, 2006 at 12:38 am
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October 19th, 2006 at 2:04 am
I switched out of Entourage nearly two years ago and am also so please with Mail. I’m sorry to say it, but Entourage really is a bit of a Dinosaur.
October 19th, 2006 at 2:19 am
I moved from XP/Outlook to Mail/iCal/AddressBook over the summer and am very happy for it. The only things I wish for are: _native_ support for IMAP IDL in Mail; drag-and-drop linkage of mail messages into iCal appointments; and an Apple portable with an IBM-quality trackpoint pointing device. It’s good riddens to the Microsoft dogs, though. Vista and Office 2007 just look like lipstick on the same old pig.
October 19th, 2006 at 2:29 am
More or less exactly how IMAP was intended to work?
I’m a big fan of Mail, and I insist on IMAP for the same reasons Khoi appears to like it (same messages, statuses, etc. no matter where you access from: home, office, web, Mail, Thunderbird, etc.). But my experience with Mail and IMAP has been decidedly different.
After reading posts on HawkWings.net, 43Folders and other sites, I have begun implementing aspects of GTD. As a part of this effort, I whittled my primary account’s Inbox from several thousand to a couple of dozen messages, and I empty it every day. Still, Mail can be excruciatingly slow in checking for new mail, evaluating junk mail, changing message status, applying rules, and moving messages to folders on my IMAP server. This appears to happen no matter my connection speed. I’ve not tested this against other applications and the same settings, but I’ve seen it reported elsewhere.
More of a problem, certain messages (I cannot isolate commonalities) will not display unless I Rebuild the mailbox in which they are contained. Instead, I see an exception message that says the account must be taken online in order to read the message (despite that the account is online and the adjacent message displays properly).
I’ve attempted to jump ship several times, and revert back to Entourage (which I haven’t used in a few years) or Thunderbird (which I’ve never used), but I love Mail’s integration with the OS and other applications, as well as it’s UI, and I’ve read some pretty bad reviews of other mail clients as well.
Any tips on getting Mail to behave with IMAP would be greatly appreciated. Oh, and I’m open to new hosts, particularly those that would allow web-based access and/or syncronization not only with Mail accounts and folders through IMAP, but also a web version of my AddressBook and iCal content (but not .mac, as I need it for my buisness domain).
October 19th, 2006 at 3:13 am
Apple could learn a lot from Microsoft on how to properly implement AppleScript support for an application. I tried to move all my account to Mail, but can’t–the support is just not there at all.
October 19th, 2006 at 4:14 am
I’ll bet he’ll be switching again soon. Mail.app is a terrible, terrible mail client. Smart folders simply dont work (e.g. my “received today” folder doesnt actually show messages received today). IMAP support is awful, large mailbox support is awful, the interface is similarly awful. I sound bitter, don’t I? With all of the software choice on the Mac, particularly with browsers, you would think there would be some decent mail clients, but there are none. I may have to begrudgingly move to gmail. I dont want to.
October 19th, 2006 at 4:55 am
@Chris, it sounds like you have an old (slow) mac with limited memory and maybe an old version of Mac OS X. I can’t explain SmartFolders not working for you… they do for me.
October 19th, 2006 at 5:10 am
I’m still using Entourage, because of two reasons: I need access to Exchange calendars (and need to sync my Nokia 9300i with Exchange), and Mail doesn’t properly handle long web addresses (they get broken in the receiving end). But Entourage is not as polished, not as easy, and often works counterintuitively. And the search function is way behind Mail in all respects.
May 4th, 2007 at 11:57 pm
I agree Entourage is way too slow. It is really frustrating at times
May 25th, 2007 at 8:19 am
We use entourage mainly because there is only one file to backup. We’d consider switching to Apple Mail if we knew how to back it up, anyone know what file(s) for folder(s) would need to be backed up?
June 8th, 2007 at 6:39 am
Recently the entourage send mail function is getting slower and slower. MS says all is well on the entourage side and the problem is with .mac. Receive mail rocks. Any suggestions?
June 17th, 2007 at 3:01 am
Jesse — How about this list for starters? Is that the kind of thing that you mean?