Ask HN: What email client do you use on OSX?

[kitchen]

I just got a new laptop and have decided I'm in the market for a new email client for OSX. I've used thunderbird (2.x, because 3 just can't handle my email at all, it completely crashes), I've used Mail.app, and I've used PostBox. Thunderbird is the only one which really comes close to what I'm looking for, since it has "proper" threading, none of this "thread by subject" nonsense. There are other things which irk me about Mail.app, but that's the primary issue. What client are you using, and why?

[sp4rki]

If you're using Gmail or Google Apps for your email needs, I'd reckon you try Sparrow (http://www.sparrowmailapp.com/). It's truly the client I've been waiting for years! It's still in beta and lacks some final polish on some areas, but it's freaking awesome nonetheless

[kitchen]

gmail also threads by subject, and I need proper display of threaded message trees too, not forum-style flat threads. That's the other problem with Mail.app :)

[sp4rki]

I didn't know thunderbird displayed threaded messages without the subjects matching. I actually haven't heard of any client doing that. Wouldn't subject base threading be more dependable? How do you organize threaded messages with different subjects?

[kitchen]

thunderbird does do subject-based threading by default. Fortunately there's a way to disable this by enabling strict-threading.

Threading works by using the In-Reply-To: and References: headers in emails. This way you have a direct correlation between an email and what it was replying to. It allows you to trivially build a tree structure for a thread, which is what a thread is, not a flat conversation.

I get lots of emails from our notification systems that have similar or often the same subject. Having it thread by subject alone is extremely irritating here because it combines completely unrelated things together.

[sp4rki]

Ahh I understand. I generally don't use threading (I rather threat emails as a standalone items), but I can see why you'd find subject threading annoying. I tend to filter emails and reroute different types of emails that don't belong in my inbox to other systems, so I don't see a need to be as stringent on the requirements for threading. That being said, I don't know if any clients that would fulfill your expectations. I guess you're stuck with Thunderbird!