How to manage multiple email accounts: A practical guide

If your email inbox feels cluttered, you're not alone. The average office worker receives on average 304 business emails a week. Now add your personal Gmail accounts, a side-hustle address, and a few shared Outlook inboxes, and you have a recipe for missed messages and constant tab-switching.

But it doesn't have to be that way. The answer isn't just to dump all your emails into one giant Outlook folder. It's about building a smarter, more collaborative system for your whole team. In this guide, we'll walk through common methods for managing inboxes, cover essential features for teams, and explore a few tools to help you succeed.

What does it mean to manage multiple email accounts?

Managing a bunch of email accounts is more than just keeping a dozen tabs open for Gmail and Outlook. It’s about creating a single, intelligent system that helps your team instead of getting in their way.

When done right, you’re really aiming for a few things:

• Consolidation: This is the big one. It means pulling all your messages from different accounts into one unified view. No more jumping between Gmail or Outlook accounts to see what’s new.
• Organization: This is all about keeping things tidy without spending hours on manual sorting. You want smart labels, filters, and automations that organize messages for you, so you can focus on important tasks.
• Efficiency: The main goal here is to cut down on the time wasted checking different channels. A good system brings everything, from emails to social media DMs, into one spot.
• Collaboration: For teams, this is non-negotiable. It’s about handling shared inboxes like support@ or sales@ without the usual chaos. You need to know who’s working on what, prevent duplicate replies, and make sure no customer is ignored.

A good approach turns email from a reactive chore into an organized, proactive part of your team's workflow. This helpful infographic breaks down the four pillars of effective email management.

Common approaches to managing multiple email accounts and their limitations

People have tried a few classic email management methods to solve the multiple-inbox problem. They might seem like a good idea at first, but they often cause new problems, especially for a team.

Manual approach: Forwarding and aliases

This is usually the first email management tactic that people try. You set up a rule in your personal Gmail accounts (or Outlook) to forward everything to your main work inbox. Or maybe you use an alias, so different email addresses all lead to the same place.

While this works for simple cases, it can create organizational challenges.

Limitations:‍

• The main inbox can become cluttered, making it difficult to locate important messages.
• Replying from the correct address can be challenging.
• This method does not provide visibility for shared team inboxes. How do you know if your colleague already replied to that support@ email? You don't.
• You miss out on features a business tool offers, like assigning tasks, leaving private notes, or tracking conversations.

Using built-in client features

Most email providers like Gmail and Outlook let you add other accounts right into their app. It feels like an improvement because you can see everything in one place.

But these features were built for individuals, not for teams trying to collaborate on shared Outlook accounts like sales@ or info@.

Limitations:

• The user experience can be inconsistent across devices. Some features might only work on the desktop app, while others are mobile-only.
• They are built for one thing: email. If your team also handles customer questions through SMS, WhatsApp, or Instagram, you're still stuck switching between a bunch of different apps.
• Collaboration often relies on email forwards and CC chains, which can be inefficient. There’s no clean way to assign an email, ask a teammate a quick question about it, or see who’s working on what.

Adopting a dedicated email client

This is where things get a bit more serious. A dedicated email client is an app built to help you manage multiple accounts in a unified inbox. They’re often faster and have better organizational tools than web interfaces.

It's a definite step up, but not all email clients are the same. Many are still designed for individual users who just want to organize their personal inboxes (think Outlook or Gmail). They often lack the collaborative and automation features that a growing business needs to manage communication across the whole team.

Key features for managing multiple team email accounts

For a business, just seeing all your emails in one list isn't enough. You need a tool that helps your team be more productive, work together smoothly, and keep your data secure. Here’s what to look for.

Unified inbox for all channels

A unified inbox should bring all your messages into a single stream. A great one doesn't stop at email. Today's communication happens everywhere, across multiple accounts, so your tool needs to handle SMS, WhatsApp, Instagram DMs, and live chat right alongside your emails.

A platform like Missive can help you centralize every customer conversation, no matter where it started. Your team gets the full context of every interaction without ever needing to switch apps, which can lead to faster replies and happier customers.

In-app collaboration tools

The back-and-forth of forwarding emails for a colleague's input can be slow and inefficient. Your team needs tools that let them work together right where the conversation is happening.

Look for these key features:

• Shared drafts: Let your team write and edit replies together in real-time, just like in a Google Doc.
• Internal comments: Need to ask a question or get a manager's approval? Tag them with an @mention in a chat thread that stays right next to the email, completely hidden from the customer.
• Assignments: Get rid of the "who's handling this?" guesswork. Assign conversations to a specific person or team for clear ownership.

Tools like these are central to platforms like Missive, designed to turn messages into collaborative workspaces.

Powerful automation and AI

Repetitive tasks are a massive time drain. The right tool should let you automate them with powerful, customizable rules that are much smarter than simple filters. Imagine what you could do with:

• Auto-assigning incoming emails to the right person based on keywords, email address, or the sender.
• Using canned responses with dynamic variables to send personalized replies in seconds
• Setting up workload balancing to distribute new conversations evenly across your team, either round-robin style or to whoever has the lightest load.

AI can enhance this further. For example, Missive's AI Rules can analyze an email's content for urgency or sentiment and automatically trigger the right workflow, like assigning a frustrated customer's email directly to a senior support agent.

Business-grade security and access controls

When you're handling all your business communications in one place, especially sensitive customer data, security is a priority.

Make sure any tool you consider has these essentials:

• SOC 2 Type II compliance. This is a third-party audit that proves the company has strong security policies and follows them.
• Single Sign-On (SSO) and two-factor authentication (2FA) to keep your accounts secure.
• IP restrictions and detailed audit trails so you have full control over who can access what, along with a log of every action taken.

Platforms like Missive offer these enterprise-level features, giving you the control and confidence you need to manage your business's most important data.

Comparing popular email management apps

Now that you know what to look for, let's see how a few popular email clients to compare. Here’s a quick breakdown of how they stack up on key features.

Mailbird: A customizable option for Windows and Mac users

Mailbird is a popular email client for Windows and Mac, known for its clean interface and many app integrations. It lets you connect tools like Slack, Asana, and Dropbox, turning your inbox into a central hub for your work apps.

Strengths:‍

• It has a fast, simple, and easy-to-use interface.
• You can connect it with over 30+ tools, which is great for pulling your workflows into one place.
• The premium plans let you add an unlimited number of email accounts and come with handy features like email tracking and an AI writing assistant.

Limitations:‍

• While it integrates with other apps, it has limited built-in team collaboration features like assignments or internal chat. It is primarily a tool for individual productivity.
• Their documentation doesn't mention advanced security certifications like SOC 2, which could be a consideration for businesses handling sensitive customer information.

Pricing:‍

• Free plan: Available, but limited to one email account.
• Premium plan: Starts at $4.03/user/month when billed yearly.

Spark: A sleek choice for individuals and small teams

Spark is a modern email client with a "Smart Inbox" that automatically pushes important emails to the top. It's a favorite among Apple users but is available on all major platforms.

Strengths:‍

• Its interface is clean and intuitive, with great features like snooze, reminders, and a "Gatekeeper" that lets you screen and block new senders.
• It offers some solid team features, including shared inboxes, comments, and collaborative drafts.
• It also includes an AI assistant to help you summarize long threads and write replies faster.

Limitations:‍

• While it has good collaboration tools, it doesn’t offer the same level of advanced workflow automation, like workload balancing or AI-driven rules.
• Its main focus is on email. If you need to manage SMS, WhatsApp, or other channels, you may need different apps.
• According to its privacy policy, data is stored and encrypted via Google Cloud, which is secure but might not meet the specific compliance needs of all businesses.

Pricing:‍

• Free plan: Available with core features.
• Plus plan: Starts at $8.25/user/month.

Missive: A collaborative email client for teams

Missive is a inbox collaboration platform built for teams. It brings together email, SMS, WhatsApp, social media, and internal chat into one shared space where your team can work together.‍

• Comprehensive Collaboration: Missive includes tasks, assignments, an audit trail, and internal chat features built around conversations to provide clarity on team responsibilities.
• Email management for teams: Supports shared inboxes and personal accounts, real-time co-drafting, and shared labels to make your inbox a team sport.
• Multi-Channel Support: Missive is designed to handle various channels beyond email, allowing teams to manage customer conversations from a single platform for better context
• Advanced Automation and AI: The platform offers customizable rules, workload balancing, and AI features to summarize threads, translate messages, and trigger automated workflows.
• Enterprise-Grade Security: It provides security features like SOC 2 Type II compliance, SAML/SSO, and IP restrictions.

Pricing:‍

• Starter: $14/user/month (billed yearly).
• Productive: $24/user/month (billed yearly).
• Business: $36/user/month (billed yearly).

Choosing the right approach for your team

To effectively manage multiple email accounts as a team, you need more than a tool that just puts all your emails in one list. While a unified view can help with organization, it may not address all challenges of team communication.

Key differentiators to look for include multi-channel support, deep collaboration tools that let your team work together, powerful automation to handle repetitive tasks, and strong security to protect your data.

While many tools are designed for individual organization, platforms like Missive are built for team communication. This approach can turn an inbox into a central hub for collaborative work.

For a deeper dive into how you can streamline your email workflows, check out this helpful video on managing multiple accounts directly within Gmail.

This video tutorial explains how to manage multiple email accounts within Gmail to save time.

Ready to stop juggling tabs and start collaborating? Try Missive free and see how a shared inbox can streamline all your team's communication.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best way to manage multiple email accounts for a team?

An effective method is to use a collaborative platform with a unified inbox, like Missive. This brings all your communication channels (email, SMS, social media) into one place and includes team features like assignments, internal comments, and automation rules, which you can't get with simple forwarding or basic email clients.

Can I use Gmail to manage multiple email accounts effectively?

While Gmail lets you add other accounts, it's designed for individual use. It lacks the collaborative tools needed for a team, like assigning conversations or seeing who is working on what. This can lead to confusion, duplicate replies, and missed messages in a team setting.

What are the key security features to look for in a tool to manage multiple email accounts?

Look for enterprise-grade security. Key features include SOC 2 Type II compliance, Single Sign-On (SSO), two-factor authentication (2FA), and IP restrictions. These ensure your company and customer data are protected.

How does a unified inbox help manage multiple email accounts?

A unified inbox consolidates messages from all your accounts (e.g., support@, sales@, personal) and other channels like SMS or WhatsApp into a single view. This prevents you from constantly switching between apps and gives your team a complete picture of every customer conversation.

Why is it difficult to manage multiple email accounts with email forwarding?

Email forwarding clutters your primary inbox, makes it hard to reply from the correct address, and offers no visibility for team collaboration. You can't tell if a colleague has already responded to a shared email, which can lead to inefficiencies and a poor customer experience.

What kind of automation should I look for to help manage multiple email accounts?

Look for powerful, customizable rules. Good tools let you auto-assign emails to the right person, use canned responses with variables for quick replies, and even use AI to analyze email content and trigger specific workflows, saving your team a ton of time.

Running a small business often feels like you're wearing a dozen hats at once. You're the CEO, marketer, customer support lead, and maybe even the janitor. It's a constant juggle to keep up, especially when you see larger companies with what seems like unlimited resources.

This is where artificial intelligence can step in. It is not some futuristic, complex tech anymore. Using AI is more like hiring a practical sidekick that helps level the playing field. Today’s AI technology is affordable, easy to use, and can fit right into your daily work without requiring a computer science degree.

In this post, we'll walk you through a handpicked list of AI tools that can actually help your small business save time, cut costs, and improve your customer communication.

What are AI tools for small businesses?

What do we mean by "AI tools"? For most small businesses, it's software that can handle tasks that normally need a person. Think about writing emails, summarizing long conversation threads, transcribing calls, or setting repetitive workflows to run on their own.

Most of these tools run on what's called Generative AI (GenAI) and Large Language Models (LLMs). This is the technology that allows them to create new content, understand plain English, and provide useful replies.

The advantages are straightforward. Using AI tools can make your team more efficient by handling the tedious work, improve customer service with quick responses, help you get past writer's block, and pull valuable information from your daily business conversations.

How we selected the AI tools for this list

We didn't just pull these names out of a hat. To make this list genuinely useful, we measured each tool against a few criteria that are crucial for small business owners.

• Impact on Efficiency: We looked for AI tools that are great at automating repetitive, time-consuming tasks. The idea is to free up you and your team for the work that actually grows the business.
• Ease of Use: If an AI tool requires a week of implementing just to get going, it’s not a good fit. Everything on this list is intuitive enough for anyone on your team to start using quickly.
• Affordability: We know budgets are tight. We focused on solutions with transparent pricing and a good return on investment.
• Collaboration and Integration: Another app that doesn’t connect with your other software is the last thing you need. We picked AI tools that fit into your current workflow and help your team work together better. 

Quick comparison of top AI tools

Here’s a quick overview of the top AI tools we’ll be covering. Each one targets a different core need for a growing small business, from communication to content creation.

The 6 best AI tools for small business

Alright, let's get into the details. Here’s a closer look at what makes each of these AI tools a great pick for small businesses.

1. Missive

Missive is a collaborative communication platform that brings all your customer and internal messages into one unified inbox view. It’s designed to manage everything from email, SMS, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, and live chat in a single place. This means your team can work together on replies behind the scenes without messy email forwards or CC chains. The platform is designed for a conversational experience, contrasting with traditional ticketing systems.

Why it's on the list: Missive’s AI features are built right into your team’s daily workflow, which makes them very practical. You can generate instant AI drafts for quick replies, get summaries of long conversation threads in seconds, translate messages on the fly, and even build powerful AI rules. For instance, you can set up a rule that automatically detects an angry customer's email and assigns it to a senior team member for immediate attention.

Pros and Cons: Missive's biggest strength is its all-in-one, multi-channel workspace that prevents important messages from getting lost. The collaboration features, like chatting internally on an email thread or co-authoring a reply in real-time, are a huge help for teams. It's AI-powered rules are incredibly flexible, allowing you to personalize the AI workflows to your specific business. Missive is very powerful for collaboration, but a solo founder might find it has more features than they need right at the start.

Pricing:

• Starter: $14/user/month
• Productive: $24/user/month
• Business: $36/user/month

2. Jasper

Jasper is an AI content automation platform built with marketing teams in mind. It helps you whip up high-quality marketing copy, blog posts, and social media updates. Its standout feature is "Jasper IQ," which learns your brand voice, style guide, and product details to make sure everything it creates sounds consistently like your brand.

Why it's on the list: Jasper has been a leader in the AI writing space for a while, and it's a good fit for small marketing teams trying to produce a lot of content without hiring more writers. Its intelligent Content Pipelines can automate the entire process, from brainstorming an idea to getting it published.

Pros and Cons: Jasper is great for creating first drafts and getting past writer's block. It has a ton of templates for different formats, which is very helpful. The AI's output always needs a human eye for fact-checking and fine-tuning. Plus, while Jasper is useful for creating content, you’ll need a different tool to manage the customer conversations that result from it.

Pricing:

• Pro: Starts at $59/seat/month (billed annually)
• Business: Custom pricing

3. Microsoft 365 Copilot

Microsoft 365 Copilot brings AI help directly into the Office apps your business probably already uses, like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. It’s powered by an artificial intelligence layer called Work IQ, which gets to know you, your job, and your company to offer up tailored assistance.

Why it's on the list: For any business that relies heavily on the Microsoft suite, this tool is a natural fit. Its deep integration means there's almost no learning curve. You can ask it to draft an email in Outlook, create a presentation from a document in PowerPoint, or analyze data in Excel, all using natural language.

Pros and Cons: The smooth integration is its biggest advantage, making it easy to be more productive in apps you already know. The downside is that it's an add-on, so you first need a qualifying Microsoft 365 Business plan, which pushes the total cost up. Also, its collaboration features are spread out across different apps, which can feel disconnected compared to a single, unified communication hub.

Pricing:

• $30/user/month (as an add-on to a qualifying Microsoft 365 plan)

4. Dialpad

Dialpad is an AI-powered platform for voice communications: calls, messages, and meetings. Its AI features are what make it stand out. It offers real-time voice transcription during calls, creates post-call summaries with clear action items, and even gives agents live coaching with "AI Live Coach Cards" that pop up with helpful tips while they're on a call.

Why it's on the list: Dialpad is a great tool for sales and support teams who spend most of their day on the phone. It gives them live insights to improve their performance on the spot and automates note-taking with post-call summaries, freeing them up to focus on the conversation.

Pros and Cons: The real-time voice intelligence is a huge plus for any team that relies heavily on phone calls, and the AI analytics help managers spot trends without digging through call logs. However, Dialpad's main strengths are in voice and video. If your team also handles a lot of email, SMS, and social media messages, you might find you still need another tool to bring all those text-based channels together.

Pricing:

• Standard: $15/user/month
• Pro: $25/user/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

5. Freshdesk

Freshdesk is customer service software that comes with an AI chatbot named Freddy. The Freddy AI Agent can handle complex and repetitive customer questions on its own, across different channels. Meanwhile, the Freddy AI Copilot acts as a sidekick for human agents, helping with conversation summaries, reply suggestions, and the ability to analyze sentiment.

Why it's on the list: This is a specialized chatbot that can help a small business offer 24/7 support and automate the most common questions. Freshworks states it can resolve up to 80% of queries, which is a big help if you're trying to scale customer service without hiring a lot of people.

Pros and Cons: Freshdesk is excellent for managing support tickets and building out a self-service knowledge base, with it's AI chatbot helping to answer common questions before they even reach an agent. Its ticketing-based system offers a structured approach to customer support, which differs from the conversational model of an inbox-style tool. It's also heavily focused on external customer support rather than broader team collaboration or internal comms.

Pricing:

• Growth: $19/agent/month (billed annually)
• Pro: $55/agent/month (billed annually)
• Enterprise: $89/agent/month (billed annually)

6. Grammarly

Grammarly is an AI-powered writing assistant that offers smart suggestions on grammar, clarity, tone, and style to make your writing better. Its newer generative AI features can help you rewrite sentences, and it has specialized AI agents like a "Paraphraser" and "Proofreader" to help with specific writing tasks.

Why it's on the list: It's a simple, essential tool that helps everyone on your team to write more clearly and professionally, whether they're crafting an email, a marketing post, or a project update. It works across thousands of different apps and websites, so it's always there when you need it.

Pros and Cons: Grammarly's main strength is its simplicity and the fact that it can be used almost anywhere. It improves your writing. While its generative AI features are handy for rewriting and brainstorming, it's not built for creating long-form content from scratch. It also doesn't help with managing team communication workflows, like assigning tasks or collaborating on a customer response.

Pricing:

• Free: Basic writing suggestions and 100 AI prompts/month
• Pro: Starts at $12/member/month (billed annually) with 2,000 AI prompts/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

How to choose the right AI tool for your business

When you're starting to use AI, it can be a daunting task. Here are a few simple tips to help you pick the right tool for your business. 

• Start with your biggest headache. Don't just use AI for the sake of it. Figure out what the most time-consuming or frustrating part of your business is. Is it answering every single customer email? Writing social media posts? Find an AI tool that solves that specific problem first.
• Look for tools that integrate. The best tools are the ones that play nicely with the software you already use. If there is no native connection, you could look into AI-powered workflow and automation builders (like Relay.app) that can connect apps together, making it easier for your team to adopt and will keep your data from getting trapped in different siloed places. For example, Missive integrates with over 25 apps like Salesforce, Shopify, and Asana. 
• Prioritize a unified workspace. Juggling a bunch of different apps can create more problems than it solves. Look for platforms that combine a few key functions, like communication and task management, to keep your team on the same page and working from one source of truth.
• Take advantage of free trials. Just about every AI tool on this list offers a free trial or a free version. Give them a spin with your team. See which one feels the most natural and provides the most value before you put any money down.

For a broader look at how different AI tools can impact a business, check out this video. It covers a range of applications and might spark some new ideas for how you can leverage AI in your own operations.

Can I use AI tools without technical expertise?

Adopting any new technology can be intimidating but AI is getting more and more user friendly everyday. With a common dialogue-focused interface and natural language usage, you can often just tell these AI tools what you're trying to do and they can provide insights into how to achieve it. Sometimes, the AI technology can actually optimize the set up work for you. 

The future is collaborative and intelligent

AI is no longer a luxury just for big corporations. For small businesses, it’s a useful partner that can help you improve productivity, put tedious work on autopilot, and deliver the kind of customer experience that builds loyalty.

The right tool can analyze and unlock valuable insights and give your team the breathing room to focus on what really matters: growing the business and building great relationships with your customers.

And the best place to start is by getting the foundation of your business streamlined: your communication.

Ready to see how AI can streamline your team's communication? Try Missive for free and bring all your conversations into one collaborative, intelligent inbox.

Most people start their email journey with one of two email providers, Outlook or Gmail. They are the starter Pokemon of the email world. But your needs for email changes drastically from your teenage years (when you likely got your first email address) to your professional, career working years. In this article, we'll go over a few Gmail alternatives that are more suited for the business world than your iloverainbows52@gmail.com email address.

Before we get into specific Gmail alternatives, we need to talk about what Gmail is.

There are two distinct parts to Gmail: Gmail the email service provider and Gmail the email client. 

Think about this like your faucet vs. your municipal water service. The email service is your municipal water service, it's responsible for: 

• Hosting your mailbox (like the water reservoir)
• Delivering email across the internet (like pipelines)
• Ensuring uptime, spam filtering, and data storage (like pressure and purity controls)

The email client is your faucet, you get to decide whether it's easy it is to use, serves it's function, and is aesthetically pleasing based on your tastes.

You can swap out either independently or you can swap out both at the same time. This is important because we will break down the Gmail alternatives into "water service" and "faucet" options. Most people are typically looking to replace Gmail as the email client (faucet) and keep the Gmail water service exactly as it is, but we'll give you the best email options for both. 

4 Gmail Alternatives: Email Providers

Gmail's email infrastructure stands out amongst other options. Unlike Outlook or other IMAP email providers, Gmail doesn't use IMAP for storage. It has it's own custom-built, cloud-first infrastructure and it's own indexing logic, which are two of the big reasons Gmail's search function is often touted as the fastest.

When we're evaluating email providers, we're looking at these criteria: 

• Reliability and uptime—99.9% uptime is a good standard
• Security and privacy—TLS encryption, multi-factor authentication, end-to-end encryption
• Storage and archiving—information architecture, data location, and search scope will impact how quickly you find what you're looking for
• Cost—prices by user, features, and storage

Bring your email addresses, and let's get into it. 

Protonmail or Tutanota: The security-forward Gmail alternatives

If you're looking for more security and privacy features than Gmail, then you'll want to swap in Protonmail or Tutanota as your email service provider. They both offer true end-to-end encryption which Gmail does not. 

Protonmail allows you to use other third part email clients on top of it, while Tutanota requires you to use the Tutanota specific email client.

Pros:

• Advanced spam filtering and detection
• Lots of privacy-first functionality like end-to-end encryption and password-protected, encrypted emails

Cons:

• Very few third-party integrations
• Free plans aren't super usable with 1 GB of storage. 

Pricing: Both have free plans, with paid plans starting from $3-5/month. 

Summary: To get more secure email infrastructure as an individual user, choose Protonmail or Tutanota. If you want to be able to use a different faucet (aka. bring your own email client), use Protonmail, if you don't care, Tutanota comes with a branded secure email client. 

Outlook: The enterprise Gmail alternative 

If you're looking for an alternative with better compliance controls, Outlook is the gold standard amongst email providers. 

Features like Data Loss Prevention (DLP) and Advanced eDiscovery makes Outlook the go-to option for larger enterprises in highly regulated fields like healthcare. Gmail offers strong security but Outlook has finer controls and customizations, including various options around data residency.

Pros:

• Lots of admin controls available on business and enterprise plans
• Deep integration into Microsoft 365's suite of tools
• Some automation with shared rules

Cons:

• Search will likely feel less accurate and slower than Gmail's search

Pricing: For Microsoft 365 (built for businesses), plans start at $6.00/user/month. 

Summary: Gone are the days of Outlook just being a classic hotmail email address. Outlook can be a great option for those who need granular admin controls and want the gold standard in enterprise email security. 

iCloud Mail: The Gmail alternative for Apple users

If you own an iPhone, iPad, and MacBook... and you prefer Apple's privacy-first data handling, iCloud Mail is a great Gmail alternative. 

Pros:

• Works seamlessly on Apple devices
• Mail Privacy Protection and Hide My Email are nice privacy features out of the box

Cons:

• You share your iCloud storage with other Apple apps, so 5 GB get used up fast

Pricing: Free for up to 5 GB of storage. iCloud+ starts at $0.99/month for 50 GB of storage.

Summary: iCloud Mail can be a great Gmail alternative if you're an Apple user through and through, and you're already paying for iCloud storage for your other apps. The out-of-the-box privacy options are also a nice to have.

Spacemail: The simple business Gmail alternative

If you want a clean, modern business email that’s easy to set up and more professional than a free Gmail account, Spacemail is a solid pick. It lets you create a domain-based inbox in minutes with its Unbox™ setup flow and includes a built-in calendar for managing events. Unlike many budget email hosts, it works with any email client through IMAP/SMTP/POP3, and provides robust security and anti-spam features.

Pros:

• Intuitive one-click domain setup via Unbox™
• Works with all major email clients, includes a built-in calendar, and is available on iOS and Android
• Privacy-focused features like password-protected messages, tracker removal, and Jellyfish spam protection

Cons:

• Not a full collaboration suite (no docs or team chat)
• Lower-tier plans come with smaller storage

Pricing: All plans include a 30-day free trial. Starter plan with 3GB of storage, 1 mailbox and 5 aliases starts at $0.61/mo on yearly plans ($7.28.yr).

Summary: Spacemail is a great option for freelancers and small teams that want fast, affordable, domain-based email with essential security and a built-in calendar. It's great if you just need clean, professional email without the bulk of a full workspace.

‍

4 Gmail Alternatives: Email Clients

If you're reading this section, you probably want to keep Gmail's email service as your email infrastructure. We don't blame you, we recommend it as our email provider of choice. That being said, the Gmail inbox interface and functionality has a lot to be desired. Here are some of our favorite Gmail alternatives for a more seamless inbox. 

Missive: Gmail alternative for teams

If you have dozens of aliases for different email accounts, mixing personal and business, trying to MacGyver it all into the traditional Gmail interface. You already know how that won't work for long—Missive is a way better way to handle email as a team.

Missive allows you to connect all your Gmail email accounts (and any other email accounts), you can see all your emails in one place, while being able to collaborate on emails internally, via comments, as a team. You can even draft emails with someone in real time, send and receive using shared aliases and shared signatures. No more forwarding emails back and forth or wondering if someone is working on responding to a customer.

Missive allows you to bring your own email provider, while giving you a way more team-friendly faucet.

Pros:

• Supports multiple email accounts and any email provider
• Fast, intuitive inbox interface
• Lots of team-oriented features like internal comments
• Flexible automations and deep integration ecosystem (including OpenAI)

Cons:

• No offline mode
• Calendar functionality is basic

Pricing: Free plan up to 3 users and 15-days of history. Paid plans start at $14/user/month. 

Summary: Missive is the best Gmail alternative for teams, it's as intuitive and fast as Gmail but has a lot more functionality under the hood. Users often say, "if Slack and Gmail had a baby, it would be Missive."

Zoho Mail: Gmail alternative for new tool suites

Zoho Mail is one product amongst a large suite of Zoho-branded tools. Zoho Calendar, Zoho Calendar, Zoho ToDo, Zoho Chat (aka. Cliq) and more.

Zoho Mail as an email client isn't particularly innovative or sleek, but it does have an above-average attachment file size at 1GB on their paid plans and it has affordable custom domains.

If you care more about volume of features for your dollar, than the snappiness of the email client, then Zoho Mail might be a good fit. 

Pros:

• Very affordable with plans starting at $1/user/month
• Has advanced admin controls (i.e. eDiscovery) at reasonable prices

Cons: 

• Not a very inspiring or delightful email client
• Suite of tools is less intuitive than Google Suite 

Pricing:  Mail Lite starts at $1/user/month, additional storage sold separately.

Summary: If you care about function over form, and you want a similar enough set of tools that comes easily integrated into your inbox, then Zoho Mail might be a decent Gmail alternative. For us, it would be tough to give up Gmail's speed and native integration with Google Suite (i.e. Google Drive) for a small saving in costs. 

Shortwave: An AI-first Gmail alternative 

Ah, an AI-first email client. Shortwave is the only email client on this list that has taken a new approach to helping you search your inbox. It's AI-forward search mixes in a LLMs and other models to generate it's results. Whether or not it is better than Gmail's search architecture is yet to be seen, but it is different. 

Beyond search, Shortwave has integrate AI into every part of the email experience. AI can help you draft emails, organize your inbox, and more. 

Pros:

• Lots of AI features
• Has read receipts, team collaboration, and automations
• Customizable keyboard shortcuts

Cons:

• Limited third-party integrations
• AI search quantity is limited depending on plan

Pricing: Individual users have a free plan to start, business users start at $24/user/month.

Summary: If you're looking for an AI-forward Gmail alternative that has some team collaboration feature, Shortwave might be a good Gmail alternative.

Apple Mail: Apple-centric Gmail alternative

If you use iCloud Mail as your email service provider, Apple Mail is a no brainer email client alternative to Gmail. 

Especially if you're using Gmail's free personal email service, where you get unsolicited ads in your inbox, Apple Mail has no ads in it's email interface, just a very simple and beautifully designed experience. Like most Apple products. 

Pros:

• Already installed in all Apple products
• Supports multiple email providers

Cons:

• Interface isn't meant to support many email accounts

Pricing: Free

Summary: If you're looking to move away from Gmail because of Google's stance on privacy, and you're already deep in the Apple ecosystem with lots of iCloud storage, then Apple Mail is your best email alternative to Gmail. 

—

If you're looking for more email clients that work with Gmail, notable private email mentions include Fastmail and Mailfence.

Whether you're looking for Gmail alternatives because you're replace your email "faucet" or you're replacing Gmail as email service, we hope you're able to find an option that fits your needs. 

As AI continues to grow in popularity, email management is one of the most competitive spaces for AI tools. Fyxer AI has gained a lot of attention, promising to save you one hour a day as your AI assistant dedicated to meeting and email management.

This article will break down what Fyxer AI is and some alternatives that exist in the market. 

What is Fyxer AI

Fyxer AI is an AI assistant that connects to your Gmail or Outlook inbox. It does three things well:

1. Triaging and categorizing emails
2. Auto-drafting replies in your voice and tone
3. Being your note taker on meetings (and giving you a scheduling link)

It genuinely feels like a capable assistant that manages your email directly within your existing Gmail/Outlook inbox. There's no new interface to learn, no complex installation. Just an organized "person" who opened your messy inbox and took over, in a way that still granted you control over what's sent out. 

Within 10 minutes of setting up Fyxer AI, all my emails were auto-tagged into one of their default labels (I use Gmail): 

To enable auto-drafting of replies, you have to give Fyxer AI's draft prompter a bit of context related to your tone and business. 

And here's what an auto-drafted reply looked like: 

This is a great experience for anyone who wants to stay in the Gmail or Outlook interface, but really need on-going organization and administrative help because of the high volume of emails that they handle personally. 

Like Superhuman, Fyxer AI is focused on inbox throughput—how much faster can you process your emails. Although that's an important goal, often times, it's the wrong goal. 

Maybe the question is whether you should be replying to most of those emails in the first place, which we'll get into for some of the Fyxer alternatives.

When looking at Fyxer AI alternatives, we included 3 types: 

1. Similar functionality and similar interface (Gmelius, Hiver)
2. More functionality and different interface (Missive, Shortwave)
3. Similar functionality across multiple independent tools (Clean Email/SaneBox + Copilot/Gemini + Granola AI) 

We'll start with similar functionality and interface and work our way down the list. 

Gmelius - Gmail-only Fyxer alternative

Like Fyxer, Gmelius exists on top of your existing Gmail interface so you have a familiar experience with new functionality. 

Gmelius also has an AI-powered assistant that auto-categorizes and can draft replies on your behalf. There are small details between the two options, for example: 

• By default, Fyxer will only draft replies for the emails that are auto-labeled "to respond". Gmelius will try to respond to every email, but for those that they detect as promotional, they will add a note saying they didn't respond because it is a promotional email. It's a small detail, but the execution of Fyxer's approach feels smoother. 

On the other hand, Gmelius is also a collaboration focused tool instead of a purely productivity focused tool like Fyxer, which means Gmelius has more functionality for teams that work together within an inbox. They have the ability to chat internally on emails, assign emails to others, create automations that run based on certain AI tagging, SLA escalation, and more.

Both Gmelius and Fyxer have a closed AI assistant, meaning you're not able to bring your own AI key and select the models that you work with. This is great for those who don't really have a preference on which AI model they prefer.

From a pricing perspective, Gmelius is a little bit more expensive than Fyxer: 

• Starting at $24/user/month billed annually compared to Fyxer's starting at $22.50/user/month billed annually. 

If you're looking for a Fyxer alternative that is a little more oriented to teams but has much of the same functionality and interface, then Gmelius might be the one. 

Hiver - Customer support Fyxer alternative

Similar to Gmelius, Hiver integrates directly into your existing email client, giving you a familiar interface to work with. Unlike Gmelius, Hiver supports Gmail and Outlook accounts. 

Like Fyxer, Hiver has an AI-powered email assistant that can help you auto-draft emails and auto-label emails based on their contents. Though, like Gmelius, it's not quite as simple as Fyxer's default experience since Hiver's core users are customer support teams working out of shared inboxes.

If you're an executive that's just looking to replace Fyxer's lightweight functionality, without any of the team related features like collaboration, automated workflows, analytics, or SLA monitoring, then Hiver might be a little overkill.

Could you get it to work? Absolutely. Will it feel like it was built for your use case? Probably not.  

From a pricing perspective, Hiver's plans that include AI start at $19/user/month billed annually. However, there are limitations on how many AI-drafted replies you can have (20/user/day). 

Missive - Fyxer alternative for teams 

Now we're moving onto tools with more functionality than Fyxer, but will also have a less familiar interface.

Missive is an email client for teams that need to collaborate in their inbox. Like Fyxer, you can create AI-powered email assistants that help you triage, label, and draft replies. Unlike Fyxer, Missive is way more flexible in implementation, which depending on who you are, could be a good or bad thing. 

Missive allows you to bring your own AI key and choose your own model. That means if you want to use a specific model for drafting emails versus triaging, you can fine tune that experience.

Since Missive is a collaborative inbox meant for your whole team, your AI assistant can assign and triage emails to the right people, instead of just sorting it in your own inbox. Imagine an old client emails you because you have a long standing relationship, but it's a question meant for your support team.

The same is true for drafting replies, instead of just drafting replies based on your own personal inbox, Missive's AI automations can help your whole team auto-draft replies to customers. 

That's critical if you're handling hundreds if not thousands of emails every day. You can get the most common questions taken care of by an AI assistant. 

Where Missive lacks compared to Fxyer is it's scheduling and calendar functionality. Missive has a calendar that's good for team visibility but it's lacking any AI assistant features. 

From a pricing perspective, Missive is comparable to Fyxer at $24/user/month for plans that include AI automations. 

Shortwave - Full-featured Fyxer alternative

If you're looking for an AI-powered email client, essentially Fyxer but with more features, then Shortwave might be a good fit. 

Shortwave has all of Fyxer's AI assistant features right out of the box—auto-drafting emails, default AI categorization, calendar scheduling—and they have some team collaboration features as well. 

Since Shortwave is it's own email client, it looks and feels quite different from Gmail and Outlook. It also only supports Gmail accounts. They say there's a workaround for Microsoft 365, Outlook and other email providers, but it's essentially forwarding your email account to a Gmail account, to connect to Shortwave. 

If you don't want or need the level of customization and flexibility that Missive has, you don't care to BYOK (Bring your own keys), and you use Gmail/Google Workspace—Shortwave could be a good Fyxer alternative for you. 

From a pricing perspective, Shortwave is the exact same pricing as Missive at $24/user/month for plans with full fledge AI functionality. 

Spike - Conversational Fyxer alternative

Spike turns email into a conversational tool, making it a powerful Fyxer alternative. It transforms your cluttered inbox into a streamlined, chat-like feed that organizes messages by sender. This intuitive design simplifies lengthy discussions by eliminating repetitive headers and signatures, allowing you to focus on the actual conversation.

Like Fyxer, Spike uses AI to manage your inbox. It's priority inbox functions like Fyxer’s auto-tagging, automatically separating important mail from newsletters and promotional content. Spike’s AI can also summarize entire email threads and suggest replies, mirroring Fyxer’s core productivity features.

Where Spike stands apart is its focus on team collaboration, with features like group chats and notes.

From a pricing perspective, Spike's pro plans start at $5 per month.

Clean Email + Copilot

If you mostly loved Fyxer for it's ability to sort and organize emails, there are AI-powered tools like Clean Email that focus exclusively on that. And for your drafting needs, you can use Copilot or Gemini (depending on if you're a Gmail or Outlook user) as your AI assistant to help draft the occasional email. 

Like Fyxer, Clean Email is a tool that works within your existing email client. It has some predetermined categories that it will suggest and label your emails as, and it can learn your preferences over time. 

Copilot is a general AI-assistant that comes free with the Microsoft suite. You can use simple prompts like: Check for typos and make it more professional.

Or more complex prompts like: 

You're an executive assistant replying to emails on my behalf. Make sure to take into consideration the existing tone of the conversation and match it. If it's a customer or prospective client asking about a specific product question, use https://learn.missiveapp.com/ to find the answer. Do not make up any information. 

From a pricing perspective, Clean Email is $9.99/month/email account and Copilot has a free plan typically included in your Microsoft 365 subscription, with Pro plans starting at $30/user/month. 

SaneBox + Gemini

An alternative to Clean Email and Copilot would be SaneBox and Gemini. Incredibly similar functionality and features, with minor differences around user interface. Gemini would also be a better fit for anyone already in the Gmail/Google Workspace ecosystem. 

Where SaneBox stands out in comparison to both Clean Email and Fyxer is it's third party integrations. By offering connections to other popular tools like ToDoist, SaneBox allows you to create basic automated workflows within your inbox. Something in between Missive's super flexible and powerful automations and Fyxer's one and only integration to HubSpot. 

From a pricing perspective, SaneBox starts at $7/user/month with some usage limits. Google's Gemini has a free option, with paid plans starting at $19.99/month

Which Fyxer AI alternative is right for you?

Fyxer AI offers a compelling solution for tackling email management, seamlessly integrating with your Gmail or Outlook to help you regain valuable time. Its strengths in triaging emails, drafting replies, and note-taking make it a strong contender in today’s crowded AI productivity tool landscape.

However, it’s worth considering various alternatives like Gmelius, Missive, Spike, or Shortwave, each bringing unique features and interfaces that could better align with your specific needs.

As AI productivity tools continue to innovate and redefine how we interact with our inboxes, exploring your options will ensure you find the perfect fit to enhance your productivity.

Welcome to the great business email debate—Gmail or Outlook? 

Emails are the lifeblood of many businesses. They’re how people inquire about your services, it's how you communicate with clients and vendors, and maybe it's even how you communicate internally with your team. 

We'll be doing an in-depth analysis of the two big email providers (Gmail vs Outlook). And give you the information you need to make a decision on which email service you'd like to build your communication system from.

We'll be going over:

• Individual features and functionality 
• Collaboration and team features
• Security and privacy
• Pricing

Gmail and Google Workspace 

There are two ways to create an email with Google.

You can either have a free, personal email address that ends in @gmail.com, with limited storage (15gb across your Google Suite), or you can pay for Google Workspace (Gmail for business) and create an email address with your business domain: @yourcompany.com, have more storage, and more admin/security controls over your email service.

The Google Workspace business plans vary:

• Business Starter ($6/user/month) with 30 GB of storage/user 
• Business Standard ($12/user/month) with 2 TB of storage/user 
• Business Plus ($18/user/month) with 5 TB of storage/user
• Enterprise (custom pricing) 

Whether you have a Gmail account or a Google Workspace account, your inbox will look similar. 

Features and functionality

• Labels
  • Gmail labels are incredibly flexible and meant to be the main organizational feature. 
  • You can use Gmail labels for everything from light project management (To-do, in-progress, blocked, in review) to client filing (names of each client account or project code), to topical sorting (personal, travel, etc) 
• Categories
  • Gmail can auto-detect what they think an email is about, and assign it to one of their four default categories: Primary, Social, Promotional, and Updates.
  • This default functionality was introduced in 2013 and can be changed in settings.
• Search
  • Gmail's search is fast and quite accurate at surfacing relevant results. You can filter by sender, date range, or labels. Note: Gmail's search content is primarily looking at email and attachments, and actively ignores items like calendar events and tasks. 
• Calendar
  • The default calendar app of the Google Suite offers up some helpful business tools. Outside of the standard ability to create an event and invite attendees, you can easily create scheduling links to share and it's smart enough to detect event invites in your Gmail inbox, and auto-create them in your calendar. 

Gmail's collaboration and team tools

This is where Google shines. Their real-time collaborative documents were a game changer when they launched back in 2006 and has become the preferred tools for many organizations since. 

• Google Docs, Sheets, Slides
  • Compared to Microsoft, these tools were built with real-time collaboration first. If you plan on working on documents and files with other people, Google is the way to go. 
• Google Drive—cloud file storage and sharing. 
• Google Chat—Instant messaging. 
• Gmail Shared Mailbox
  • The most common use case of a shared inbox is a businesses' info@, sales@ and support@ inboxes.
  • The shared inbox allows multiple people to login and access, without sharing passwords. 
  • Gmail's shared inbox has the exact same interface as its regular inbox. You're able to label, filter, and search in the shared inbox just as you would your personal.

Gmail's security and privacy

When looking at Gmail's security measures for Google Workspace accounts, here are two that stand out:

1. Confidential mode—it's not quite end-to-end encryption, but it does allow users to set expiration dates, revoke access, and restrict forwarding/printing of emails. 
2. Anti-phishing protection—using machine learning, Gmail will often flag suspicious attachments, links, or spam emails with a prominent orange banner. 

Gmail uses TLS for email transit and has encryption at rest and in transit. 

Common user complaints

With over 1.8 billion Gmail users worldwide, there are some very well known issues and tradeoffs within the Gmail's functionality. Here are three common ones:  

• Email size limits—Gmail truncates emails at 102 KB; requiring you to click a "view more" link to read long emails in it's entirety If you have lengthy emails to send, you'll likely get frustrated by this limitation. 
• Threaded emails—Gmail sorts related emails into a single thread, and they'll group them based on subject lines and reply sequences. That's helpful if you're receiving duplicate newsletters (you just want to see one new email for all those duplicates), but if your client is sending you different topical emails with the same subject line, Gmail will also group them together. 
• Offline mode—Gmail's offline mode works best on Chrome, and has been reported to be less reliable on other browsers or operating systems. Local storage capped at 90 days of email history, so any older emails will not be accessible until you're connected to internet again.

Outlook and Microsoft 365

Like Gmail, Outlook is Microsoft's free, personal email service; Microsoft 365 is essentially Outlook for business, equivalent to Google Workspace. 

Here's an overview of the Microsoft 365 plans (assuming an annual payment, as of April 1, 2025): 

• Business Basic ($6.30/user/month) with 50GB email storage and 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage. 
• Business Standard ($13.13/user/month) with all of the above, plus desktop versions of Microsoft Office apps (5 devices per user).  
• Business Premium ($23.10/user/month) with all of the above, plus security features like Microsoft Defender for Business and device management tools for company devices. 
• Enterprise (ranges from $36-$57/user/month) with Exchange Online email hosting, large amounts of mailbox storage (100 GB/user), and more advanced security and privacy controls. Typically Microsoft 365 enterprise plans start at 300 users.  

Features and functionality

• Outlook Folders
  • The biggest difference between labels and folders (Gmail vs Outlook), is the one-to-one relationship. One email lives in one folder at a time in Outlook, where as one email can have multiple labels attached to it in Gmail. 
  • Many users appreciate the drag and drop functionality within Microsoft Outlook, that allows you to easily move an email from one folder to another.
• Outlook Search
  • Outlook's search function goes beyond emails and attachments, pulling in contacts, calendar events and tasks. It's more comprehensive than Gmail's search, but that also impacts it's speed. It’s often slower, especially with large mailboxes.
• Outlook Calendar
  • Outlook's default calendar has a very deep integration with Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Office. So if you use Microsoft everything, keeping the Outlook Calendar will be a smoother experience. 
• Outlook Rules
  • Outlook has two main types of rules. The first will only run if your Outlook email is open (like a notification sound), and the second will run on the mail server all the time (i.e. sorting certain emails into certain folders, custom spam/junk mail removal, auto-forwarding emails when you're OOO, etc). The second set of rules is primarily for incoming emails, which depend on if/then statements and doesn't allow for more complex conditions (if/else) or preferences. 

Outlook's team collaboration tools

• Word, Excel, PowerPoint
  • The original productivity office suite focused on individual usage. There's a reason why Excel is still the market leader for those who need deep functionality. In recent years, Microsoft added collaborative features to all these tools, however they've been known to be less seamless compared to Google Workspace. 
• OneDrive—cloud storage and file sharing. 
• Microsoft Teams—team chat and video conferencing. 
• Outlook Shared Mailbox
  • It’s very similar to Gmail’s shared mailbox, but with one key difference: you can integrate an Outlook shared inbox with ticketing (Share Point) and automation (Power Automate) tools that are included in the Microsoft 365 suite. This would allow you to create and track "tickets"—particularly helpful for your support@ inbox.
  • This functionality is limited and has a heavily reliance on notifications and collaboration outside of the inbox (in Microsoft Teams). 

Outlook's security and privacy

With thousands of enterprise customers, Outlook's security and privacy are tuned for those standards. 

1. Office Message Encryption—send encrypted emails with controls on whether those emails can be forwarded, printed, or copied. 
2. Advanced Threat Protection/Microsoft Defender—essentially Microsoft's version of anti-phishing protection. It does offer real-time URL scanning through its Safe Links feature. 
3. Information Rights and Management—allows users to control forwarding/copying of email contents. 

And just like Gmail, Outlook uses TLS encryption for email in transit. And data at rest is also encrypted. 

Common user complaints

• Search Delays/Freezes—because Outlook has a more comprehensive search (looks for things beyond email and attachments), and because they support larger inboxes, it means search is often really slow or doesn't work at all. 
• Visibility Issues in Shared Inboxes—though Outlook has shared mailboxes, there is a lack of functionality around coordination or collaboration. So though multiple people can be in your sales@ inbox without privacy issues, you still don't know who's working on which email. 
• Mobile Outlook apps are missing features—you can't create rules and automations, advanced search strings aren't supported, and there are no custom views.

So which email service is better—Gmail vs Outlook?

As with most decisions in life, it depends.

Google Workspace is collaborative at its core, though its shared inbox and email automation options are more limited.

Microsoft Outlook is more robust in it's DNA overall, but can feel overly complex and lacking in modern design. 

If your business prioritizes simplicity and collaboration with clients, team members, and vendors—I would err on the side of Gmail and Google Workspace. 

If you work in a field with a lot of sensitive information (i.e. law, accounting, etc), then I would err on the side of Outlook and their very high standard for security controls. 

Whether you choose Gmail or Outlook, there are some business email hygiene factors to follow:

1. Don't share passwords to share inboxes
2. Say no to forwarding if you need to collaborate
3. Always have anti-phishing and spam protocols in place for your team. Test often. 

Which email service is best for teams?

Neither Outlook or Gmail was really designed for teams. They added on some lightweight features (shared mailboxes), but if you truly live in your inbox everyday, replying to clients, team members, and vendors—you'll want something designed specifically for team collaboration and shared inboxes. 

That would be us—Missive! 

Missive is an email client that sits on top of your chosen email service—whether that's Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo Mail, or Apple Mail.

It has all the features that are loved in Gmail and Outlook—labels, rules, snoozing, but supercharged with more functionality. Including AI powered rules that allow for auto-translation, auto-labeling, and so much more. 

But don't just take our word for it, here's Arif, a lawyer and long time Outlook user, who recently signed up for Missive: 

When I open Missive, I can hit Inbox Zero quickly. I never had that feeling with Outlook.

And here's Pat, a property manager and Gmail user, who recently signed up for Missive: 

We’ve tried so many shared inbox solutions. Missive was unexpectedly powerful. Suddenly, we weren’t scrambling over lost emails or letting days slip by.

So whether you're Team Gmail for business or Team Outlook for business—you can try Missive today and get the best collaborative email client for businesses.

Email is the medium of business. It's how requests, deals, hires, are started and made. 

Most businesses live in their inbox, whether they like it or not. And that inbox is likely an Outlook inbox — over 3.7 million companies use Microsoft Outlook for email management. 

The are two main reasons for that:

1. Outlook is the default email client for Microsoft 365 which is a suite that many businesses use—Excel, Word, and Teams. 
2. They offer enterprise-level security, compliance, and control—GDPR, HIPAA, encryption, granular user permissions—you name it.

However, like Word or Excel, Outlook was made mostly for enterprise solo use. It wasn't made for collaboration, even as the world of business and email moved towards needing more and more collaboration. 

In 2025, several tools meet the security and control standards of Outlook while offering far more powerful inbox collaboration and coordination features suited for modern businesses.

We'll cover what to look for in an Outlook email client, introduce the six most popular third-party options, and break down their key differences.

Here are the key features we looked at for Outlook email clients: 

• User interface and experience
• Security and privacy
• Customization options
• Collaboration features
• Productivity features
• AI specific features

All options have desktop and mobile email apps and support IMAP, MAPI, and POP3.

Plus, we'll cover a range of price points for the best Outlook alternatives—including ones that are free email clients.

Missive

Missive is a collaborative inbox for teams that run on email. This means it is designed with collaboration as a priority, featuring contextual in-email chat using @mentions—eliminating the need for forwarding.

You can assign or watch emails, and every action is logged—giving you visibility into emails and tracking who did what and when.

On top of that, Missive supports all email providers (Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, Apple Mail, etc) and you can have multiple accounts (personal and business).  

Under the hood, Missive has a powerful automation engine, allowing you to do things like:

• Route emails from a specific sender to certain people/teams.
• Create a service level agreement (SLA) with notifications to ensure a high standard of service.
• Have AI read and understand the contents of an email to see if there's a deadline, label as urgent if there is, and assign it to a senior staff to reply.  
• Have AI read and understand the contents of an email to see if it's spam, and automatically trash. 

From a security perspective, Missive meets the same gold standard as Outlook. They have an SOC 2 Type II report, encryption of data at rest and in transit, and they are GDPR compliant. 

For pricing, Missive plans start at $14/user/month on an annual plan.

One thing to note, if you use folders in Outlook, they are called labels in Missive.

In the same way that some teams prefer Google Docs to Word because of their collaboration functionality (commenting, multi-player drafting, etc) — you may prefer Missive as your email app to Outlook, if you find yourself hitting reply all and forward all the time.

Thunderbird

Thunderbird stands out as the only open-source email client.

It's a community-driven, free email client, that has been around for nearly two decades. With a thriving online community and an ecosystem of 1200+ add-ons (including AI-powered ones to help you draft replies), it's considered one of the best email apps for those prioritizing a free and open sourced solution. 

If you're looking for an email client that has more collaboration functionality, Thunderbird's collaboration features come mostly from its third-party add-ons—things like mail merging and adding notes/comments to emails. Which makes collaboration possible, but likely a little unreliable given the nature of third-party connections failing from time to time. 

From an organization perspective, Thunderbird calls their version of "folders", tags. Functionally, they are the same. 

Thunderbird is a very privacy forward email app with built-in filters for phishing/spam and remote image blocking.

Though, it doesn't have the same compliance certifications (i.e. SOC or ISO) due to it's free and open-source nature. 

Mailbird

Mailbird is for those of you who have way too many email accounts. It's known for it's unified inbox, where you're able to flow multiple accounts into the same consolidated inbox view.

Mailbird doesn't offer any features related to collaboration or coordination. It's more of a productivity improvement for Outlook power users who would like to integrate a few popular apps into their email workflow and see all emails in one place.

From an AI perspective, Mailbird offers simple AI drafting through ChatGPT. 

Of all the Outlook alternatives on this list, Mailbird has the most similar user experience to Outlook—for example, their naming conversions are the same (folders are folders, and not labels or tags). 

For security and compliance, Mailbird is only GDPR compliant and does not have any external audits or certifications. 

For pricing, Mailbird has a free version as well as a premium version that's $4.99/user/month. There is also a pay once option to buy the product outright at $49.50 (standard) or $99.75 (premium). 

If you manage multiple Outlook accounts and need a unified inbox for all your emails, Mailbird might be the perfect solution.

eM Client

eM Client is a very similar email client to Mailbird. Most of their features are productivity focused for individuals—shortcuts, watch/snooze, configurable layout. 

The most unique and powerful feature for eM Client is their search. Not only does the search cover all messages in your inbox, it can also search within certain types of attached files—think PDFs, Word docs, etc. 

On the collaboration front, they don't have much beyond the ability to share folders (aka. labels), calendars, and accounts. 

Like Mailbird, eM Client offers basic AI drafting to assist with typos and tone in your replies.

On security and compliance, eM Client is GDPR compliant (though possibly outdated with 2018 references) and does not have any external audits or certifications. 

For pricing, eM Client has a sharp distinction between personal and business plans. There is a free plan for non-commercial use. The paid plans can be an annual subscription or a one-time payment. 

The personal plan (without AI features) is $39.95/year or $49.95 as a one-time payment.

The business plan (with AI features) is $49.95/year or a one-time payment of $188.95.  

Both one-time payment options do not include future feature updates. You can purchase lifetime upgrades separately at $90 per license. 

If you're looking for a slightly more productive version of Outlook and you want a free email app because you're not using it for commercial purposes—then eM Client might be a good option.

Apple Mail

If you're a Mac user and you really don't want to download another email client. Does the out-of-the-inbox (get it?) mail app from Apple work well for Outlook? 

Well, compared to Thunderbird, Mailbird, and eM Client—Apple Mail isn't going to give you any increased functionality. 

If you use Apple Mail as your Outlook email client, you won't have the integrated calendar or task management, and you'll have to remember that folders are "labels" in Apple Mail. 

The good news is that Apple Mail can support multiple accounts from multiple providers (via IMAP and SMTP standards), so if you have a Gmail account and an Outlook account that you would like to unify into one very well designed, simple inbox—Apple Mail can do that.

If you want a free email client with a cleaner design than Outlook and don’t require advanced features, Apple Mail might be your best option.

Superhuman

When Superhuman first came out, it was solely focused on Gmail and Google email users. As of May 2022, they also support Outlook users. 

From a user interface perspective, Superhuman is the most distinct of this list. It looks nothing like an Outlook inbox, so if familiarity is a requirement, this might not be a good fit. 

Superhuman offers several AI-powered features, the most notable being its ability to answer questions about your inbox.

Instead of traditional search (even as powerful as eM Client's), you can ask your inbox direct questions. Instead of needing to remember a file's name to look for a specific piece of information, you could say: What was the price that John from ACME quoted me?

On the collaboration front, Superhuman offers the ability to @mention your colleagues through Team Comments.

From a security and compliance perspective, they are compliant with SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, CCPA, and GDPR. 

For pricing, Superhuman is on the higher end of these email clients, starting at $25/user/month on an annual plan.

Use Cases and Scenarios

To summarize our options for the best email client for Outlook users, we sorted them into two categories: 

Individuals (You just want a better client for yourself)

• Thunderbird—you want open-source and lots of plug-in options
• Mailbird—you want Outlook, but a unified inbox
• eM Client—you want robust search
• Apple Mail—you want a better design, with less functionality
• Superhuman—you want AI and shortcuts galore

Teams (You want an email client for coordination and collaboration within a team)

• Superhuman—you just want to be able to @mention instead of forward
• Missive—you want shared inboxes, internal @mentions, shared labels, canned responses, watch/assign... basically the best email client that's collaboration-first

We hope this has been a helpful overview of the types of email clients that are out there for Outlook users. If you're interested in Missive, continue on and we'll get into some tactical information. 

Recent heavy Outlook users who made the switch to Missive:

Stephanie at Lighting Dynamics, manages 100+ email quotes a day. Her team used to use Outlook for email management:

With traditional Outlook forwarding, once an email was out of the shared inbox, there was no visibility. We never knew if it had been handled. It was chaotic.

And now, with Missive: "Missive checked all our boxes. It was a huge relief to see we could maintain the shared inbox model—without building custom software from scratch."

Or Kason, from i-SOLIDS, who grew his sales team beyond himself: 

We got to a point where we weren't providing the same level of communication, response, and service that allowed us to get to this point. We were relying on Outlook email and it was like 'are you responding to that or am I?'

And after a month with Missive, Kason recommends: "Don't think about just choosing a tool for today but this tool needs to work for scale too—that's a major decision factor."

How Missive integrates with Outlook

1. Create a free Missive account 
2. Select your email provider (either Microsoft 365 or Outlook most likely)

1. Determine how much history you would like to sync (only paid accounts have unlimited history)
   

1. Repeat for as many different email accounts (shared or personal) as you need. 
2. You have the option to sync contacts and calendar as well. 

Get a detailed walk through of how to configure Outlook to Missive, including terminology differences to get you acclimated to your new inbox.

So what's the best email client for Outlook users? 

Well like most things, it depends. If you're a team who lives in their inbox day and day out, and you're looking a collaboration-first inbox—we hope you'll give Missive a try. 

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We've all been there. You open your inbox on Monday morning and face an avalanche of messages. Some need immediate attention. Others could wait. Many should be handled by different team members. And a surprising number don't need any response at all. While Missive's rule engine has always given you the flexibility to automate your workflow exactly how you want it, today we're taking that customization power to a whole new level.

What if your inbox could sort itself? What if it could understand what each email is about and take the right action automatically—all while you maintain complete control over how it behaves? What if you could define exactly how your emails are processed, based not just on who sent them, but on what they actually contain?

Today, we're launching AI Rules in Missive - a simple way to bring the intelligence of AI to your email workflow without the complexity. It's the same flexible rule engine you love, now with the power to understand email content the way you do.

What are AI rules?

AI Rules are an extension of Missive's existing rules engine. If you've used rules before, you know they're powerful for automating repetitive tasks based on simple conditions like sender address or subject line keywords.

Now, we're adding the ability to use AI to understand what an email is actually about.

Here's how it works:

1. You create a rule with an "AI Prompt" condition
2. You write a simple instruction for the AI
3. The AI reads the email and gives an answer
4. Your rule takes action based on that answer

No training data. No complicated setup. Just plain language instructions that the AI follows.

Real examples, real time saved

Let's look at some practical ways teams are already using AI Rules during our beta:

- A ⛑️ customer service team set up a rule that using this prompt:‍

‍Is this customer angry or upset? Respond with ONLY "YES" or "NO".‍

If the AI says YES, the email gets flagged as high priority and assigned to a senior agent.

- A 📈 sales team created a rule with this prompt:

‍Is this a qualified sales lead or just a general inquiry? Respond with ONLY ONE of these exact words: "sales lead" or "general inquiry".

Leads go straight to the sales pipeline, while general questions route to the support team. Their sales reps now spend more time selling and less time triaging emails.

- A ⚖️ legal firm uses AI to detect if an email contains a deadline or time-sensitive request.‍

Does this email contain a deadline, due date, or time-sensitive request? Respond with ONLY "YES" or "NO".‍

If it does, it gets tagged "Urgent" and triggers a notification and creates tasks. They haven't missed a filing deadline since.

The best part? These teams didn't need to become AI experts. They just wrote simple instructions in plain English.

One prompt, multiple rules

One of the most powerful features of AI Rules is the ability to use the same prompt across multiple rules. This lets you create sophisticated email triage systems without duplicating your AI analysis costs.

For example, you could recreate Gmail's smart categories with more flexibility and control.

First, create a prompt that categorizes emails:‍

Analyze this email and respond with EXACTLY ONE of these categories:

"SOCIAL" - for messages from social networks, dating sites, etc.

"PROMOTIONS" - for marketing emails, offers, discounts, newsletters

"UPDATES" - for notifications, confirmations, receipts, statements

Then create separate rules, all using this exact same prompt but with different matching conditions:

The beauty of this approach is that the AI only analyzes each email once, even though you have six different rules. The result is cached and reused across all rules, making this both efficient and cost-effective.

And unlike Gmail's fixed categories, you have complete control over:

• What categories to use
• What actions to take for each category
• How to prioritize different types of messages
• When to apply these rules (you could add additional conditions)

This is just one example of how you can use AI Rules to create a customized workflow that fits exactly how you and your team want to work.

Four ways to use AI in your rules

We've built four powerful AI capabilities into Missive:

1. AI Conditions

As shown above, use AI to analyze email content and make decisions. The AI can detect sentiment, identify request types, or extract specific information that would be difficult to capture with traditional keyword rules.

For example: "Is this customer angry?" or "Does this email contain a deadline?"

2. AI-Generated Posts

Have the AI create a helpful note about an email. The AI can summarize long threads, extract key points, translate emails or provide context for your team.

e.g.

Translate the email to English.

3. AI-Generated Tasks

Let the AI identify action items in emails and automatically create tasks. No more manually creating to-dos from your messages. For example:

‍Extract any tasks or action items from this email and create a task for each one.

4. AI-Generated Drafts

Automatically create response drafts for common inquiries. The AI can craft a personalized reply based on the email content, which you can review and send with a click:‍

Create a helpful response to this customer inquiry about our pricing plans.

The above draft example could be paired with an AI condition that makes sure the email is about billing!

Simple to set up, powerful in practice

We've worked hard to make AI Rules approachable. You don't need to be a prompt engineer or AI expert to get value from day one. The system uses gpt-4o-mini, which offers an excellent balance of speed, cost-effectiveness, and quality for email processing.

Your data, your control

We understand that email contains sensitive information. That's why:

• You connect your own OpenAI account
• You control exactly which emails get processed by AI
• Email content is only sent to OpenAI at the moment of rule processing
• No data is stored by OpenAI beyond what's needed for the immediate request

The inbox you've always wanted

For years, we've been building tools to help teams manage email more efficiently. Rules have always been at the heart of that mission - letting you automate the repetitive stuff so you can focus on the work that matters.

AI Rules take that automation to a new level. Now your inbox doesn't just sort emails based on simple patterns - it understands what they're about and what needs to happen next.

This isn't about replacing human judgment. It's about removing the tedious parts of email management so your team can focus on what humans do best: building relationships, solving complex problems, and delivering value to your customers.

AI Rules are available today for all Missive users on the Productive plan and above. Give them a try, and let us know what you think.

Your inbox will thank you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Want to learn more about AI Rules? Check out these helpful resources:

• Which OpenAI model is used for the AI rules?
• How do I set up AI rules in Missive?
• What plan do I need to use AI Rules?
• How do AI conditions work?
• Can I reuse the same AI prompt across multiple rules?
• How do I write deterministic prompts for reliable rule matching?
• How do I debug AI condition results?
• What's the difference between the three AI actions?
• How many tasks can be created with the 'Create AI Tasks' action?
• Can I customize the AI-generated tasks?
• What are the content limits for AI analysis?
• Will using AI rules slow down my email processing?
• What happens if the OpenAI API is unavailable or returns an error?
• How can I optimize my AI rule usage for cost efficiency?
• Can I combine AI conditions with regular conditions?
• What are some example use cases for AI Rules?
• How is my data handled with AI Rules?
• Do I need to be an AI expert to use AI Rules
• What is the difference between standard rules and AI rules?

Our inbox is where work happens. It's where decisions get made. Where commitments are born. And let's be honest - it's what most of us use as a to do list.

We've spent 10 years at Missive transforming email from a lonely slog into a team sport. But after hundreds of conversations with customers, we realized something obvious:

Instead of fighting how people naturally work, why not make their inbox exceptional at what they're already using it for?

Let's be real - we know the whole "inbox zero" thing is a myth, and that treating your inbox as a pure to-do list has its problems. But here's the thing: people are going to use their inbox to track work, whether we like it or not. So instead of preaching about the "right way" to work, we decided to give you tools that improve the way you already work.

We're putting tasks where they belong - right inside your inbox. But we're doing it thoughtfully.

This isn't about dumping more stuff into an already full inbox. It's about giving you the tools to turn that chaos into clarity:

• The ability to create multiple tasks attached to an email thread assigned to right stakeholders
• Task views that help you step back and see the big picture, not just your inbox
• Powerful filters let you cut through the noise and focus on what matters
• Calendar integration so you can plan your work, not just react to it

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Now you can prioritize what matters, collaborate effectively, and keep your team in sync - all without leaving your inbox. No more scattered tools. No more lost context. No more wondering who's working on what.

‍

Your inbox is finally becoming what it should have been all along: A clear, organized command center where email and tasks blend seamlessly, exactly where you already are.

‍

This isn't about building another "everything app" or asking you to change how you work. It's about making your inbox better at what you're already using it for. We know that might sound contradictory, adding features while claiming simplicity, but we've been ruthless about only adding what matters.

Everything else? We left it out.

The goal isn't to make your inbox do everything. The goal is to make it do the things you're already using it for, exceptionally well.

‍

Now, let's walk through what's changing and how it makes your work life smoother.

A New Chapter for Tasks

We've completely re-imagined how tasks work in Missive.

You'll now find dedicated views that brings together all your tasks in one place, everything's organized in a single view. And the best part? Tasks now come with assignment, rich-text descriptions, and due dates that automatically sync to your calendar.

To keep everyone aligned, we've introduced a new 'In progress' intermediate status; watch your work progress naturally from "To do" to "In progress" to "Closed" — giving your whole team clear visibility into what's moving forward.

What happen to "Assigned to me" mailboxes?

The "Assigned to me" and "Assigned to others" mailboxes have morphed into the Task views. The new Tasks view shows everything assigned to you across all your teams and organizations, while Team Tasks gives you a focused view of what's happening in specific teams.

Want to customize your view? Use filters to zero in on exactly what you need - like seeing only tasks for specific team members or projects. You can even pin your favorite filtered views to your sidebar for quick access. And when you need to check the conversation that sparked a task, just click the conversation pill to jump right to it.

Note: If your team was previously not closing conversations, the different task views will be populated with a lot of old tasks. It's important to go through them and close them to keep your task views clean and give you a fresh start.

Teams spaces

We are also introducing teams spaces, a new way to organize your teams. Every team has now a dedicated space in the sidebar, and every member will see the right elements depending on their role in the team.

In each team space, you will find the team inbox, the team chat and the newly introduced team tasks view. You can always disable the team chat or the team inbox for a specific team in the team settings.

The team inbox, under the team space, can still be expanded to reveal the Closed, Sent and All mailboxes.

When working from a team inbox, as soon as you click reply, the conversation will be turned into an 'In progress' task, assigned to you. And when you're done with the draft, you can just hit 'Send & Close' and the task will be automatically closed.

Some companies will use these team spaces as traditional teams (support, design, etc), and others will use it as dedicated client spaces — with one team space per client. How you decide to use it is entirely up to your business.

‍

Checklists and Rules

If you have a checklist that your team goes through all the time, you can automate the whole thing with the new Create Task rule action. No more manual task creation.

Here's what I mean: Let's say every new client needs five things done — review their needs, check what you have in stock, work up pricing, draft a proposal, and get the thumbs up from your manager.

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Instead of creating these tasks by hand every single time, just set up a rule.

Now when an email comes in with "New Client" in the subject (or when someone drops a #newclient tag in the conversation), boom - all five tasks get created automatically, assigned to the right people, with the right due dates. Simple, automatic, and nothing gets missed.

‍

Conclusion

This is just the beginning. We're committed to making Missive the best place for teams to work together, and we have more exciting updates planned.

Your feedback has been invaluable in shaping these improvements, and we can't wait to hear what you think about the new tasks experience.

The best part? All these new features are available in every Missive plan. No upgrades needed.

Want to learn more about tasks in Missive? Check out our help guide for detailed information on how to make the most of these new features.

If you feel uncertain about the new tasks experience, and have any questions, we're here to help. We have 4 webinars scheduled in the next 2 weeks, and we'll be covering everything you need to know about tasks in Missive. Book a seat now using this link and we'll see you there!

‍

Oh, one more thing, we gave Missive a fresh coat of paint too! We hope you like it.✨

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1.8 billion users.

121 billion emails — per day.

Gmail dwarfs most popular email clients.

Still, reading emails in a browser tab feels… clunky?

Don’t get me wrong: I’ve been a Gmail user for years and I love it.

But I’ve found dedicated desktop email apps offer far more email productivity & customization.

Despite its dominance, Google hasn’t released an official desktop version of its email service. So users like you and I keep asking:

What are the best email apps for Gmail?

When I wrote the first version of this article, years ago, my mission was simple:

👉 Find the best email client to supercharge my personal productivity and facilitate team collaboration.

I needed something to simplify my email workflows AND give my team better tools — for clear communication and project management.The search led me to try dozens of apps, judging them on criteria like ease of use, customizability, collaboration, and productivity.

I've kept that original mission in mind while thoroughly re-evaluating and testing the latest offerings.This updated comparison includes a wide range of email clients. Some excel at personal email triage, others at conversational experience. Many boast team collaboration features.Let’s dig in and find your optimal email client for Gmail.

The 9 Best Email Clients for Your Gmail Account

My evaluation focused on key criteria that savvy users care about, based on personal usage and discussions in online communities like Reddit.

These factors included:

• Intuitive UI design
• Robust email management
• Useful productivity features (like snoozing and scheduling)
• Collaboration tools
• Customization options
• Optimized multi-email accounts experience

I prioritized email apps with clear signs of ongoing development. All the Gmail email clients on the list support OAuth, as it’s the recommended way to connect your Gmail account to an email client according to Google. It will be the only supported way starting in Fall 2024.

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Top Picks by Use Case

• Best for Mac Users: Apple Mail
 
• Best for Gmail-like Interface: Gmelius
 
• Best for Windows Users: Outlook
 
• Best for Businesses & Collaboration: Missive
 
• Best Open-Source Option: Thunderbird
 
• Best for Customization: eM Client
 
• Best for Chat-Like Experience: Spike
 
• Best for Individual Productivity: Superhuman
 
• Best for Mobile Devices: Canary Mail

Best Email Client for Mac Users

For macOS, the top contenders are Apple's stock Mail app and the Gmail optimizer, Mimestream.

Apple Mail

I know, most of you are probably screaming at your screen that Apple Mail made the cut, but hear me out — it has an incredible number of useful features for Gmail users.

Apple Mail offers robust custom filters, smart mailbox views, and notification control. It also provides AI-powered search assist, automated unsubscribe detection, send later scheduling, and built-in privacy tools. The user-friendly interface, system-level integration, and regular updates keep it feeling fresh. Best of all, it comes pre-installed with all Mac, so no need to download or update new software.

Price

Free.

Best Email Client for Gmail-like Interface

Gmelius

If you're married to the Gmail interface, but you just need a little more power under the hood, Gmelius might be a good fit. It seamlessly integrates powerful team collaboration and productivity features directly into the interface you already know and love.

Gmelius excels at shared inbox management, turning what would normally be chaotic team email coordination into organized collaboration. Teams can assign emails to specific members, add internal notes with @mentions, and track conversations through Kanban boards, all without leaving Gmail. And with their new AI features, you can use AI to help you sort and draft emails.

Price

Starts at $24 per user per month, when billed annually.

Best Email Client for Windows Users

Outlook

For Windows, Microsoft Outlook has long been the standard for email due to its ease of use, powerful search capabilities, and tight Office integration. And it’s still on top for the same reasons (especially with a Microsoft 365 account). There's also a full-fledged integrated calendar, eliminating the need to switch between windows to manage your day.

And if you're not an Apple user, Outlook is probably one of the best Android email clients out there.

Unfortunately, the latest Outlook release has been controversial. Microsoft has removed functionality like import/export tools and system tray access that power users loved in previous versions by shifting to essentially becoming a desktop clone of the web app. Shared mailbox management and capabilities like viewing favorite folders have also suffered. Some Reddit users find the web version performs better, but the general consensus is that the new desktop Outlook feels like a downgrade.

Price

Free with ads, or starting at $1.99 per month for the ad-free version.

Best Email Client for Businesses & Collaboration

Missive

Email clients designed with teams and productivity in mind offer major advantages over individual email management tools — especially for businesses.

Based on my latest research, core business needs around email are:

• Workflow configuration
• Real-time editing collaboration
• Chat and comments
• Task assignments
• Security & compliance standards
• Mobile management
• Calendar integration
• Third-party integrations (like OpenAI or HubSpot
  ‍

No other email client meets those needs better than Missive.

Missive has been a game-changer for my team's productivity and communication. It’s a unified inbox that combines all our accounts into one app, while also offering shared inboxes — the multiplayer mode for email. The collaboration features like shared draft editing with @mentions, internal chat, and one-click assignments.

Shared labels, advanced rules, mobile apps, calendar sync, and a growing library of integrations make Missive a powerful software to consume your business’ Gmail accounts. Management tools like email templates, send later scheduling, snoozing, and follow-up reminders help each of us personally optimize our individual email processes. Missive also excels at email delegation with team members or virtual assistants.

However, according to some Reddit users — Missive is not perfect.

People have shared a learning curve, lack some granular customization, no email tracking, and advanced collaboration features locked behind paid tiers. But in my experience, no other client matches Missive's intuitive yet powerful blend of personal email management and team communication.

Price

Missive’s pricing is competitive compared to other Gmail email clients—especially for small businesses that want to collaborate around emails.

Free plan available and starting at $18 per month per user for advanced features.

Best Open-Sourced Email Client

Thunderbird

For those seeking a free, open-source, and community-driven email client, Thunderbird has made a name for itself. This cross-platform app has evolved a lot over the years with great features like tabbed email viewing, robust custom search tools, and built-in phishing/spam filtering.

Starting is easy with simplified account setup wizards and friendly reminders. Then, customization begins with custom themes, smart foldering, advanced filtering, and extending functionality through add-ons.

Thunderbird's uniqueness lies in its built-in privacy tools like remote image blocking and organization of emails into dedicated "Message Archive" locations outside your inbox. No complex rules needed. The tabbed interface with quick filters also makes email triage fast compared to a standard chronological view.

An open-sourced, Outlook alternative, for those looking for an Android email app.

Price

Free.

Best Email Client for Customization

eM Client

If customization is your #1 priority in an email client, eM Client should be at the top of your list to test. This app takes a unique approach by bundling standard email/calendar/tasks management with note-taking.

eM Client lets you tweak things like instantaneous translation of messages, watchlist notifications for contact interactions, advanced attachment search filters, and a library of templates/text snippets.

You can also customize the toolbar layout. For enterprise users, eM Client includes admin deployment tools and integrations.

The flexibility can be both an advantage and a disadvantage, as eM Client can feel overwhelming with so much to configure, especially if you’re coming from a simpler app.

But if you love customizing apps, eM Client is worth considering.

Price

Free for non-commercial use and starting at $59.95 for commercial use.

Best Email Client for Chat-Like Experience

Spike

While the other clients on the list all use the traditional inbox management concepts to varying degrees, Spike goes a step further by completely reinventing email for individual productivity and team collaboration.

While not for everyone, it’s taking its inspiration from chat apps and social media to transform email into an infinitely scrolling feed of conversational "channels". These are organized around contacts and teams instead of the typical chrono-threaded approach.

This different experience lets you chat and share assets like notes, documents, and voice clips in your inbox. It includes features like automating message tone, video calls, and AI prioritization based on relationship context instead of subject lines and sender aliases.

Spike maintains core functions like account unification and calendar support. But its conversation-centric design can be hard to get used to.

Price

Free plan available, starting at $5 per month per user for advanced features.

Best Email Client for Individual Productivity

Superhuman

In the personal productivity front, Superhuman takes a traditional approach with an email interface optimized for speed and efficiency. It adds depth through an AI engine that powers automated split inboxes for VIPs and service emails, intelligent follow-up reminders, social insights about contacts, and error correction.

Superhuman isn't cheap at $30/month, but the premium delivers an unmatched experience that feels like a personal productivity force multiplier.

Price

Starting at $30 per month.

Best Email Client for Mobile Devices

Canary Mail

For those who live on their mobile devices and want an extra AI-powered assist for email management on mobile devices. It automatically prioritizes messages, provides AI-written summaries, and generates email drafts based on voice prompts or sentiment reactions.

These AI integrations improve mobile email management, bridging the context and functionality gap compared to desktop experiences.

Its freemium model with premium tiers offers a compelling way to enhance mobile email through intelligent optimization and AI assistance.

Price

Free plan available, starting at $49 per year for advanced features.

Finding the Right Inbox Fit

Desktop simplicity, intelligent mobile assistance, effective team communication, smart spam filtering, hyper-customized productivity…Whatever your use case, there’s a third-party Gmail client for you.

The key is finding the right fit based on your priorities.

For me, Missive's collaboration-focused experience has been a game-changer for team communication without compromising individual productivity.

But what about you? Maybe you'll prefer Thunderbird's community-driven open-source approach. Or the AI-enhanced efficiency of Superhuman for power users!

No matter the app, upgrading from Gmail's web interface can optimize email and get you closer to inbox zero.

It’s time to take control of your inbox.

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When I started my career, my first experience with team emails was chaotic. We had multiple inboxes, scattered conversations, and constant back-and-forth about who was handling what. It was a nightmare.

At my last job, we used Missive, and it was like night and day compared to my previous experience. However, it wasn't until I discovered some of its hidden features that things really clicked for me.

Over the past few years, I've used Missive daily, and for the last year, I've been helping Missive customers uncover all its hidden gems. Today, I want to share the five features that transformed how I handle communication. These aren't the flashy features – they're the practical, everyday tools that can make a difference.

1. Merging Email Threads

You know when someone starts a new email thread about something you're already discussing in another thread? This used to drive me crazy. But in Missive, you just drag one conversation onto the other, and they merge into a single thread. Everything stays in order, nothing gets lost, and suddenly all your context is in one place.

Real-world examples where this shines:

• When a customer replies to an old email instead of the original thread for the same issue
• Multiple customers reporting the same issue
• Getting quotes from different suppliers
• Project discussions that branch off and need to be reconnected

Pro tip: You cannot undo the merging. BUT you can move messages of merged conversations to new private or shared ones.

2. Your Sidebar, Your Rules

At first glance, customizing your sidebar might not sound revolutionary. But trust me – it's like finally organizing your desk after years of chaos.

Here's what makes it special:

• Move your most-used mailboxes to the top
• Hide the stuff you rarely touch
• Group things however they make sense to YOU
• Create separate sections for different projects or clients

Here's how different teams use this:‍

Support Teams:

• Support Team Inbox at the top
• Urgent issues section with labels
• Team chat of the Support team
• Archived mailbox hidden but accessible

Sales Teams:

• Hot lead labels front and center
• Separate sections for each pipeline stage
• Quick access to Sales team room
• 'Follow-up' label visible pinned

Project Managers:

• Project-specific inboxes grouped
• Client communication sections
• Team room easily accessible
• Deadline-sensitive items labels

Pro tip: You can also create whole new sections. Just drag an item on top of the +More button in the sidebar.

3. Type # and Save Hours

This feature is really powerful: inserting canned responses inline. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Just type a hashtag followed by your response name, and boom – your full message appears right where you're typing. No more copying and pasting, no more digging through templates.

My team's favorite uses:

• #hi: Personalized welcome messages for new email requests
• #followup: 'Thanks for reaching out'
• #lmka: 'Let me know if you need anything else, I'd be happy to help'
• #meet: Inserts a link with my Calendly availability link
• #thanks: Thank you messages with next steps

Power User Tips:

1. Create variations of common responses (formal vs casual)
2. Include variables for personalization
3. Set up team-wide responses for consistency
4. For intensive-use phrases, use short, memorable hashtags
5. Create responses in multiple languages

4. The Command Bar (Ctrl/Cmd + K)

If you learn one keyboard shortcut in Missive, make it this one. Press Cmd+K on Mac (or Ctrl+K on Windows), and you've got instant access to pretty much everything.

Things you can do from the command bar:

• Create new emails, events, or tasks
• Access settings and preferences
• Switch between 1:1 rooms
• Search for specific messages
• Manage rules and labels
• Open contact books
• Set a status
• And much more!

If I were to time-track myself for a week with and without using the command bar. The difference? About 3 minutes saved each day just from reducing mouse usage and menu navigation. Compound this to a year, and you'll see how powerful it can be.

5. Custom Thread Names That Actually Make Sense

This last one's simple but brilliant. You can rename your email threads to whatever you want.

Smart ways to use this:

• Add project phase indicators (e.g., "Brand Design - Phase 2 Feedback")
• Include priority levels (e.g., "URGENT: Server Issue Resolution")
• Add dates for time-sensitive stuff (e.g., "Q4 Planning - Due Oct 30")
• Tag conversations by department (e.g., "HR: New Hire Onboarding - Sarah")

Putting It All Together: Power User Workflows

The real magic happens when you combine some of these features.

Here's how I handle an inbound request from big leads:

1. Pin 'Big Leads' label to the sidebar
2. Merge all email communication and Calendly invites
3. Use the command bar for quick navigation between my other tasks

For support teams, try this workflow:

1. Merge support requests from the same customer
2. Rename threads with issue types and status
3. Use canned responses for common solutions
4. Organize sidebar by priority levels

The Impact on Your Daily Work

Let's talk numbers. Depending on your use case, after implementing these features across your team:

• Email response time will drop by at least a few minutes per day
• Context switching will be reduced significantly
• Team coordination will improve

Getting Started

Don't try to implement everything at once. Start with the feature that addresses your biggest pain point:

• Drowning in split conversations? Start with merging
• Spending too much time on repeated responses? Focus on creating/using inline canned responses
• Can't find anything? Organize that sidebar
• Lost in endless threads? Start renaming conversations

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Give them a shot. Start with one, get comfortable, then move on to the next. You might be surprised at how much time you save.