Alternatives to MailMate
A keyboard-driven IMAP email client for macOS with Markdown composition and advanced search. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
MailMate
A keyboard-driven IMAP email client for macOS with Markdown composition and advanced search.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as MailMate.
Apple Mail
The email app built into macOS, iOS and iPadOS for reading mail from several providers.
Apple Mail is free and preinstalled on Mac, iPhone and iPad, but lacks MailMate's Markdown composition and extensive keyboard control.
Thunderbird
Mozilla’s desktop mail client, with calendar, contacts and a unified inbox, funded by donations rather than ads.
Thunderbird is free and open source on macOS, Windows and Linux with built-in OpenPGP, calendar and contacts, but its interface can feel dense.
Airmail
A customisable email client for Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Vision Pro.
Airmail is a customisable freemium client for Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Vision Pro with unified inboxes, snooze and custom actions.
eM Client
A polished commercial mail, calendar and contacts client for Windows and Mac, with a free tier capped at two accounts.
eM Client adds calendar, tasks, notes and PGP and S/MIME on Mac and Windows, with a one-time purchase and a free tier capped at two accounts.
Spark Mail
Smart email client that auto-sorts inboxes and drafts AI-powered replies.
Spark Mail adds automatic inbox categorization, AI replies and apps for Windows and mobile, with AI and team features on a paid plan.
Mailspring
A desktop mail client with a unified inbox, snooze and send later, whose paid tier adds read receipts.
Mailspring is an open-source GPL-3.0 Electron client for macOS, Windows and Linux with unified inbox, snooze and send later, but heavier than a native client.
Betterbird
A Thunderbird fork that ships extra fixes and features, and can run side by side on the same profile.
Betterbird is a Thunderbird fork with extra fixes on Windows, Mac and Linux, but its Mac build ships in English only and needs a language pack.
NeoMutt
A fork of Mutt that gathered decades of scattered patches into one maintained terminal mail client.
NeoMutt is a free open-source keyboard-driven terminal client for macOS and Linux, but it needs a hand-written configuration and an external HTML viewer.
Also worth comparing
These listings name MailMate as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.
Canary Mail
Encrypted email client with AI features across desktop and mobile.
MailMate is a macOS-only IMAP client with OpenPGP and S/MIME support and keyboard control, without AI features or mobile apps.
Mimestream
A native macOS email client built specifically for Gmail using the Gmail API.
MailMate is a keyboard-driven macOS IMAP client with Markdown composition and OpenPGP support, working beyond Gmail, though its 2.0 version is still a beta.
Superhuman Mail
A keyboard-driven email client for Gmail and Outlook accounts with AI triage and scheduling.
MailMate is a keyboard-driven macOS IMAP client with Markdown composition and powerful search, without AI triage and with a beta 2.0 version.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
GPG Suite
An OpenPGP toolkit for macOS for encrypting, signing and verifying files and email.
aerc
A terminal email client with vim-style keys, an embedded terminal for composing, and first-class support for git email workflows.
Mailbutler
An email productivity extension for Apple Mail and Gmail with tracking, mail merge and signatures.
notmuch
A fast, tag-based email indexing and search system used from a terminal or text editor.
