Tommi's Scribbles
The Best iOS and iPadOS Email Client Review
- Published on 2022-02-26
Email in an integral part of modern communications. If you are in the Apple ecosystem, Apple Mail has you covered on the macOS side. While there are some third party options, there's hardly any reason to use them on a Mac. However, the case is much different on iOS and iPadOS. While researching for the options, half the articles are just brief summaries of the top search results for "mail" on the AppStore and seem to lack any actual testing of the apps.
Grudgingly going through the email apps, I decided to save you the trouble and give you a summary of what the best email app for your iPhone or iPad is.
Email Apps that definitely don't fit the bill
Email applications that can't be trusted
Right off the bat, I will eliminate applications that have trust issues. This includes apps such as Edison email, Spark, all the paid gmail apps, and other sketchier looking email apps. This includes apps that stopped receiving updates as they don't want to show the App Privacy, such as Nine Mail and TypeApp.
Email applications that don't support all account types
I also want a one-stop shop for all my email accounts instead of having the official Gmail app for gmail, the official Outlook app for Microsoft and so on. This eliminates apps such as Yahoo, Citrix Secure Email, Boomerang, and other ones that only support a handful of email account types.
Email applications that look like they have been abandoned
The app should also look like it is still alive. This step eliminates Unibox and would also eliminate the Nine Mail and TypeApp if they already hadn't been eliminated earlier.
Email applications that require you to create new accounts
The client should also not tie you in to anything external. That eliminates Hey and OnMail, which require creating accounts with them (but otherwise look like nice clients). Newton also gets eliminated, since I don't want to create an account to use my email accounts.
Email applications that try to be chat apps
The app also shouldn't try to reinvent the wheel. This eliminates apps such as Spike. Email messages are not supposed to be like chat. That is what chat applications are for.
Email applications that are for teams
And finally, this is for personal email. There is no need for collaborative features for this. So out the window goes Missive and friends.
Email applications that are unreliable
This category includes to popular ones, Airmail and Canary Mail. Both seem to have screwed users over with pricing changes (first it has been premium, then changed to subscription model). In addition, Airmail looks a lot like the Twitter client Aviary, where the developer is more focused on making fancy looking features instead of creating a stable and solid experience.The contenders
This leaves us with quite a slim selection: Chuck Email, Boxer Workspace One, Microsoft Outlook, and Apple Mail.
Apple Mail
Apple Mail comes pre-installed on all iPhones and iPads. And it is a decent app. However, it lacks severely compared to the Apple Mail on a Mac. Specifically, it does not have the ability to create rules. Or to at least utilize rules created on the Mac version of Mail. This severely gimps the usefulness of the app for multi account use as you lose color coding.
VMWare/Airwatch Boxer Workspace One
This is the app I would like to love, but just can't. The app is made by a reputable company. It has nice settings and features. It has enough options to make the app feel yours.
Yet, Boxer Workspace One suffers from severe issues, such as only syncing email for the last 30 days (Booked airline tickets over a month ago? Tough luck.) and calendar for the past 6 months. The app also doesn't actually sync your Google calendar even if it asks for that Gmail permission. Oh and did I mention the notifications don't work. You have to open the app to see if you have new messages.
In addition, the pricing of the app is confusing. The app is part of the Workspace One suite. Yet, you can download and use the app from the App store without having a license to Workspace One. Will the app stop working after a month? Will it actually require a payment? Hard to tell.
As such, as much as I would like to, I can't recommend the app.
Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft Outlook is probably the obvious choice for anyone in a Microsoft environment. For Apple users, it is less so. The app is well done though very formal and a bit un-Apple-like. While the basic inbox view show only emails from the last 30 days, the search can find older emails unlike Boxer Workspace One. However, the calendar department is where the app falls short: it only syncs the calendars off the apps connected, whereas Boxer Workspace One allows using local calendars. This is a minor difference though and the Outlook way will likely make more sense if you connect all accounts to the app.
However, one thing to note is that Outlook does say it tracks you a lot and Microsoft is known to scan user emails. I also doubt Outlook actually uses Apple's machine learning capabilities on device, which means all the smart features in Outlook are thanks to Microsoft scanning your emails.
Chuck Email
Chuck seems a lesser known and a smaller player in the email field. You can hardly find any mention or reviews of it. Which is likely since all top search results just pick the ten first results and write "reviews" based on what the App Store page says.
That is not to say that the Chuck Email app is terrible. In fact, it is rather good. It syncs your whole email history. It has a very fresh look to emails. Chuck only focuses on emails ignoring things that are useless like calendar and contacts.
However, Chuck Email isn't without drawbacks. It is clearly developed by a small team, as the updates are infrequent, and it is missing several customization options. You can't color different accounts with different colors to easily differentiate between emails. It doesn't support ActiveSync (though notifications via IMAP come equally fast as Outlook).
The App is also the only one on the list that clearly requires a subscription to get the most out of. This is fine since they are upfront about it and the cost isn't huge. The company also has been around for a while and has other products, so the app likely won't die anytime soon.
Like Outlook, Chuck Email might also be scanning your emails for advanced features as they proudly promote being powered by IBM Watson. The company does say they follow GDPR rules and the privacy terms seem at least as good as everyone else's. But that's not to say a scandal like with Edison couldn't happen.
Summary: The Best Email App for iPhone and iPad
All this said, the summary is there is no good email app for iPad and iPhone at the start of the year 2022. Several apps come close, and depending on which way the apps are developed, one could become the one email app to rule them all. So far the closest is Outlook, but I think I'm just going to live with the limitations of the native Mail app and hope Apple updates it with the next major iOS and iPad update this year.
Or maybe I'll just code my own.