Eudora, the Mac's Most Powerful Email Client

- 2005.12.01

Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

OWC: We Make DIY Upgrading Easy! Maximize your Apple MacBook / MacBook Pro. Up to 8.0GB Memory, up to 1.0TB HD & More. Easy Guide + Free, Detailed Installation Videos. Click here

Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

In my last column we began discussing alternatives to Apple Mail. We looked at Mozilla Thunderbird, a young, powerful, and promising open-source option.

Now, do you want to take a look at the most powerful Mail replacement on the market?

It's called Eudora.

There are many ways it could be described: a 1,000-pound gorilla, an old-timer, a reliable veteran, etc. Eudora has been under development since 1988, and it's still going strong. This veteran has always offered more raw power than any other email application on the planet, and it kept improving.

Despite MS Entourage's progress, Eudora still beats them all.

Q: Is switching to Eudora worthwhile?

A: If you need advanced features for mail handling, yes.

There is one catch - you have to put up with an interface that is bitterly unfriendly in comparison with all the competition. Really.

Click image for full-sized view

Eudora has had a difficult interface since the beginning, and it barely evolved over time. Its separate windows are no fun to manage, and many of the potential customizations are only known to people who people who have been using Eudora forever and people who really take the time to get familiar with it.

For instance, you would never think that hitting the Command (or Apple) key when clicking on the main toolbar is the way to modify it, since you have learned to control-click (or right-click) on order to get the Personalize contextual menu. Or that clicking on a mailbox-looking button opens a mailbox drawer similar to Mail's.

How can people make Eudora friendlier? There are two ways. Do I as did by being familiar with the software for the last 10 years - or spend time reading the help documents.

If you are ready to learn and don't care much about the poor interface, the beauty of Eudora is that its only limit is taking out the trash, feeding the dog, and giving a massage to the wife. I'm barely kidding.

Eudora uses its own address book, which has a very large number of fields to enter data about your contacts. It uses a time-tested system to create and modify stationery, which lets you create message templates.

Filtering is also very powerful, with perhaps the most comprehensive number of options available, from what criteria should be used to the type of email to be filtered, including outgoing messages.

How can you really use these kinds of features?

You could use the stationery to create a template for messages sent to, say, a client. Then the sent messages would be filtered to a specific folder instead of the regular Sent box. And when you would pull down the Special menu and select Make Filter while one of that contact's messages is selected, you would create a new mailbox with a filter that automatically contains a certain number of pre-filled criteria.

At the same time, the Mood Watch would show an ice block or peppers in your compose windows, letting you know if you are writing an aggressive email. This is useful to keep you in check when you are staying in touch with a contact on a regular basis.

That's the tip of the iceberg. Eudora can easily be compared to Microsoft Word - you will never use 100% of its power, and using half of it can accomplish great things.

Dig in the preferences window, and you will find hundreds of options that let you tailor Eudora's behavior to your liking. The software can produce detailed statistics about your email, including about the efficiency of spam filtering.

Interface customization is the perfect illustration of the philosophy behind Eudora.

Let's take toolbar changes as an example. The Command-click combination is not intuitive, but once you know about it, you can do more than with any other software. You can hit any of the menu elements (not just a small selection of buttons) to add them to the toolbar, in addition to removing buttons or moving them around.

If one specific menu element is particularly useful to you even though it doesn't appeal to the masses, you can still create a toolbar button that includes it. No need for a focus group before getting the option....

Eudora can thank its long and steady evolution for a few things. It has been hugging email standards closely forever, and its interface has been the same for a long time. For users who adopt it, the rare changes make it feel as comfortable as an old pair of socks.

The people at Qualcomm always add features, however. There was a time when Eudora didn't filter spam or support HTML.

At the same time, the software doesn't conform to things like contextual menus, simple tooltips, or pleasant Aqua interface elements.

As you can guess, I can't start making a list of all the things that can be done with Eudora because it would be very long. What you need to know is that Eudora offers you a tremendous amount of power to handle your email if you're ready to accept making sacrifices as far as user-friendliness is concerned.

If you truly learn to use it, you may refuse to use anything else afterwards.

To find out if this is the kind of beast you can tame, I strongly suggest that you download Eudora and start using it in the free "Sponsored" mode.

Link: Eudora

Michel Munger is a journalist who lives in Montréal. He discovered the Mac in 1994, and his work on a PC reminds him every day why he embraced Apple's platform. Munger has also authored some MacDaniel columns.

You can learn more about him on his personal website.

Recent columns by Michel Munger

Thunderbird 2.0: A simple, powerful, free email client, Macinthoughts, 04.25. Mozilla Thunderbird doesn't suffer from feature bloat like most commercial email programs. It puts the focus on doing what you need efficiently.
A decade of progress, Macinthoughts, 04.09. 10 years ago, Windows 95 was a mess, System 7.5 was becoming unstable, and Apple's future was in doubt. Today OS X is rock solid, Vista has learned from Apple, and Apple is a runaway success.
Entourage, the best overall email software on the market, iBasics, 12.08. Microsoft's email client is easy to use, integrates with Office, is sluggish, and can only be purchased as part of Office.
Eudora, the Mac's most powerful email client, iBasics, 12.01. If you're looking for lots of power and don't mind an unconventional interface, give Eudora a try.
More in the iBasics index.

Links for the Day

Mac of the Day: Power Mac G5 Quad, Oct. 2005 - With two 2.5 GHz dual-core G5 CPUs, the G5 Quad was the most powerful PowerPC Mac ever and introduced PCI Express.
Group of the Day: Mac Network deals with all aspects of Mac networking.
November 20 in LEM history: 85: Windows 1.0 - 00: Mac dreams - 01: Stop the upgrade insanity - Good people, good software, good business - The digital lifestyle: Text - 06: To AppleCare or not? - One year with my 'free' Mac mini - 07: Why you want to avoid integrated graphics - Problem with Leopard on a MDD
Support Low End Mac

Recent Deals

Best eMac Deals, 11.18. Used 1 GHz Combo, $100; SuperDrive, $269; 1.25 GHz Combo, $119; SD, $319; 1.42 GHz Combo, $289; SD, $498.
Best Mac OS X 10.6 and Mac Box Set Deals, 11.18. "Snow Leopard", single user, $25; 5 users, $45; Mac Box Set, single user, $139; 5 users, $180; Server, $414. Shipping included.
Best Xserve Deals, 11.18. Used 1 GHz dual G4, $649; 2.3 dual G5, $795; 3.0 4-core Xeon, $1,899; refurb 2.26 4-core, $2,499; new, $2,888; refurb 8-core, $2,999; new, $3,449; more.
Best 15" MacBook Pro Deals, 11.17. Used 1.83 GHz, $750; 2.16, $800; 2.33, $900; refurb 2.4, $1,299; 2.53, $1,449; 2.66, $1,699; 2.8, $1,899; new 2.53, $1,579; 2.66, $1,799; more.
Best Power Mac G4 and AGP Video Card Deals, 11.17. Used 400 MHz, $50; 933 MHz, $80; 500 dual, $60; 867 dual, $90; 1 GHz dual, $150; 1.25 GHz dual, $225; 1.42 GHz, $499.
Best Mac OS X 10.5 Deals, 11.17. "Leopard" upgrade, $80; single user license, $135; 5 users, $173; Mac Box Set, 5 users, $230; Server, 10 users, $340; unlimited, $850. Shipping included.
Best Mac mini Deals, 11.16. Used 1.42 GHz G4 mini, $379; 1.66 GHz Core Solo, $419; 2.0 Core 2, $450; new 2.26 GHz nVidia, $580; 2.53 GHz, $769; Server, $990.
Best iBook G4 Deals, 11.16. Used 12" 1.07 GHz Combo, $210; 1.33 GHz, $298; 14" 1.33 GHz, $398; 1.42 GHz, $479; SuperDrive, $498.
Best iPod shuffle Deals, 11.16. Used 1 GB, $35; 4 GB, $65; refurb 1 GB, $39; 2 GB, $59; new 2 GB, $55, 4 GB, $75. New and refurb prices include shipping.
More deals in our archive.

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

All iBasics articles ©2001-2005 by Michel Munger. Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.