If you’re looking for a replacement for the standard Apple Mail application head over to:
And take a look at Mailsmith. It is an email application created by Bare Bones Software the authors of the popular programmers’ editor BBEdit and Yojimbo, “Your effortless, reliable information organizer for Mac OS X.”
Mailsmith was formerly a commercial application but Bare Bones has decided to release it for free. It’s no longer a Bare Bones product but it will apparently still be supported and updated as a standalone product.
There is one very importatnt thing to be aware of if you do decide to evaluate Mailsmith: if an email account’s type (displayed just below the account name in Mail’s Accounts list) is POP rather than IMAP then any mail retrieved through Mailsmith may be gone should you decide to switch back to Apple Mail. This will typically not be the case for .Mac/MobileMe accounts but probably will be true for Comcast and Verizon accounts.
There’s no guarantee you’ll like Mailsmith more than the current Apple Mail, but at least now it’s free to try and you might find it suits you.