Mozilla Thunderbird - 2.0.0.23

Without the ability directly to import Apple's 'Address Book' or mail/settings from 'Mail,' Thunderbird has too big an overhead to make it worth trying. Shame - it seems capable.

I wanted to use Mail.app and did for many years but it's handling of Gmail IMAP in Leopard became very slow and buggy for me. It also lost the trademark "bling" sound when new mail arrived. Actually it did it sporadically. Such a letdown.

I tried all sorts of things to get better performance from mail.app and got nowhere so I decided to give thunderbird a shot. Gmail IMAP support is excellent and mailboxes load quickly. I couldn't be happier.

Yes I have lost some functionality but not enough to make me switch back to mail.app. Thunderbird has been a tank in terms of stability and it has speed. I wish it had better Growl support but overall, I'm a satisfied customer.

I recently obtained an Intel Mac running Leopard; my old computer was a G4 desktop running Tiger (OS X 10.4x). Apple’s Migration Assistant happily transferred my old app’s and data files, so I was running Thunderbird 2.0.0.19 on the new machine just as on the old one, including settings, messages, add-ons, etc. I had been accustomed to Thunderbird periodically checking for updates and informing me of such, then installing them. I had seen no notifications since running TB on my new Leopard/Intel machine. Note that in Leopard what one sees in applications has changed to integrate the help system with Leopard’s built-in Spotlight search software. Just by coincidence in viewing a Version Tracker page I became aware that there was an update of TB to 2.0.0.21. Curious as to why the TB copy on my new machine hadn’t alerted me of this, I discovered that the "check for updates" entry was grayed out, and in the Preferences the check-mark for "automatically check for updates" was similarly grayed out (though there was a faint check mark in the box). Ergo, TB 2.0.x.xx can no longer automatically check for updates under Leopard, at least if my machine is any indication. Therefore, other Mac Leopard users who encounter this will have to periodically visit Version Tracker to get updates.