PowerMail - 6.0.3

I've used PowerMail since they EOL'ed 'Emailer' - that's a good few years. But I've now had to walk away from it, in favour of Apple's 'Mail.' I've gotten so tired of the length of time PowerMail takes to load, patchy IMAP support, vestigial HTML support (yes, I prefer plain text, too - but the times they are a' changing), the weird attempts at synchronization with Apple's 'Address Book' and the inadequate user guide. This email client used to rock - and seems still to be only one capable of using a single database for multiple users. The overhead just got too high - sorry guys.

Long time user and a very satisfied one.
Most of all, the best search function I have seen yet
The application IS updated regularly and the feature set is not bloated by unnecessary functions.

Now I must admit that the imap support and the price are questionable

PowerMail is a startlingly primitive application; i don't know why anybody would pay $50.00 for (as i once did) it now that Apple has (finally) rendered their free Mail.app stable and reliable. I'm surprised that a mail client with such an incomplete feature set and cobbled-together feel has stayed on the market as long as this one has. the PowerMail 6 public beta just came out, and it looks and, to all appearances, functions exactly like 5.x (the developers don't seem to understand the intended significance of a major-version upgrade); the 6.0 beta is even giving me the same cryptic, indecipherable errors when trying to send mail from my correctly-configured account as did 5.x. PowerMail is ugly and relies on third-party plugins to give it basic mail-client functionality. i mean, seriously: the Ford Motor Company retired the Edsel for a reason; the developers of this app should follow suit.

I have used PowerMail on and off for several years (was tough weening from Eudora, and then got a new iMac and an upgrade of Filemaker that had Mail.app integration, which I had to develop for inhouse for a bit.. don't like Mail.app, I have to admit). I have a paid-for V.4 on board, which I can certainly start using again, but...

The point of this review is to express some serious concerns with the business model the dev team of this app seems to employ. I did the online formwork to buy an upgrade to v.5 early Saturday morning last. Got no response, other than a page telling me that 'a real human being' would deal with my order. The word "promptly" was on that page, btw... I printed it out, so I have proof. Anyhow... nothing all day Saturday. Or Sunday. Forgiveable. I suppose there are people out there with bonafide lives... I have read about such being possible, in any event.

However, by noon today (Monday) I started getting concerned,and sent a webform inquiry via the CTM-dev website. Nothing for several hours. So I sent an email to both email links mid-afternoon. Nothing. It is now late evening , so fully 3.5 days after I gave them my CC data, and I have heard not a damn thing from this outfit.

So here's my point: we live in a time when customer satisfaction, service, and prompt responses are more and more the norm. Certainly, one would expect a company that makes it's living on email to have a clue regarding email response times... but CTM-Dev seems not to have that clue (and that is confirmed amply by the most cursory overview of documents googled on the matter) . That being the case, it really doesn't matter how good the software is. If the company doesn't have the common curtousy and plain smarts to take my money, smile, and say thank you.. why should I give them my money? They've pissed me off. They've pissed off lots of folk, apparently. THAT business model creates a growth curve that is one way... down. I am gonna keep looking... calling my CC provider tomorrow to claw back this deal.

Geeks may be good coders.. .but this crew SUCKS as business people. I cannot recommend dealing with them.

I use PowerMail for business. The attachments are easy to drag and option-drop into any folder anywhere. Just open the folder in the finder, drag it near the bottom of the screen, select all of the attachments, pull them up over the message, then hit the option key and drag them down into the folder. They are then in your attachments folder in your powermail folder in your home folder library (which is where I keep all my powermail files except the program)

Plus, it has extremely fast and flexible searching that makes it possible to find an invoice sent out or a reply to a query quickly. Plus it is text only, so you don't leave trails.

BUT.... don't use the spam feature. Use webmail and visually inspect the contents of your mailbox on the server. If the server doesn't have a spam filter, simply "select all" the messages in webmail, then unselect the ones you want to keep, then hit delete. Once you've cleaned your mailbox on the server side, download into powermail. I actually use Apple Mail as a backup... into Apple Mail first leaving messages on server, then into PowerMail deleting from server.