Hi all
Which email client do you prefer using on your Mac and which do you find easiest to use in terms of general workflow and VO accessibility?
Do you use the native OSX Mail app, MS Outlook, something browser based or something else?
For the past 3 or so years I've been using a iMac, but I still use a Windows PC at work. Pritty soon I'm going to switch to a Mac for work as well and completely stop using Windows.
We use Google mail for business, so on the Windows side I always just access my email through a browser, Firefox or Internet Explorer.
So I'm wondering, will it also be the most user friendly on the Mac side to keep it browser based through Safari, or will it be better to go with the native Mail app or even MS Outlook (if Outlook is at all accessible)?
I'm looking for the best/fastest workflow here and if it makes any difference, I have to work with a lot of email attachments. Receiving and downloading PDF attachments, attaching and sending off emails with attachments etc.
Comments
I like the native Mac Mail app
I find it very accessible and does everything I need. I am too settled in it and do not wish to try anything else. :)
Native Mail application
I also like the native mail application. I only have a couple of issues including the ability to access my address book while addressing a new message. If you need to send messages to a large number of people, you can type in their names and slect from memory. However, it is a challenge to go through the entire address book and slect only certain names. If anybody has a good solution, I would love to hear it.
Secondly, if you need to work with PDF attachments, you will hav no problem attaching them to your message or even opening/saving them from your messages. However, as discussed at other places on Applevis, PDF accessibility on the Mac is not good with VoiceOver. Just be prepared.
Finally, I use the keystroke (VO Shift M) plus keyboard accelerators to perform many actions in mail. This is helpful because there are less dedicated keystrokes than in other mail applications on other platforms. You will want to learn many of the tricks highlighted on Applevis mail guides such as moving messages to favorite folders. As an example, look through the menus and you will find less keyboard commands. This is not a criticism, but merely an observation.
I'll try Mail
Thank you for the replys, pretty much what I thought that people like to use the native Mail app. With the little I used it in the past, it seamed quite user friendly and accessible, so I'll just have to use it more and get more ifficient with it.
I like
I like the native mail app. works well enough for me.
Mail can be a little
Mail can be a little chalenging.
Specifically in long threads of conversations it may be a little hard to locate yourself inside the list of messages. Also for me reading html mail is sometimes not consistent, because the mode where you can use a virtual cursor like paradigm tto navigate which works fairly good on safari is not available, so I can not review text as easily as I would like.
Also saving attachments from e-mail is sometimes confusing. It does work however.
My recomendation is if you have access to office 2016 take a look at how outlook works for you and also the way the native mail client worksand make the choice based on your perception.
A ... and vo fn left arrow is your friend. It will take you to the first item in a window, not the first visible item but first window item. It is incredibly fantastic because if you have access to your e-mail from ioutside your mac and read a liot of messages when you open Mail on the mac it will stay where you left it and pressing left arrow left arrow untill you get to the new messages is frustrating.
Also, it seens that whenever you arrow through the list of e-mails the system will try to render the new mail in the message area. This might make the process of navigating through the list of e-mails slow. I wish we had an efective way of just navigating through the list without generating the events on the system. After all this is exactly what someone sighted does.
It might be possible to achieve that by turning off cursor tracking, but then all the nastiness of vo commands come to the front .... oh well may be they'll implement something like alt down arrow on JAWS to navigate through combos without activating itens ....