This year has been a literal dumpster fire, but we all still have lives that we need to live, as hectic as they can be. We know — you have meetings, appointments, events, errands, and so much more on your plate, and managing everything can be quite difficult. That's why it really helps to have a digital calendar to help you track everything on your schedule. Here are some of our favorite calendar apps on Mac.
Apple Mail is a reliable & solid email app for Mac that is a great option for someone just starting off with email. It comes bundled with macOS and integrates well with the major email service providers. Mail app works best when used with iCloud and automatically sets up the iCloud email account when you set up your iCloud account on your Mac. Boxy is a standalone email client for Inbox that brings the service outside of your browser and adds a bit more customization and features, making it one of the best mail apps for Mac. Once you're inside the app, you'll immediately notice the familiar design that looks almost exactly like Inbox. Apr 02, 2019 Some of the best email apps for Mac provide email encryption and other security features. Different mac mail applications range in their prices. Your needs and budget will help you find the best email app for you. If the price is a concern, try not to worry. There’s plenty of great options for free email clients for Mac users. Oct 04, 2018 Airmail (iOS, macOS) Best email app for customizing your inbox. Airmail started out as a simple email app, but over time, it grew with features, and today it's one of the most powerful email client apps available. Customizable notifications make sure you only get alerts when you receive emails from your most important contacts. Sep 30, 2018 If you want the best email app for macOS, and you want more features than Apple Mail, I would have to recommend Spark for Mac. It has a great design, a broad feature set, and a clear business model. Aug 26, 2018 If you want an email app with a lot of knobs to tinker with, Airmail is going to fit in with your workflows. The best day to day headphones for iOS and macOS. Apple Stores across the US.
Fantastical
Fantastical has been around for several years now, and even though it has switched to a subscription model, it remains the favorite calendar app for many of us here at iMore.
With Fantastical, you are getting a fully functional desktop app that also has a menubar version for quick access. You can customize your views for daily, weekly, monthly, and even yearly, and your agenda of events appears in the side bar as well. If you are running multiple calendars at once, things can get gnarly — Fantastical lets you customize sets of calendars to view at once, and they can even be location-based, so things don't get too crazy when viewing. For example, you can have work calendars viewable while you're at work, but personal ones when you're at home.
The natural language input is also top-notch, as the app easily understands and fills out all of the appropriate fields while you type out something as simple as 'Have lunch with Mom at In-N-Out on Tuesday at 2 p.m.'
While Fantastical does have a subscription model now, previous users of Fantastical 2 get most of the features unlocked, so it's still very functional. If you're new to Fantastical, there is a trial to test it out to see if you like it before deciding on a subscription. The free version has restricted features.
Fantastical 3
Fantastical has a beautiful interface that's easy to use and plenty of robust features.
Source: Busy Apps FZE
Another great option is BusyCal. This app automatically syncs up with any accounts that you're using with the Mail app on Mac, and everything will be up-to-date. The design of the app itself is simple and clean, but there are plenty of powerful features as well. One of those is the Smart Filter, which lets you create rules for what events are shown. For example, you can set a filter to only show birthdays or repeating events. BusyCal also lets you have multiple Smart Filters set up at once, making it easier to organize your hectic calendar.
Other features of BusyCal include a menubar app, travel time, natural language input, and a ton of customization options including font face, size, colors, time format, and much more. If you don't like Fantastical's subscription model, BusyCal and its one-time cost is an excellent alternative to consider.
BusyCal
BusyCal packs in a ton of useful features and is highly customizable. It also has a single, one-time cost.
Source: Qbix
If you are satisfied with the default Calendar app on Mac, but just want a companion app to go with it in the menubar, then Calendars is worth a look. This free app lives in your menubar, acting as a viewer for the calendars that you've set up in Calendar. It serves as a quick way to see your schedule and agenda in a single glance, so you aren't able to add new events from this app. There is an optional subscription that gives you more features, like adding Google Calendar accounts and backgrounds.
Calendars
Calendars lives in your menubar and serves as a companion to the default Calendar app.
Source: Fanatic Software
Need your calendar app to be more than just a calendar? Then Informant is the one you're looking for. This powerful app rolls your calendar, task manager, and notes into one, giving you everything you need in a single glance. The task manager element of Informant is also very flexible, working with you, whether it's GTD, Franklin Covey, or a simple and basic task list. Informant also has support for multiple filters, so you can easily switch and access the important stuff whenever you need to.
The Classic Environment is supported on PowerPC-based Macintosh computers running versions of Mac OS X up to 10.4 'Tiger', but is not supported with 10.5 'Leopard', or on Intel-based Macintosh computers running any version of Mac OS X. The Classic Environment is a descendant of Rhapsody's 'Blue Box' virtualization layer, which served as a proof of concept. Classic environment for mac mojave.
Informant
Informant rolls your calendar, task manager, and notes app into one.
Source: Higher Bar LLC
If you want your calendar to live in your menubar, but need a bit more functionality than Calendars, then InstaCal is worth considering. This app also lives in your menubar, so it's not a full blown app like the others. However, it keeps your calendar a click away, so you can view your events, agenda, and even tasks, as well as having the functionality of adding new events and tasks directly. InstaCal works with any of the calendars that you already have set up in Calendar, or you can manually add unlimited accounts from Google, Office 365, and Outlook. It also has Dark Mode support, customization options, and more.
InstaCal - Menu Bar Calendar
InstaCal lives in your menubar but still gives you plenty of functionality, including the ability to add events and tasks.
Source: AntLogic
Do you want a calendar app that is simple and lightweight? Mini Calendar fits the bill perfectly. It gives you access to your calendars three ways: on the desktop, from the Dock, and from the menubar. When it's on the desktop, it is always-on and sits above the wallpaper. From the Dock, you just need to click on the icon and it will bring up the calendar as a popup. Mini Calendar is configurable in terms of color, shortcut keys, and it can show you sunrise and sunset times too. It's just a light and fast way to get to your calendar when you need to.
Mini Calendar
Mini Calendar is a lightweight calendar app that you can access from your desktop, Dock, or menubar.
Source: Vincent Miethe
Rounding out the list is Calendar 366 II, which is another menubar calendar app. However, it's one of the more fully featured ones, which is quite impressive. With Calendar 366 II, you get full access to your calendar and reminders right from your menubar, and you can change the view to year, month, week, day, agenda, or even list. It has eight themes for light and dark modes, custom colors, calendar sets, custom font sizes, Spotlight integration, travel time, Alfred and LaunchBar support, and so much more. To pack all of the features of a full on application into just the menubar is pretty amazing, and the cost of the app is not too much either, all things considered.
Calendar 366 II
Calendar 366 II is one of the most feature-packed menubar calendar apps there is.
Keep your schedule organized
These are just a few of our favorite calendar apps on the Mac App Store. What are your favorites? Let us know in the comments!
We may earn a commission for purchases using our links. Learn more.
Up and up
Analyst says iPhone 12 will cost more even without charger and headphones
Jeff Pu, an analyst at Chinese research firm GF Securities, predicts that Apple will raise the price of the iPhone 12 by at least $50.
Get Canary Mail
Your path to a focused and securely encrypted inbox.
Having an email client installed on your Mac can make a huge difference for your productivity. After all, your web browser is a portal to distraction, and any time you boot up Chrome or Safari to check on your inbox you’re in danger of losing at least 10–15 minutes to reading the news, browsing Facebook, or going down a “wiki-spiral.”
That said, not every email client is built the same. While macOS comes with the Apple Mail app by default, it might not necessarily be the best fit for your needs.
Get a bundle of best email clients
With Setapp on your Mac, you get access to the list of best email tools. Experiment with all of them flexibly — until you find the one.
Best Email Apps For Mac 2020
So what’s the best email app for Mac then? Depends on what you do. You might be a power user, comfortable with running macros to make the most out of your email experience, or you might just want something that works out of the box without having to fuss with settings. Security could be your top priority if you work with sensitive materials, or you might just need to easily manage multiple accounts.
Whatever the case, there are a few things to keep in mind when evaluating all email clients: How fast is the setup process? How easy is it to use? Is it secure? What are the sorting options for your inbox? Is it nice to look at?
Let’s sift through some top email apps using this questioning framework.
Apple Mail: Best email client for Mac by default
What makes Apple products great is also what limits them: because Apple needs to make apps that are so easy to use that anyone can use them, much of what they produce is quite basic in functionality. Which is fine — just make sure you know what you’re getting with the Apple Mail app.
You definitely get clean, user-friendly design that’s in line with all the other Apple software. In addition, you get outstanding integration with macOS and iOS, including the use of the Notification Center and the ability to send emails via the Share function in other apps.
Although adding multiple email providers, including iCloud and Gmail, is easy — there have been some bug reports around using Microsoft accounts, such as Hotmail or Live. Maybe the old Apple and Microsoft feud is not over yet?
In step with the times, Apple Mail app makes it effortless to add emoji to your emails from the shortcut bar right in the composing email window.
Honestly, for most people, the Apple Mail app will absolutely be enough. However, if you’re the kind of person who has a lot going on in their inbox, there are not too many ways to filter through all the messages quickly and pin down important conversations, or simply delete unwanted mail.
What’s great:
Clean design
Easy-to-use Mac mail
Fantastic Mac and iOS integration
Not so great:
A history of bugs with Microsoft accounts
Lacking high-powered organizational tools
Mozilla Thunderbird: Best free email client for Mac power users
Perhaps most widely known for their web browser, Firefox, Mozilla’s other major product is their email client, Thunderbird. Hailed as the best free email app on the market at various points throughout its long history, where does Thunderbird stand in 2020?
Unfortunately, Thunderbird’s design shows its age. Blocky and utilitarian, it’s quite a bit uglier than most modern email clients. But look below the surface and you’ll discover some very handy features.
For one, you have the option of tagging emails as they come in. Just add tags like Personal, Work, and ToDo and suddenly conversations become much easier to find later on. Even better, create your own tags to make the classification system as specific as you need it to be.
Thunderbird features an integrated calendar and chat client, both of which are indispensable for work, and boasts great privacy features — like not automatically displaying images (hence stopping pixel trackers) when you open emails (can be changed in Preferences).
Best Email App For Macos Mac
Overall, Thunderbird has some powerful value propositions, but is also a bit ugly and unintuitive. So, if the looks don’t bother you, give it a try. Otherwise, you’re better off using another option.
What’s great:
Tagging is powerful and helps you organize your emails quickly
Precise search
Not so great:
Not the prettiest interface
Unintuitive user experience. It takes time to figure out Thunderbird’s best features.
Kiwi for Gmail: Best Gmail app for Mac
If you don’t use Gmail, you can skip this one: Kiwi isn’t for you.
But for all other Gmail for Mac users, Kiwi for Gmail is an excellent Mac mail option. A desktop app with the look and feel of your browser email inbox, Kiwi features the ability to combine multiple accounts and filter your inbox with Focus to organize correspondence by date, importance, attachments, and more.
In many ways, Kiwi is Gmail’s missing ingredient, making the best free email provider online also the premier Gmail app for Mac. What’s even more exciting is that Kiwi lets you run G Suite apps like Google Docs and Sheets outside of your browser. Being able to leave Chrome or Safari behind and get some focused work done alone makes Kiwi worth the install.
What’s great:
Kiwi makes Gmail better
Combine multiple Gmail accounts
Focused work outside the browser with Google Docs
Not so great:
Doesn’t support non-Gmail accounts
Spark: Best Mac email client for a clean inbox
A relatively new email client for Mac, Spark is based on an intriguing premise: What if your inbox was able to sort itself out based on your priorities but without your input?
Spark’s Smart Inbox algorithms are able to instantly identify whether an email is personal, work-related, or just a newsletter you signed up for years ago because it gave you a coupon but have since completely forgotten about. This kind of artificial intelligence works so well that Apple gave Spark an Editor’s Choice Award a few years ago.
In its quest for widespread adoption, Spark doubles down on usability, offering quick, one-click replies with generated text based on how you typically respond to emails and powerful automatic functions to clean up your inbox in seconds. Besides, the app is beautifully designed and very easy to use.
Of course, for Spark to have all of these powerful features, complete access to the content of your emails is required — which might raise some privacy-minded eyebrows. However, a lot of people would be happy to offer that in return for ease of use. So, if this notion doesn’t bother you, Spark might well be the best free email app for Mac.
What’s great:
Clean design
Smart Inbox organizes your unread emails
Best Email App For Macos Mac
Could be the most professional email client for Mac
The only non-Apple email client with the Apple seal of approval
“Send later” feature lets you schedule emails
Frequent updates
Not so great:
Requires more of your data than other email clients
Canary Mail: Best security in an email client for Mac
New to the Mac email client game, Canary Mail’s outstanding list of features still makes it a worthy contender.
Canary Mail prioritizes security and privacy, providing every email you send with end-to-end encryption, so that if your data is ever intercepted it can’t be read. Even better, you don’t have to change any settings to do this — everything is set up right out of the box.
Add to that a fantastic design and some excellent filtering options, such as natural language search, smart tags, algorithmic bulk cleaner, and intelligent typography enhancements, and Canary Mail might well be the best email app for Mac, period.
What’s great:
Great design
Smart filters
Intelligent typography
Automatic end-to-end encryption
Available to all email providers
Algorithmic bulk cleaner
Macos App Develop
Unibox: Most innovative email client for Mac
The most exciting thing about Unibox is how it fundamentally changes the way you see your inbox. Instead of organizing everything by date received or subject, Unibox structures every conversation around contacts. That way your inbox resembles your text messages or messaging app, making everything intuitive and easy to navigate.
The developers of Unibox worked hard on making their email client for Mac the easiest to use on the market — and it shows. The design is stunning and you can easily respond to any email in the same window, get previews of attachments right there, and just scroll to remind yourself of all the conversations you’ve had with that person.
Best Macos Apps 2020
What’s great:
Email like messages
Intuitive and easy-to-use design
Works with all major email providers
Best Macos Software
Best of all, Canary Mail and Unibox are both available for a free seven-day trial through Setapp, a subscription platform with over 150 top Mac apps chosen to make your day more productive and fun. Now can’t you wait to go back to emails already?