Because OS X has its own Address Book, which integrates with other services such as iChat, the missing Address Book support in Thunderbird 2 was an omission that kept many Mac users from giving it a try. Older versions of Thunderbird had very poor OS X support. Thunderbird is a good cross-platform email client, so if you do use multiple operating systems, perhaps using Thunderbird on all of them makes sense if you want your mail experience to be consistent. If you come from another operating system, such as Linux or Windows, you may be used to other email clients, such as Mozilla’s Thunderbird.

For many, Apple Mail is sufficient for their needs. Mail can handle POP3, IMAP and Microsoft Exchange, provides decent filtering, and integrates with Address Book and iCal (the latter for tasks and TODO items). There are quite a few email clients for Mac OS X, but very few seamlessly mesh with the many features the OS X operating system provides, unless you use Apple’s Mail client.

Vincent Danen takes a look at the Linux-based Thunderbird 3 and compares it to Apple Mail. If you work with multiple systems, a cross-platform email client can be convenient. How Thunderbird 3 works on Mac OS X: Better than Apple Mail?

Best email clients for mac