This plug-in turns Apple Mail into a powerful productivity platform

By

MailButler turns Apple Mail into a bona fide productivity platform.
MailButler turns Apple Mail into a bona fide productivity platform.
Image: Feingeist Software

This post is presented by Feingeist Software.

Ah, Apple Mail. Every Mac users’ de-facto communications hub, it’s a convenient tool — but it’s not exactly feature-rich. It serves as a catch-all for our contacts and email conversations, but when it comes to productivity, Mail has a lot of untapped potential.

That’s the theory behind MailButler, a plug-in that outfits Apple’s Mail app with a suite of new functions, giving it new life as a handy personal assistant.

It comes in three versions: A free version, which offers many essential features, as well as paid Professional and Business versions, which layer on even more powerful tools for power users and businesses. (When you start out with the free version, you get to try up to 30 professional features for a month.)

Much of MailButler’s bedrock functionality feel like it should’ve been built into the Mac’s Mail app from the ground up. The option to undo a send, for example — there would be no “reply all” horror stories if this capability came baked into Mail. MailButler also lets you unsubscribe from unwanted senders with just one click so you can quickly clean up your inbox.

Why don’t these features come standard in all email platforms?

MailButler adds great new features to Mail

MailButler brings some Gmail-like features to Mail, like contact avatars, emojis and reminders to add an image if you’ve mentioned one in a message. When you attach large files, MailButler automatically uploads them to the cloud and links them in your message. Plus, you can access all your most frequently used mailboxes straight from the menu bar.

Other convenient features are unique to MailButler. If you find yourself in hot pursuit of the elusive work/life balance, for example, the Inbox Pause feature (available in all versions of MailButler) lets you disable certain email accounts based on your working hours.

Another cool and unusual feature is the ability to share a quote from an email message on other applications or services. And to round it all out, MailButler gives you instant access to Giphy’s endless vault of animated GIFs.

MailButler’s pro features take productivity to the next level

Step up to the Professional version of MailButler to add even more productivity tools, like scheduling (so your emails get delivered at the optimal time), tracking (so you know if your email got opened), follow-up reminders (so you won’t forget about an email you sent, even if the receiver did). And if you want to get on the fast track to inbox zero, you can Snooze an email to temporarily make it disappear, only to pop back at a time of choosing.

And customizable email templates and signatures will save you time and help you breeze into a more professional-looking and productive email routine.

All these upgrades turn Apple’s standard Mail app into something closer to what probably should’ve existed all along. When you add abilities like marking emails as to-do items, graphic task managers, read receipts, email templates and scheduled sends, Mail becomes a bona fide productivity platform.

MailButler also makes it easy to connect with cloud platforms like Dropbox, Evernote, Drive, Asana and a bunch more. That’s pretty handy for anybody using Mail as a professional mail manager.

Try MailButler for free

With a new year kicking off, now’s a good time to streamline your workflow. If you’re a Mac user, we recommend giving MailButler a try. There’s a free version that will make your familiar Mail app a lot more useful, as well as Professional and Business editions that layer on more powerful features.

Newsletters

Daily round-ups or a weekly refresher, straight from Cult of Mac to your inbox.

  • The Weekender

    The week's best Apple news, reviews and how-tos from Cult of Mac, every Saturday morning. Our readers say: "Thank you guys for always posting cool stuff" -- Vaughn Nevins. "Very informative" -- Kenly Xavier.