Pros
Great product in theory...love the concept and had high hopes. Used it for over a year off and on
Cons
The memory leak/hogging issues have not been fixed since first identified years ago. They say to not have many tabs open, etc. Doesn't do the trick though. Just having the app open and no accounts logged in, it would use up over 500MB of my free memory. Absolutely horrific in it's memory usage. Combine this with frequent logging out of accounts for no reason and bugs here and there make Mailplane a poor purchase decision even at the price point.
Summary
Needs lots of work on the memory leak issues
Pros
If you use GMail on the Mac you normally have two basic interfaces, Apple's Mail with all of its well known problems, and the browser, which limits the amount of Mac-ification of the experience.
A single example: clicking a mailto: link in a browser will normally launch Mail. If you use a browser to access your GMail, this is frustrating. If you do use Mail, it's slow.
Mailplane bridges those gaps, providing an application experience over GMail. mailto: links fire up a new message on GMail, spell checking works, you have your Address Book with no effort, etc.
Cons
Has problems whenever GMail changes things. And it only works with GMail, so if you have multiple accounts on multiple providers, you may find Mail to be easier to use in the long run.
Pros
When it works...which isn't often...it's a good thing.
Cons
One of my two Gmail accounts will randomly log out, no matter how often I log back in. Frustrating.
Summary
I have had many issues with Mailplane not playing nicely with Gmail. Just this morning, I could not save a draft email and when I wanted to send it, I couldn't. I have two Gmail accounts, and usually only one will work -- when I switch accounts, the other one will continually log itself out, I continue to log in and it will continue to log me out. It is not just the one Gmail account consistently -- it's very random -- but I can't go back and forth between accounts at all. I wrote to Mailplane about this and they were good at getting back at me, but pointed the finger at Gmail.
I don't mind that it's still just a web-based application, but it's frustrating and annoying that I can't use it to full advantage.
Pros
There is nothing much special about this application other than being an individual web browser specifically designed for Gmail.
Cons
Disappointing user interface, no useful known functions that an email client usually has.
Summary
overall it's a waste of money, time and MB on your Hard drive.
Summary
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
Use it daily. Does exactly what it says. Makes my workflow that much simpler.
Pros
Just like using the website. Chat works. The best part is how easy switching accounts is. Once all the accounts are loaded and signed in, all you have to do is double click. Its super amazing. The notification in the menu bar is also great!
Cons
cost money
Summary
if you have $25 dollars (i think) and love GMAIL, it is an amazing purchase.
Pros
Easy connection, not dependent on browser, gets my links anyway.
Cons
Can't find fault yet. Will keep looking.
Summary
Just keep upgrading, so far so good.
Pros
I am a big gmail user, and a big user of email in general, and I work with mulitple email addresses through the day - I this sounds like you, then I totally recommend Mailplane - this is the easily the best program I've ever found for those tasks.
Cons
Not cons so much as a couple suggestions for nice touches, I've added them in the summary instead.
The program doesn't seem to have many cons - but it has a lot of very interesting looking add-on functions that I've yet to play with properly.
Summary
At our house we have around 7 or 8 email business and personal address between us - there tedium of having to check email by signing in and out has long seemed like a unneccessary, time wasing process, mostly due gmail's lack of ability to handle multiple logins across different browers tabs.
This program blends the login/logout handling with the familiar web browser access so you don't need to click on a notifier program to make another program open - it's all integrated as one.
Instead of stating these as cons, I have a couple of suggestions (but I'm not a programmer so...)
1. In the menu bar there is a Mailplane logo and total for unread emails. It would great if there were a way to display a breakdown of the unread email different email addresses - then you create an 'at-a-glance' interface, for different people wanting to see if it's them who has recieved a new email.
2. This is purely GUI pickyness on my part - the 'sliding out from underneath' accounts tab could do with being an on-top thing instead like a regular preferences box. It's a cool trick, but when the window is maximised, it means your workspace suddenly gets shrunk to accomodate the tab. I just prefer choose window sizing for myself, rather than having the program make those choices. Yes - it's picky :)
3. There's this thing in the preferences called 'Growl' just would have like to know what Grown was before clicking on the bottom - a link to their site.
Just little things - It's such a great program.
Our other laptop is a PC so we're encouraged that Mailplane are talking registrations of interest for a PC version - here's hoping they get the interest they need. The 'Family' licensing option means we'll be first through the door if/when they release it. Fingers crossed.
I work as a screenwriter (excuse the 'pitch') and this has really helped get me get some much needed writing time back, and my wife liked it the first time she used it.
There's a yardstick of sorts. :)
Summary
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
A surprisingly useful little app. It's easy to assume that a web browser is the best way of accessing a web-based mail service, but MailPlane adds a lot of extra functionality and is a whole lot easier than trying to manage a gmail account via Mail.app.
I wasn't entirely sure MailPlane was for me when I first started using it, but now I find that I miss the extra functionality whenever I'm reduced to accessing GMail via Safari.
A great little app for the Gmail power user. Maybe just a tad on the expensive side, but useful enough to warrant it, imho.
Summary
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
The developer has been responsive and now MailPlane is working as advertised. It turns out that this application is very well designed and complete. MailPlane makes all the features of GMail readily accessible and easy to use. A really handy application for the heavy GMail user who wants to use this excellent Google service in an true mail-client setting on the desktop. Kudos to MailPlane's authoring team for a developing this a really useful GMail client! An excellent value for the serious GMail user.
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