Should i switch from Entourage 2008 to Mail

AdamMay · Jun 15, 2010

Hi All,

I am constantly getting annoyed about how slow Entourage can be. I have 1000's of emails and 100's of contacts and it is always so slow.....

I use this as my main email client for business and it is vital that it works efficiently, and it does all i need it to do.

I only use the following features in Entourage
Messages
Address Book
Calendar

So i assume these can be replaced with
Mail
Address Book
iCal

Now what are all your views on using Mail for business - will it offer me a simple, clean & fast solution

I am reading some posts about exporting data from Entourage to Mail and it look straight forward, but as my Entourage database is already at 28GB!! i want to make sure that Mail can handle this without crashing and causing a disaster for me and my business.

Let me know your thoughts

Thank you

Jaygray · Jun 15, 2010

The deal breaker for me was the way Mail marks messages as read. Messages are instantly marked read the moment they become highlighted, even if it's only for a fraction of a second. I also receive dozens of emails a day. I like to scroll through them and read them in the order that I choose. You can't quickly scroll through messages in Mail with the arrow keys without marking them all read.

Even more annoying--Suppose you receive 2 messages. You read the first one and delete it. As soon as you delete the message, by default the second message is highlighted--AND INSTANTLY MARKED AS READ. If you only receive 2 messages, you can deal with this, but if you receive 50 and are picking them off one by one, I guarantee you'll miss a few, because when you delete number 36, number 35 will be marked unread.

For any who have gotten used to this behavior, Outlook/Entourage allow you to set the duration of how long a message is highlighted before it is marked read. It allows you to scroll through your messages without their status being changed.

As much as I dislike certain things about Entourage, it's the only option for me at this time. Outlook for Mac will be out later this year, and it promises some much needed improvements.

But feel free to try out Mail. Exporting your data from Entourage to Mail will not remove it from Entourage. Export it, try Mail for a few days and see what you think. If it doesn't work, you can also delete the messages from Mail and go back to Entourage.

lesarmitage · Jun 15, 2010

Jaygray said:
The deal breaker for me was the way Mail marks messages as read. Messages are instantly marked read the moment they become highlighted, even if it's only for a fraction of a second. I also receive dozens of emails a day. I like to scroll through them and read them in the order that I choose. You can't quickly scroll through messages in Mail with the arrow keys without marking them all read.

Even more annoying--Suppose you receive 2 messages. You read the first one and delete it. As soon as you delete the message, by default the second message is highlighted--AND INSTANTLY MARKED AS READ. If you only receive 2 messages, you can deal with this, but if you receive 50 and are picking them off one by one, I guarantee you'll miss a few, because when you delete number 36, number 35 will be marked unread.

For any who have gotten used to this behavior, Outlook/Entourage allow you to set the duration of how long a message is highlighted before it is marked read. It allows you to scroll through your messages without their status being changed.

As much as I dislike certain things about Entourage, it's the only option for me at this time. Outlook for Mac will be out later this year, and it promises some much needed improvements.

But feel free to try out Mail. Exporting your data from Entourage to Mail will not remove it from Entourage. Export it, try Mail for a few days and see what you think. If it doesn't work, you can also delete the messages from Mail and go back to Entourage.

In Apple Mail setup a Smart Mailbox for ALL UNREAD mail. Better experience.

Jaygray · Jun 15, 2010

lesarmitage said:
In Apple Mail setup a Smart Mailbox for ALL UNREAD mail. Better experience.

Will I be able scroll through the messages in the Smart Mailbox without them all being marked read?

If I delete a message in the Smart Mailbox, will the message next to it be instantly marked read?

AdamMay · Jun 15, 2010

Sorry to interrupt but what is the most efficient way to export data from Entourage to Mail?

Jaygray · Jun 15, 2010

I believe you just start the Mail app and it walks you through it.

mknabster · Jun 15, 2010

I personally like Entourage a hole lot better than Mail. Anyways, I would wait until the new office comes out for Mac, they will be replacing Entourage with Outlook, supposedly giving it more functionality with the Windows version.

Aptmunich · Jun 15, 2010

Mail.app is far from perfect, but I much prefer it to Entourage. I'd definitely give it a try!

AdamMay · Jun 15, 2010

well i have been using Mail for 5 hours now and i really like it, it is very simple, clean and fast - just what i need

One problem that i did encounter is that as i was importing the emails from Entourage using Mail's import from Entourage function - it didnt import all my messages, about 40% actually.

I am worried to do it again as it might duplicate emails.

is there a way to delete duplicate emails?

So far so good, but this is my only thing that i mneed to sort out.