I’ve been using Gmail IMAP for my jaredatchison.com mail for over a year. Google App for your domain is nothing short of fantastic. You get to use Gmail on your domain, get the use the pretty web gmail interface, and also get to tap into Google’s fine tuned spam filtering.

The downside is when you try to use IMAP instead of POP3. Things get funky – real fast. This is not a application problem, but is because Google IMAP is very non-traditional in the way it handles labels as folders as well as some other quirks.

I love the Gmail web interface, but at the same time I need a stand alone application. I use the OSX address book and need an application that can tap into that. If I want to use the Gmail web interface my only option is to regularly export my address book and import it in Gmail – something I shouldn’t have to do.

That said, I have tried a few mail apps for OSX and figured I would share my results.

Mail.app

I love Apple’s built-in Mail.app and have been using it since I switched to OSX full time over 2 years ago. It’s fast and sexy. Unfortunately it does not play nice with Gmail’s IMAP workings. If you want to use Mail.app be prepared to do a fair amount of searching to figure out the best tricks to get it working sort of working. Mail.app’s downside is handing Gmail’s labels-instead-of-folders method. From my expereince it can get ugly. At one point in time I had a configuration that worked well enough to use, but things such as my Sent folder often got out of sync just ended up causing a nightmare.

Have Snow Leopard? Good luck. I made the upgrade to Snow Leopard hoping the newest version of Mail.app improved on things. In reality, it actually got worse. A quick search revealed the new Mail.app is even more difficult to get working with Gmail IMAP. After reading this I decided not to waste more time tricking things to work right and started looking for other options.

Mailplane

If you have used Google Chrome – which means you own a PC since there is still no official Mac release (they say by year end!) – you might have played with the ability to create a “stand alone app”.  This is what Mailplane does but with a plethora of extra features. What extra features?

• Drag and drop attachments
• Use multiple Gmail accounts
• Get new mail notifications (Growl)
• Send screenshots
• Enjoy Gmail shortcuts
• Integrate with OmniFocus

If you want a stand-alone app and like the Gmail interface this app is likely for you. I used it heavily for a month (there is a free 30 day demo) and had no problems at all. Ultimately I decided not to use it because, since it is still based on Gmail’s web client, there is no address book integration.

Thunderbird

The last app I tested out, and the one I decided to ultimately stick with (for now) was Mozollia Thunderbird. I’m all for open source and use Firefox, so it seemed logical.

First I tested Thunderbird 2. This is the version you get if you just go to the main website and download. It worked, but wasn’t pretty, seemed very aged, and again – no address book support.

Then I began to Google. What is this? Thunderbird 3 you say? OSX Address Book support? Completely redesigned interface? Works with Gmail? I got excited fast.

Well here I am 2 weeks later happy to report that I am using Thunderbird 3 Beta 4 preview and it’s kicking ass and taking names. Gmail IMAP is working with minimal tweaking. Just download T3 beta 4, setup your account using the Gmail IMAP Thunderbird 2 instructions, and finally tweak a few things to follow the recommended IMAP Thunderbird 2 settings.

Hopefully this might help anyone who has been trying to get a Google IMAP usable in OSX.