Gmail has been my primary personal email provider since 2003. I have also had over a dozen Google Workspace accounts over the years. I understand the issues with an ad company managing my email and keeping me locked into their ecosystem. But I love Gmail’s Vim-inspired shortcuts, its powerful search capabilities , its advanced filtering, its storage, and of course, its availability in just about any browser.
But browsers often end up where attention goes to floundering. I want to give e-mail a certain space, a visual context as the place where I communicate. And by the way, I want to avoid Gmail’s pesky nudges to use Meet, Spaces, or whatever else this week’s messaging is aimed at. So let’s see which Mac desktop client is best for those with Gmail.
Options I don’t use
The easiest option is to just use… well, Gmail. The Gmail web application has gradually become a wonderful desktop client. You can set up offline storage (in Chrome or Edge browsers) and desktop notifications, and make it the default mail handler for your browsers (and, with a bit of fiddling, Mac OS itself). You can even launch Gmail in its own app-style window using a third-party app like Kiwi or Unite, or just the Create Shortcut menu in a Chrome-based browser.
But I avoid browsers, even isolated ones, and Google’s desire for deeper interaction. So what about Apple Mail, the client you already have? That’s what Apple Mail is: it’s there. It’s made for the widest range of Mac users, not for Gmail users. It doesn’t have built-in Gmail keyboard shortcuts and doesn’t offer much customization (not without some serious customization, anyway). Apple Mail lets you archive Gmail-style and has some useful filtering and privacy tools, but if you want “Gmail: desktop client”this is not it.