I’ve been a long time Airmail user. It was the closest thing I could find to replace the now-defunct mail client Sparrow (RIP), but for as long as I’ve used Airmail, it’s never been without bugs. Even worse, those bugs seem to not get fixed. Over time, those bugs, mainly one where emails I’d already processed continued to show back up in my Inbox, started to irk me.

So when the Sweet Setup posted an update to their Best Third-Party Email App earlier this month, they caught my attention at just the right time.

They didn’t change their pick. It’s still Spark, and I’d tried Spark in the past but decided to stick with Airmail. Still, I found myself wondering if there wasn’t something to their recommendation.

It turns out, Spark’s grown up a lot since the last time I tried it – enough so that I’ve made the switch.

So what’s good?

• I haven’t come across any bugs. Once I clear my inbox it stays clear.
• Readdle, Spark’s developer, is a pretty big name, so I don’t feel worried about their ongoing development.
• Search is incredible. I even have a few saved searches which have replaced any need for creating project-based labels.
• It doesn’t add a bunch of extra labels to my Gmail accounts.
• The smart inbox is pretty handy, although it does require some tweaking to get the training right.

And the bad?

• Spark doesn’t have all the integrations Airmail had. For instance there is no DevonThink integration. (Airmail’s wasn’t great though.) Moreover, it doesn’t have a native share extension so I’ve been relying on Hook more to create links. It does have integrations with both Things and Evernote though.
• Both Spark and Airmail create links using their own URL scheme so I’m finally experiencing the pain of email links being tied to a mail client.
• I’m still trying to wrap my head around the Seen behavior in Spark’s Smart Inbox. If I happen to view an email without processing it, I wish Spark would leave it alone. Instead it either removes it from your Smart Inbox entirely or moves it to a Seen section.

So I’m still trying to understand Spark, but overall, I am happy with the decision to switch. What mail client do you use?