My 2022 Mac App of the Year Has Changed Everything

And it’s more exciting than it sounds

I know, I know — I have a tendency to get overexcited about email clients, don’t I?

Email fascinates me, though. It’s one of the oldest forms of digital communication, yet it doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. As much as Slack has tried to become ‘the new email’, very few people have abandoned their inboxes.

I’m a huge fan of email — I always have been. I’ve never understood people who say, “oh, you emailed me? No wonder I haven’t replied — I never check my inbox”. I receive some of the most important opportunities for my business via email; if I’d ignored my own inbox this year, I’d have lost out on a massive chunk of revenue — it’s that simple.

This is why my Mac app of the year for 2022 is an email client. That may not sound particularly adventurous, but Spark 3 has completely changed my approach to email; it has removed inbox anxiety, made inbox zero a reality, and turned email triage into a job I actually enjoy.

It’s not perfect (I’ll get to that later) but there are several reasons it has won me over in 2022.

The ‘to-do list’ version of email

Sometimes, the simplest tweak to an ingrained process can have the biggest impact on the user.

For instance, archiving emails is something we’ve all done for many years. It’s effective when used properly; you simply deal with an email and then file it away for safekeeping.

Spark 3 has done nothing more than swap the word ‘archive’ for ‘done’, and provides a tickbox to instigate the latter for either one or a bunch of emails. The functionality is identical — the emails still end up in your archive folder — but the process feels far more satisfying and, crucially, addictive.

Oh, and I must mention the absolute joy that comes from smashing the ‘Block’ button on new senders who are either trying to sell me their SEO services or attempting to convince me to part with my credit card details in exchange for eleventy billion dollars.

I worry less about email

I always knew I was a bad email user. I’d mark emails as ‘unread’ to ensure I’d return to them later (a perilous tactic that would often fail) and, on the subject of archiving, would rarely forget to do so, thus leaving a messy, disorganised inbox in my wake. This resulted in a constant, nagging sense of email anxiety.

Did I reply to that email from so-and-so yesterday?

Where has that message gone? I swear I saw it a moment ago!

Argh — there are so many unread emails in my inbox but not enough time to revisit them!

How old is the oldest unread message in my inbox?

With Spark 3, all of those worries have gone. The aforementioned ‘done’ tickbox system is addictive enough to keep my inbox tidy, and the way in which emails can be grouped by sender, priority, and type neatly organises messages I’m yet to deal with.

Most importantly, I’ve stopped marking emails as ‘unread’, because I know that any emails that have been left in my inbox will need my attention at some stage. It sounds simple, and you might be screaming at your screen, but remember — I was a terrible email user for an awfully long time.

I haven’t missed anything (to my knowledge)

One of my biggest concerns about email in the past was failing to follow up — or at least keep an eye on — important email threads. These could be sponsor negotiations, outreach for new partners, or important bookkeeping discussions. Losing track of that stuff in a busy email inbox is alarmingly easy.

I don’t want to think about how many email conversations I should have revisited yet have failed to do so, but I know that’s unlikely to happen again. This comes back to my newly tidy inbox, in which I only retain email threads that are still active or I know I’ll want to revisit in the near future.

Spark 3 also offers a ‘set aside’ feature which places emails into a holding pen for future reference. It’s a nice idea, although I’ve found that it quickly becomes a way to semi-archive emails and, consequently, forget about them entirely.

This brings me to a few not-so-wonderful elements of Spark 3.

…it isn’t perfect

Nothing is, right? And, thankfully, Spark’s few failings aren’t particularly major — they’re more the result of a brand-new piece of software (it was pretty much built from the ground up, you see).

Firstly, I’ve experienced some frustrating crashes. These always seem to occur while I’m halfway through writing an email; the app completely vanishes from view and has to be manually re-opened. Thankfully, I’ve never lost my draft, but it’s annoying, regardless.

There are also two peculiar omissions from macOS text formatting. Firstly, there doesn’t appear to be any integration with the system-wide spelling and grammar autocorrect feature. Similarly, Paste and Match Style (something I use constantly to retain consistent text formatting) doesn’t work as a keyboard shortcut, yet it is present in the Edit menu. Both of these features were available in Spark 2 and their absence in version 3 adds enough irritation to each email session to be worthy of note.

If you were an avid user of the calendar feature in Spark 2, you’ll be understandably upset to hear that it isn’t present in the latest version. It wasn’t something I used, but I understand why its absence in Spark 3 might put people off upgrading (although I’m told it’s in development).

Lastly, the new senders section of the inbox, as wonderfully satisfying as it might be, is a bit buggy. The Accept and Block buttons don’t always appear to complete the job, thus leaving the emails to which they were attached within that holding pen. This has caught me several times.

There have been, tellingly, a lot of software updates since Spark 3 was launched, therefore I’m confident that the Readdle team are on the case, but the above missteps definitely need highlighting in an otherwise extremely positive review.

The runners-up

It would be unfair to sign off this blog post without mentioning some of the runners-up for my unofficial Mac App of the Year Award. None of them is as new and shiny as Spark 3, but they have played a huge role in the success and growth of my business this year.

Ulysses continues to be a revelation for someone who writes and publishes daily. I was a long-term Scrivener user, and I’ve also dabbled with iA Writer, Obsidian, and Bear, but nothing comes close to Ulysses for the combination of distraction-free writing, WordPress integration, and the perfect balance of features.

TickTick deserves special mention. I switched to the MKBHD-endorsed to-do list manager from Things 3 earlier this year, and its cross-platform compatibility and surprisingly deep feature set have completely won me over.

Lastly, Day One has again made its way into my life. I’ve journaled, on and off, for many years, and Day One has always been the app I’ve turned to for that task. What impresses me the most about the Automattic-owned journalling app is how true it has remained to its original design ethos; it begs to be used (which is just what a casual journaller like yours truly needs).

What’s your Mac app of the year for 2022? Get involved in the comments!

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Originally published at https://markellisreviews.com on December 15, 2022.