Unibox, a new Messages-style email client that was first announced in August of 2012, is now available for download as part of a public beta test.

The app is designed to make email more "personal" by organizing emails into a contact-centric view. Unibox's interface is divided into two main panes, with the left side displaying contacts and the right side displaying all messages that have been received/exchanged with a particular person or website.

uniboxemail1
According to Unibox, this chat-like design significantly reduces email clutter by grouping incoming messages from contacts into a single list.

Composing emails with the app is done in a single window, which eliminates separate compose windows utilized by existing apps like Mail. All attachments sent to and received from contacts are readily available, and attached media is presented in a grid view.

unibox2
Unibox supports all IMAP accounts and works with both Mountain Lion and Mavericks. The full Mac app is expected to be released at the end of September, and ahead of release, users can sign up for the beta on the company's website. Beta will last until the Mac app debuts.

Top Rated Comments

pgiguere1 Avatar
139 months ago
Seems like a weird timing considering personnal email addresses are getting less and less used for human-to-human communication, and more and more for advertising or various automatic notifications from websites.

Of course I can't speak for everyone but it seems to me that social networks and text messages are where most human-to-human communication is done nowadays. This could have been a good concept 10 years ago.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Michael Goff Avatar
139 months ago
installed and used it for 1 minute. uninstalled and got back to airmail. email shouldn't be listed by contact, but by subject. sparrow died so airmail is the new king.

Am I the only one who just uses the mail.app?

What makes airmail so much better?
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
seamer Avatar
139 months ago
It doesn't support Exchange
Google's IMAP is detected properly

I have two accounts configured in mine, and there's no way to quickly see which mailbox I'm looking at. There's a lack of folders... And I can't drag mail from one box to another
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
vanc Avatar
138 months ago
Does it support mail threads? Without that, we cannot really use in a business environment as emails may have multiple people involved.

Anyway, mail.app is the only email client I'm using on Mac. It works fine for me since 2007 when I started using Mac. Just the vanilla app. No plugins.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
curmudgeon32 Avatar
139 months ago
Seems like a weird timing considering personnal email addresses are getting less and less used for human-to-human communication, and more and more for advertising or various automatic notifications from websites.

Of course I can't speak for everyone but it seems to me that social networks and text messages are where most human-to-human communication is done nowadays. This could have been a good concept 10 years ago.

Sometimes email is the right medium, sometimes not. I have conversations with people across various media (email, texts, Facebook messages, the occasional Twitter DM).

What I'd like is a single app or system or something that can work across multiple streams so that you click on a contact and see everything from that person, regardless of how it was sent.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
teejaysplace Avatar
139 months ago
Looks great for those with at most ~10-20 contacts.

It groups things by day first, then by contact. So you'll see all the emails that you received from John The Boss today, then the ones you received from him yesterday, etc. I suppose if you receive 500 emails from 200 different people each day, then this isn't the organizational system for you. But for those who work on small teams, I can definitely see the upside.

When I'm working on a project, I find I'm paying closest attention to the people directly involved, while others remain in the periphery. So I enjoy knowing right off the bat that I've received 5 emails from my boss and 3 emails from the Assistant Director. It's a lot easier than trying to read back over endless threads of text.

But I also need to file emails accordingly, beyond just the sender. Like if something is a receipt, it needs to go under purchasing, regardless of the sender. After using the program this morning, I didn't see an obvious way to do that. I also found I have to right click each time I want to delete a message (pressing the Delete key won't do it.) And if it's one thing busy office workers hate, it's extra clicks.

Overall, the idea has significant upside, but the execution isn't 100% there yet.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

iOS 18 Siri Integrated Feature

iOS 18 Rumored to Add These 10 New Features to Your iPhone

Wednesday April 24, 2024 2:05 pm PDT by
Apple is set to unveil iOS 18 during its WWDC keynote on June 10, so the software update is a little over six weeks away from being announced. Below, we recap rumored features and changes planned for the iPhone with iOS 18. iOS 18 will reportedly be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, with new ChatGPT-inspired generative AI features, a more customizable Home Screen, and much more....
apple id account

Apple ID Accounts Logging Out Users and Requiring Password Reset

Saturday April 27, 2024 12:41 am PDT by
There are widespread reports of Apple users being locked out of their Apple ID overnight for no apparent reason, requiring a password reset before they can log in again. Users say the sudden inexplicable Apple ID sign-out is occurring across multiple devices. When they attempt to sign in again they are locked out of their account and asked to reset their password in order to regain access. ...
macos sonoma feature purple green

Apple's Regular Mac Base RAM Boosts Ended When Tim Cook Took Over

Friday April 26, 2024 6:34 am PDT by
Apple used to regularly increase the base memory of its Macs up until 2011, the same year Tim Cook was appointed CEO, charts posted on Mastodon by David Schaub show. Earlier this year, Schaub generated two charts: One showing the base memory capacities of Apple's all-in-one Macs from 1984 onwards, and a second depicting Apple's consumer laptop base RAM from 1999 onwards. Both charts were...
maxresdefault

The MacRumors Show: Apple's iPad Event Finally Announced!

Friday April 26, 2024 8:31 am PDT by
On this week's episode of The MacRumors Show, we discuss the announcement of Apple's upcoming "Let loose" event, where the company is widely expected to announce new iPad models and accessories. Subscribe to The MacRumors Show YouTube channel for more videos Apple's event invite shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Apple CEO Tim...
ipad pro 2022

Apple Event Rumors: iPad Pro With M4 Chip and New Apple Pencil With Haptic Feedback

Sunday April 28, 2024 6:19 am PDT by
In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman outlined some of the new products he expects Apple to announce at its "Let Loose" event on May 7. First, Gurman now believes there is a "strong possibility" that the upcoming iPad Pro models will be equipped with Apple's next-generation M4 chip, rather than the M3 chip that debuted in the MacBook Pro and iMac six months ago. He said a ...
maxresdefault

Apple Announces 'Let Loose' Event on May 7 Amid Rumors of New iPads

Tuesday April 23, 2024 7:11 am PDT by
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...