Messaging and Email

Mac OS X comes with applications like Mail.app for email and iChat for instant messaging (IM), but some of their features can be limited. Apple's iChat instant messaging application, for example, only supports the AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) network, ICQ, MobileMe and XMPP, but not services like MSN Messenger (Live Messenger), Yahoo!, Google Talk and others. Enter Adium.

Adium is an instant messaging client that's available in 27 different languages and supports a wide range of services, such as AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, Jabber, ICQ, MySpace IM and Facebook chat. With the release of the beta for version 1.4, using Matt Legend Gemmel's MGTwitterEngine library, the Adium developers have also added support for Twitter. It's built on Mac OS X's Cocoa API and features a heavily customisable user interface (UI), integration with Apple's Address Book application, encryption and file transfer support. Thanks to support from a large user community a massive number AdiumXtra's are available to customise Adium's message display style, emoticon set, icons, sounds and much more. If you're a heavy IM user, Adium is a true must have application. (Download - License: GPLv2)

MSN and Live Messenger users who don't want to use Microsoft's Messenger for Mac 7 and may not need the extra protocol support in Adium should give aMSN a try. aMSN, short for Alvaro's Messenger, is an easy to use MSN Messenger clone that includes support for several different plug-ins and skins. aMSN's features include webcam and file transfer support, custom emoticons and support for 40 different languages. (Download - License: GPLv2)

Mozilla's Thunderbird email client is one of the best on any platform, and the Mac version is no exception. Thunderbird includes everything you might expect in an email client, from message tagging to advanced search support and from customisable folders to message templates and advanced security features. For security, Thunderbird automatically blocks remote images in emails, includes a junk mail tool to filter out annoying spam messages and provides phishing protection by alerting users when a link appears to be taking you to a different web site than indicated by the URL in the message. Thunderbird is fully customisable and supports a large number of extensions and themes that add support for new features and can change how you interact with your messages. The current stable release of Thunderbird is version 2.0.0.22, however, Thunderbird 3 Beta 3, the latest development release, adds several improvements, including tabbed email support and Smart Folders. (Download - License: MPL/LGPL/GPL tri-license)

GPG Mail logo For users that want, or need, to send and receive encrypted mail on their Mac, GPGMail may be the right choice. GPGMail is a free plug-in for Apple's Mail.app that provides a front-end to GnuPG (GNU Privacy Guard) and allows users to compose and receive encrypted and signed messages. GPGMail doesn't actually contain any encryption code as it's a client for a GPG executable. Mac GNU Privacy Guard is a port of GnuPG for Mac OS X that is required for GPGMail to run and provides the encryption functionality it needs. The latest release is Mac GPG version 2. (Download - GPGMail License: BSD, LGPL) (Mac GPGv2 License: GPLv3)