Mailplane: a great way to enjoy Gmail as a desktop application [REVIEW]

I was recently introduced to Mailplane, a great application for Gmail users. I have been using Gmail for a while on Mail.app on my Mac and it has been a great experience. Mail.app is a very lite application that makes it easier to recieve your emails quickly with a notification right in your dock, a seamless experience. However, it does not include all the features in Gmail (of course). Gmail is a great web application that does not only make it easier to read, reply to, and compose emails but it also makes it easier to communicate with friends, read emails as threads, and search in emails, that is in addition to tens of amazing features in the labs. For that reason, I decided to go back to using the web interface of Gmail a week ago, however, I still felt there is a missing link between the desktop application and the web application and Mailplane is that missing link.

It gives you the great features of Gmail (through Gmail’s web interface) with the amazing experience of using a desktop application. Mailplane is a like a browser dedicated for Gmail and it uses the keyboard shortcuts of the service ( a brilliant hack). It is not a free software but it is not expensive (for the record, I am still using the trial, haven’t bought it yet!).

One of the most important things in Mailplane is using attachements. It is very easy to drag and drop attachments, take screenshots and include them in the email, or even include files and images from applications like iPhoto immediately from the Mailplane menu. It is also much easier to manage your contacts through an easy to use interface included in the application.

In addition to all the features above, Mailplane makes it very easy to manage multiple gmail accounts in the same application without the need to sign in and out of different accounts.

What is Mailplane not good at?

Well, there are things that Mailplane is not good at yet and for the record, it is limited because of the limitation of Gmail itself. Gmail is a great product but it is very hard to go through emails you have sent if you do not have internet connection. Mail.app makes it very easy for you to search and go through emails you sent and received previously even without having an internet connection, this is something not possible to do with Mailplane (or Gmail).

In addition to that, Mailplane does not introduce tons of other features which makes its price a little bit expensive and should be reduced a bit.

Overall, Mailplane is a great application that is worth the money (although as mentioned above, it is a little bit expensive). Try it and tell us what do you think. We give it 4/5 stars, how about you?