Is Mail for Business Use?

Question

I'm trying to get my e-mail to integrate more closely with my various Mac Apps. Right now I am on Thunderbird but have been a little unhappy about the complicated programming needed to move it from machine to machine and in archiving older mail etcetera.
Ideally I'd have something that links to a Project Management Software, iCal, Address Book and the like.
However I have thousands of contacts and a large archive of mail to handle.
Should I expect Mail to be able to handle whatever is thrown at it or is there a limit on mwhat I should expect?
Thanks for any help.
- Jon

Answer 1

Greetings,
Ideally I'd have something that links to a Project Management Software, iCal, Address Book and the like.
Mail automatically links with iCal (To do items) and Address Book (contacts). As to project management software, you would want to contact whatever company makes your software to find out if it has a direct tie in to Mail before switching.
However I have thousands of contacts and a large archive of mail to handle.
_Mail can import Thunderbird mail boxes: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mail/4.0/en/9920.html.
_Contacts are handled by Address Book.
You can export your contacts from Thunderbird as Tab Delimitated format and then import them to Address Book.
Should I expect Mail to be able to handle whatever is thrown at it or is there a limit on mwhat I should expect?
Mail is a robust email program. At home I monitor 5 separate email accounts (both POP and IMAP) without issue (over 50 emails a day).
That said I can see 2 potential areas of issue with your scenario:
1.) You would be bringing over a large mail database from a different mail program. If there is already a damaged file(s) in that database, it will be copied into Mail which could affect overall performance (Not much way around this other than to import the Thunderbird mail boxes and see what happens. This would also be a concern in any other email program you might try.)
2.) You mention you have a large archive of mail. Any mail program will eventually slow down as your mail database gets larger and larger. Deleting un-needed messages is a chore, but is good maintenance. Mail includes an "archive" feature. If you want to keep older messages but not have them sitting in Mail's active memory (which can impact performance) you can archive them and tuck them away. You can go back to your archive to retrieve those messages should you need them at some future date.
Hope that helps.