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
151 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
151 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
151 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
151 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
151 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
151 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

AirPods Pro 3 Mock Feature

AirPods Pro 3 Just Months Away – Here's What We Know

Friday April 18, 2025 5:16 am PDT by
Despite being more than two years old, Apple's AirPods Pro 2 still dominate the premium wireless‑earbud space, thanks to a potent mix of top‑tier audio, class‑leading noise cancellation, and Apple's habit of delivering major new features through software updates. With AirPods Pro 3 widely expected to arrive in 2025, prospective buyers now face a familiar dilemma: snap up the proven...
iphone 17 air dummy unbox therapy

iPhone 17 Air's Extreme Thinness Demoed in New Video

Tuesday April 22, 2025 10:22 am PDT by
Apple plans to release an all-new super thin iPhone this year, debuting it alongside the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max. We've seen pictures of dummy models, cases, and renders with the design, but Lewis Hilsenteger of Unbox Therapy today showed off newer dummy models that give us a better idea of just how thin the "iPhone 17 Air" will be. The iPhone 17 Air is expected to be ...
iphone 17 dummies sonny dickson

iPhone 17 Air Almost as Thin as Its Buttons, New Images Show

Thursday April 24, 2025 2:14 am PDT by
If you missed the video showing dummy models of Apple's all-new super thin iPhone 17 Air that's expected later this year, Sonny Dickson this morning shared some further images of the device in close alignment with the other dummy models in the iPhone 17 lineup, indicating just how thin it is likely to be in comparison. The iPhone 17 Air is expected to be around 5.5mm thick – with a thicker ...
ipad air windows 11 arm

M2 iPad Air Runs Windows 11 ARM via Emulation, Thanks to EU Rules

Tuesday April 22, 2025 5:01 am PDT by
A developer has demonstrated Windows 11 ARM running on an M2 iPad Air using emulation, which has become much easier since the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) regulations came into effect. As spotted by Windows Latest, NTDev shared an instance of the emulation on social media and posted a video on YouTube (embedded below) demonstrating it in action. The achievement relies on new EU regulatory...
iphone 16 pro models 1

17 Reasons to Wait for the iPhone 17

Thursday April 17, 2025 4:12 am PDT by
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models simultaneously, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 17 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect from Apple's 2025 smartphone lineup. If you skipped the iPhone...
iOS 18

iOS 18.5 Includes Only a Few Changes So Far

Monday April 21, 2025 11:00 am PDT by
Apple seeded the third beta of iOS 18.5 to developers today, and so far the software update includes only a few minor changes. The changes are in the Mail and Settings apps. In the Mail app, you can now easily turn off contact photos directly within the app, by tapping on the circle with three dots in the top-right corner. In the Settings app, AppleCare+ coverage information is more...
iPhone 17 Pro Blue Feature Tighter Crop

iPhone 17 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 13 New Features

Wednesday April 23, 2025 8:31 am PDT by
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of April 2025: Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...