On the whole, users like Apple’s default OS X Mail. Nevertheless, when Google bought and swallowed insurgent email client, Sparrow, earlier this year, the move was received with much angst — people liked Sparrow, a lot. Now, with the arrival of Inky, there’s a new Mac email client — fail, good enough, better? Let’s find out.

Inky is the creation of Arcode and the promise here is that you can try this email client without worry or risk. And, what will that get you? Here are some bullet points about the app:

• Sort by Relevance — Sorts your mail by how meaningful it is to you
• Smart Views — Focus on mail from personal contacts, social sites, daily deal sites, and subscriptions separately
• Add Any Account — IMAP or POP account
• Easy Sorting and Filtering — Two controls in comparison to the complex table layouts seen in other email clients
• Email Syncing — Keeps your emails intact and in sync with your email provider
• Your Mail Is Safe — Your mail provider stores your mail, and your mail never touches Inky’s own servers
• Smart Sending — Helps you make sure you send your email from the right accounts to the right person by, for example, suggesting people to add to an email if you frequently include them in a group
• Inky is Flexible — You can always “go back” after trying Inky
• Integrated with Notification Center
• No new email address, simple setup

Inky: Hands on

I just discovered Inky and have only set it up for use. That said, I configured an Inky account and my existing email accounts — iCloud, GMail, GoDady — that I use daily and the process took less than five minutes.

Whereas Inky easily and apparently correctly discovered the GoDaddy server settings without my assistance, it was still having trouble getting mail therefrom as this went to press. Perhaps not Inky’s fault.

[u] Inky and/or GoDaddy worked it out as m

Another issue I ran into is that pressing Command + N did not open a new missive. In fact, all of the commands under the File menu — Open New, Close, Save, Save As — are grayed out, though you can still mouse your way through the process.

In a similar vein, there isn’t a keyboard shortcut, grayed out or otherwise, for sending an email.

Fail? Don’t go there, at least not yet. Inky was operating in stealth mode until a day or so ago, getting outed on Hacker News. So, clearly the app isn’t ready for primetime.

However, one fundamental issue about Inky that does give me pause — it’s an app with an HTML interface that becomes nonfunctional when you’re not connected to the internet. There needs to be an offline mode.

Interestingly enough, Inky seems to based, at least in part, Mozilla’s all-in-one SeaMonkey browser. Hmm.

But enough from me. Go get Inky and give it try yourself, and then sound off in the comments below…

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