MailMaven: The Email Client for Mac Power Users (Sponsor)

My thanks to SmallCubed for sponsoring MacSparky this week.

When Apple pulled the rug out from under third-party Mail plugins, a lot of power users lost tools they depended on. SmallCubed’s MailSuite (MailTags, Mail Act-On) was one of the big ones. Rather than walk away, the SmallCubed team did something ambitious. They built their own email client from scratch.

MailMaven is that client, and it’s built specifically for Mac users who want more control over their email without handing their messages to someone else’s servers. Your mail stays on your provider and your computer. Nothing gets routed through a third party. If you care about privacy, MailMaven also supports end-to-end encryption via PGP.

The feature set reads like a wish list for anyone who’s ever outgrown Apple Mail. There’s a powerful tagging system that goes well beyond labels. You can attach dates, notes, and colors to messages. The rules engine is extensive, giving you fine-grained control over how incoming and outgoing messages get sorted. Smart mailboxes and fast search make it easy to find anything in your archive.

If you’re coming from Apple Mail, migration is seamless. And if you want to go deep, Joe Kissell wrote two books on the app, “Get To Know MailMaven” and “Take Control of MailMaven,” both included free with your purchase.

A couple of things worth noting on the roadmap: version 1.1 is coming at the end of the month and will add POP support. AppleScript support is in the works for version 1.2 later this year. MailMaven will also be featured on ScreencastsOnline in upcoming episodes.

MailMaven is a one-time purchase that includes the first year of updates and data syncing. You can keep using the app indefinitely, and extended maintenance plans are available if you want continued feature updates down the road. No subscription required.

MacSparky readers can get 20% off their purchase with coupon code MACSPARKY2026 at checkout. That includes the first year of updates and data syncing. The offer runs through the end of March.

Check out MailMaven →

Mac Power Users 841: Robot Assistant Field Guide

This week on Mac Power Users, Stephen and I go deep on the robot assistant system I’ve been building with Claude Cowork. We cover the whole journey — from why chatbots never quite delivered on their productivity promises to the combination of skill files, MCPs, and managed agents that finally made AI genuinely useful for the donkey work of running a creative business. I walk through practical examples including automated file renaming, email processing, sponsor invoicing, and podcast post-production pipelines. Stephen also shares his new Studio Display XDR setup and we dig into Perplexity Computer as another emerging option. Fair warning: I also confess to switching back to Gmail, so prepare your hot takes.

Episode Links

This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:

  • SaneBox: Take back control of your inbox.
  • Ecamm: Powerful live streaming platform for Mac.

The Case for an Ultralight Mac

The MacBook Neo is here, and it’s already obvious it will be a massive hit for Apple. People are going to buy so many of these. It will be transformative and bring lots of new users into the Apple ecosystem.

But I want to talk about what the Neo isn’t. If you’ve been waiting for Apple to make a truly ultralight Mac, something more premium, smaller, and yes, more expensive, the Neo isn’t that machine. The Neo is about accessibility and volume. It’s the MacBook for everyone.

I want the other thing.

Apple has made ultralight laptops before. The original MacBook Air was a revelation when Steve Jobs pulled it out of a manila envelope in 2008.

But every ultralight Mac has been held back by the same problem: Intel. Those chips ran hot, throttled under load, and demanded compromises in battery life that made the “Air” name feel like a warning label as much as a product category.

That constraint is gone now. Apple silicon changed everything about what’s possible in a thin enclosure.

The M-series chips run cool, sip power, and deliver performance that would have seemed absurd in an ultralight just five years ago. The engineering that makes the current MacBooks Air and Neo possible is the same engineering that could make something even more ambitious.

Think about it. Apple has covered the pro market with the MacBook Pro lineup. The Neo is about to cover the mainstream and budget-conscious buyer.

But there’s a gap at the top. A premium ultralight for people who travel constantly, who want the absolute minimum weight and footprint, and who are willing to pay for it. A MacBook that weighs two pounds or less, with a stunning display and all-day battery life. Not a compromise machine. A showcase.

The technology is ready. Apple silicon was basically designed for this. The question is whether Apple sees the market opportunity, or whether they think the Air (or whatever it becomes post-Neo) already fills that slot.

I don’t think it does. There’s a difference between a laptop that happens to be light and a laptop that’s built from the ground up to be as light as physically possible. Apple used to understand that distinction. The original Air proved it.

With the Neo handling the mainstream, there’s room in the lineup for Apple to go back to that idea. Not an Air. Not a Pro. Something else entirely. Something that shows what Apple silicon can really do when weight is the primary design constraint.

I’d buy one tomorrow.

Pixelmator Pro FTW

I recently realized that I’ve stopped using every photo editing app except Pixelmator Pro. It happened gradually over a couple of years, but now it’s the only tool I reach for.

I love Acorn and respect the other developers making great image editors. But Pixelmator Pro has become so ingrained in my workflow that I don’t even think about alternatives anymore. Whatever I need to do with an image, I know exactly how to do it in Pixelmator Pro.

Sometimes the best app isn’t the one with the most features. It’s the one you know so well that it disappears. Pixelmator Pro has become invisible to me in the best possible way.