I spent a little time today thinking about how to make my email usage better. For awhile, I have been using gmail rather than a desktop client, because it’s faster, and gmail’s keyboard shortcuts are awesome (though Postbox may be different). But email as just another tab in your browser can get a little distracting.

There are a lot of alternatives out there; I first found Mailplane, which looks pretty cool, but $25 for a desktop gmail app seems steep. It has some useful features like multiple accounts, easy attachments, and integration with the os, but not worth it to me. Next was the free adobe air apps (geemail and gmdesk). GM Desk took awhile to install, so I wasn’t happy from the start. Other than that, it’s Gmail in it’s own window, but some of the interface elements don’t seem to work.

Here’s what I ended up doing:

I have been using Safari 4 as my default browser since the final version was released. It’s fast. Firefox is great for extensions, but all I really use extensions for are gmail. So naturally Firefox becomes my desktop mail client. I use scripts to view my mail and calendar on the same screen and Better Gmail 2 for some other little tweaks. Naturally I also have Offline Access so I can use my email when I’m not connected. To top it all off I changed the Firefox icon to a Gmail icon. I’ll try this for a few days and see how it works; so far I am very happy with it.

Gmail Screenshot