Phil Gyford

There’s a beta version of Eudora 6 out for Macs (Windows coming soon). I’ve been using it for a day so far and it’s working OK for me. It features:

• Automatic spam filtering — much faster than the otherwise excellent SpamSieve. It learns over time, but does a pretty good job straight off, and third parties will be able to alter it with plug-ins.
• A “content concentrator” — this apparently filters out unnecessary cruft from messages/threads and shows you the important stuff. But it doesn’t seem to be functioning yet and I’ve no idea what form it will take.
• A drawer showing all your mailboxes on the side of each mailbox window.

I’ve no idea why the last item is worth shouting about, but it is one of the few OS X-style features of Eudora. Aside from getting a visual makeover (to help sell it to those blinded by the prettiness of other choices) it could do with contextual menus, the ability to use OS X’s Address Book and a handy “number of unread messages” flag on the dock icon. It’s powerful and I’ve used it for years, but it’s been lagging behind other choices for a long time.