Richard Shapiro's free MailConverter can convert into Eudora mailboxes a number of mail formats, including messages from America Online, eWorld, LeeMail, MacEMail, cc:Mail (limited support), VMS mail (limited support), Pine, Elm, and files saved from various newsreaders, including NewsWatcher. MailConverter also will break up mail digests into individual messages. MailConverter supports drag-and-drop and is rather flexible in terms of dealing with strange headers.
ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/pub/tidbits/tisk/util/
All of these POP- and SMTP-based email clients discussed in this chapter are all fine and nice, but what if you want to run a mail server? Glenn Anderson's free MailShare is your answer. It runs on a Macintosh with a permanent Internet connection. It sends and receives mail destined for your site, storing mail for multiple users in POP mailboxes. It's easy to set up and configure for basic use and for simple mailing lists, and works extremely well, even on a relatively old Mac like my SE/30. If you need a mail server, you won't do any better than MailShare. You can get the latest version from the URLs below. The Web URL is actually a full tutorial and informational page on how to set up and maintain MailShare. Highly recommended!
http://www.winternet.com/~carl/mailshare/mailshare.html
If you're interested in being notified when you receive new mail, check out NotifyMail, which is $18 shareware from Scott Gruby. The main limitations to NotifyMail are that it requires a dedicated Internet connection (it doesn't make much sense to use it via SLIP or PPP, since you can just have Eudora check when you connect) and it also requires either a full Unix or VMS shell account, or a POP account on a MailShare server (the SMTP server for the Mac). NotifyMail uses an extension to listen for Finger connections, and when it hears one for the appropriate person, it notifies you in any one of a number of user-configurable ways. NotifyMail seems well thought out; I simply can't imagine being notified 200 times a day that I have new mail.
Some people dislike using the same signature all the time, but it's a pain to create them manually or continually swap signature files in and out of your Eudora Folder. Jonathan Baumgartner's free Signature Randomizer may be just what you need, in this case. It randomly picks a signature file from a set you create each time you run the program, and it can optionally pick one and then quit, making it an ideal candidate for your Startup Items folder (since then it would pick one on each restart, then quit).
I try to avoid talking about Mac programs that rely on a Unix shell account because it adds a level of complexity that frustrates many people. However, MR Mac Software's $25 VacationMail utility is so well done that I couldn't resist. When you go away on vacation, you use VacationMail to set up an auto-reply to all mail on your account (it's really easy), and VacationMail configures a Unix program called Vacation for you. VacationMail is smart enough not to reply to mailing lists and only sends one message per week to any address, so people won't be bothered by your vacation message if they're just trying to leave mail for when you return. VacationMail is well thought out and elegant, so if you have a full Unix shell account and are interested in a vacation message capability while you're away check it out. You can even register by email.
This chapter may have seemed a little biased toward Eudora, but hey, it really is the best MacTCP-based email program available today. And that's the free version -- the commercial version is even better. If you're the contrary sort, feel free to check out the other email clients I mentioned (especially Emailer, once it's available), and also consider exploring some of the email utilities I worked through.
When you're done, let's move on to the hustle and bustle of Usenet news, where there's no clear choice of which newsreader is the best.