The far left pane is for navigation with options to view your inbox, starred items, drafts, sent items, the important label, as well as your customized labels. Mailbird’s main window is divided into three columns.

Clicking on the “Mailbird” title in the upper-left corner reveals a basic menu where you can set the app’s options, find a keyboard shortcut cheat sheet, open the help menu, or send feedback. In the top left corner is a pencil icon for composing new mail, and to the right of that is a search icon. Taking its design cues from Sparrow, which was acquired by Googlelast July, Mailbird presents a stripped down, basic interface.

Outlook 2013, by comparison, also lets you see Facebook status updates and recent activity from your friends. In my tests, doing this just displayed the Facebook profile pictures of all your correspondents. Mailbird will also ask you to connect the app with your Facebook account. Mailbird doesn’t support Google’s two-factor authentication method, so anyone using Google’s added security feature will have to use an app-specific password instead of their regular credentials. You just enter your name, e-mail address, and password, then Mailbird starts working-no need to mess around with server settings, ports, or any other typical desktop mail client technicalities. Signing in to Mailbird is as simple as setting up Gmail access on a mobile device.

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