We see lots of comments on the newsgroups about problems using Entourage, but it has many good features too.
One user recently wrote:
I'm curious as to what people here like about Entourage. I like the interface, and having my calendar, notes, email all in one place. Entourage is also pretty good at managing IMAP accounts, and certainly better than Outlook for that, but it's still pretty lacking, especially since I can't import Windows data (PST).
Get your feelings off your chest about what you like and don't like about Entourage. No Microsoft bashing allowed and no foul language. Hope this is cathartic. We will not be responding to comments. This is just an opportunity for you guys to sound off.
Comments (23)
Blackberry synching with Entourage 2004 used to be quite smooth with PocketMac. No tools to do this with 2008. What a pain.
Pros:
Works with Exchange
HTML formatting good
Cons:
Miserable data structure one HUGE file
Very slow launch
Unstable behavior with Exchange 2003 and security credential - force quit restart at least twice a day
Calendar does not say who else is invited to meetings
Search is poor performer, slow and dumb
Junk filter is poor compared to Apple mail
It's the most un-Mac-like app I use. I can't even do basic things like drag attachments to apps in the Dock. Everything works "wrong," from the typing (no way to turn off the incredibly annoying auto-correct; text selection and manipulation doesn't use OS X standards; etc.) to the incredibly confusing tree view which does not use indentation and has very visually noisy icons. There is (apparently) no threading of messages. It is flaky and unstable and takes ages to launch. I could go on and on and on.
I will be switching to Mail.app as soon as it has Exchange support. (I already sync my calendar to iCal as it's not as annoying as Entourage.)
I have a large amount of PST's that I can't import. For that reason alone I still use outlook in a virtual machine.
Entourage is the center of my Mac universe in the sense that it serves as a hub for where information goes in and comes out. It is by far the most practical, general purpose app I run and gets my life organized.
From interlinking between messages and contacts and to do items and actual document files to magnifying phone numbers to Spotlight searches to notifications, this is the one soft spot I have for a Microsoft product. It's empowering.
Yes, I do hear people complain about performance issues and lack of support for hypergeeky features that regular mortals never use, but I've never had to personally deal with those. Maybe I'm just lucky. Call me an Entourage fanboy if you must, but this is a great application.
What I like:
* UI is beautiful - much much better than E'04
* Quick link bar is a nice touch
* Sync with system-wide address book and iCal.
* Multiple mail accounts are nicely done.
* Mail views and search folders are nicely done.
What I'd like to see improved:
* Exchange syncing of tasks
* Exchange syncing of categories (for color coding calendars)
* Exchange syncing of notes
* unified inbox a la Mail.app
* PST file support - I have huge amounts of data stored in PST files from my Windows days. Every so often I need to access it. It would be nice to avoid starting Parallels and then launching Outlook to get to it.
* Propose new meeting times.
* Voting buttons, even though I only use them once a year (Christmas party)
* The ability to tell "My Day" to NOT start up when I reboot - this might be just me, but no matter how many boxes I check, I can't get the thing to go away and stay gone.
* Auto-archive implemented like Outlook.
* Exchange-side mail rules.
* Tasks to work like they do in Outlook '07, especially being able to flag an email and have it pops up on the task list.
* Being able to manipulate the spacing in the calendar - in Outlook, I can compress the week view (30 or 60 min increments) to put more of the day on the screen at one time. I'd like to be able to manipulate Entourage's calendar in the same way.
Here's what I found most features I like for Entourage
1. Category is a really nice method to organize email. Even better with colorize it
2. Customize views can really help. With this, I don't need to create a sub-folders to store different kind of emails. Everything can stay in my inbox, yet I can go to each individual view for related issues.
3. Spotlight integration make searching rocks. Search older emails is as easy as a cake.
4. Project can really give a focus on specific topic easily.
Here's the things that I found most annoy,
1. Does not work very well with spaces. Entourage does not honor "When switching to an application, switch to a space with open windows for the application" is unchecked. If you open a window, and move it to different space, close this window will bounce back to the original main window's space; reply the email from difference space will also open the reply email window back to original main window's space. Also there's no easy way to navigate windows between different spaces.
2. Sync sometimes mess up the screen of main windows, need to hide and unhide to bring back a normal windows.
3. Do not support OBD protocol that allow edit email using external editor.
4. Context menu does not allow other plugin such OnMyCommand to work.
5. Does not support standard Cocoa Text operation such ask Emac key strokes (^W to kill a word, ^K to kill a line ...). No buffer completion support.
6. Rules should support simple control follow such if ... else so we can create a better filter.
Every mail programme has its pros and cons, but Entourage has one VERY BIG CON: it does not show to which mails I already replied to (or which mails I forwarded) when I was at the office were I have to use Outlook 2007. That is so annoying!! So I didn't use it for more than a day, as Apple mail does a very good job here!!!
I like the ease with which I can open new folders and drag messages to them. I don't like when things go wrong and you get into that terrifying loop about identities.
Best of all is people like Diane who respond to peoples problems with patience and tolerance she is the best.
I will be switching to Apple Mail I'm afraid.
Some of my clients love Entourage, and I hate it hate it hate it because of how long it takes to backup.
how bout some database-as-a-pkg-using-banding action, or just a complete database rewrite so I don't have to backup their 16 GB database everyday just because they added 512k of mail.
I send many emails while on the road with a Treo 700wx. In Entourage 2004, those sent emails would show up as totally unreadable when viewed in Entourage.
Now, several years later, Entourage has taken this issue and...well...done NOTHING to fix it.
WHY WHY WHY??? I can read the sent emails fine in Apple Mail but not Entourage. So: emails sent from a Microsoft Windows mobile device, via a Microsoft mail server, cannot be read with a Microsoft mail application but only with non-Microsoft apps.
I'm sick and tired of the half-#%@ quality of Microsoft's products on the Mac side.
Now sticking with Apple Mail and iCal.
Con: PGP/GPG don't work with Entourage. I realize this is actually third party developers' fault, but it's the reason I'm using Mail now.
Pro: Everything else. In every other respect I prefer Entourage to Mail, and if Microsoft would add GPG integration into Entourage I'd be very happy to switch back.
Hi,
I am fairly new to MAC, but very very new to Entourage. Been a Dedicated Outlook and PC person for too long.
Can't find where to do the following:
1. Delayed transmission for an email in Entourage
2. Read and Delivery Receipt options in Entourage
Please help
Learning any new program is difficult, but when you are changing platforms, it's doubly hard. See these tips I posted here: New2Mac&Entourage
1. Delayed transmission. Entourage only covers send now and send later. "Later" is the next schedule. Look under Message in the Menu bar for Entourage 2008. There is an alternative using a script. Go to this link: Scriptbuilders
Do a search for delayed send. You'll find 3 scripts listed for Entourage.You can test the top two to see which one better meets your needs.
Postpone, Delayed Send
Delayed Send X
Delayed Send (Entourage) .....this is an older script
2. You can find answers to common questions like this on the Entourage Help Page:
Return Reciepts Be sure to read why they are unreliable.
Pros:
Relatively good Exchange support
Projects are really usable
Cons:
Poor HTML support (every time I forward a HTML table, it is converted into unreadable garbage).
No easy way to properly backup with Time Machine
No built-in archiving support
Strange support of encodings (once in a while my replies are unreadable when I am using non-English letters).
The thing about Entourage that I don't like is that it is neither Outlook, nor is it Mail.app. It's not fully a Mac application (as noted by previous comments), and it's not a full outlook client.
I end up using it, but I have to launch VMWare Fusion and run Outlook to take advantage of it's functionality. And I only use it for my work mail (on an exchange server) I don't use it for my personal mail accounts.
If iPhone 2.0 works better with Exchange, I may use my phone for work email instead.
Sorry to be so negative, but have to use Exchange for calendaring, so I am limited in my choices.
I second the problem with importing PST's. That would be extremely helpful.
I've been to scared to try the syncing again since the latest updates. Is that problem DEFINITELY fixed? (iSync, Palm OS)
Would be very helpful to add Time Machine support. The database is way too huge to keep it in the backup.
Overall though, I've been using it since version "X" and still prefer it over the built-in apps. Mainly because I use an Exchange server though. But, when Snow Leopard comes out, I may take another look.
Speaking of Exchange support, better syncing of categories with Outlook as well as the multi-colored follow-up flags. At least you can do one follow-up flag.
Thanks,
kazoo
The extraordinary difficulty in synchronizing with my Treo and all the odd duplicates and bizarre changes that are made are driving me nuts--and making our office think about changing to a different server or me changing to running Outlook on a virtual PC.
I was hoping Entourage 2008 would really bridge the gap between 2004 and Exchange, but then I had hoped 2004 would bridge the gap that X had.
Pros:
Allows "rich" access to email while offsite even if not connected through VPN. (The basic version of OWA that's used on non IE browsers is really poor).
Cons:
The biggest issues we have here are with meetings and meeting requests. Accepted meetings sometimes do not update the calendar. Sometimes meeting requests come in and the "Accept" "Deny" buttons are grayed out inexplicably (I opened a case with microsoft support on this, but they said they can't reproduce it- this is something i've seen reported in dozens of forum threads from different companies). Booking resources is weak in that you can not specifically identify a resource (say, a conference room) and can only directly send requests to a room.
No ability to expand or use distribution lists created with Outlook.
Monolithic mail database file.
Stability issues where we have to empty caches to get a folder to resume syncing mail, or where we have to use Outlook to find a "needle in a haystack" email that for some reason crashes Entourage.
Mail view's seem like a good feature however one of the best views for big accounts is
"Only To Me" this means really "only" nothing else but my address in the TO: or the CC:
great feature of outlook for PC but can't see how to do this in Entourage. (12.1.1, macOS 10.5.4)
Other items
1. cant see who sent a meeting
2. cant see who is invited to the meeting
3. cant open calendar/mail/tasks in multiple windows (actually you can but you can’t alt-tab between them)
4. cant see the members of a DL
5. cant expand the members of a DL in an email
6. cant go to the calendar from a meeting request to see what is conflicting.
Entourage 2008 comes with a custom view "Sent Directly to Me." Learn about Custom Views
You can discuss your other questions with exchange users on the Entourage newsgroup or the YouTalk list.
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Slow as hell. Beachball's galore. Pauses in the middle of me typing an email, up to 5 seconds, up to 2-3 times per email. Entourage single-handedly makes me hate interacting with email more than I do already, which is a feat.
As I explained to Robert off list, this is not normal behavior. If anyone has a problem, you can discuss it on either the YouTalk mailing list or the Entourage newsgroup.
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