Catalina now available

[jchuzi]

For those brave souls who want to upgrade to the first iteration of Catalina macOS 10.15, read   Review: macOS Catalina 10.15 is what Apple promised the Mac could be, and is a crucial upgrade.

Personally, I never upgrade to the first version but this time, I also need to figure out how to replace Entourage 2008, which won't work in Catalina (it's a 32-bit app). I have some ideas, but the main problem is that Entourage accesses my ISP (Spectrum) via a POP account and, when I set up Outlook 365, it became an IMAP account, which I don't want. I'll contact Spectrum for their advice. Then, I have to have a way to preserve wanted emails from Entourage. At any rate, I'm not yet ready to take the plunge. 

[Xairbusdriver]

"Entourage"
That's what you get for using apps from the Dark Side!

But I won't be updating any time soon, either. I've done enough ßeta testing in my earlier computer use.

[sluggo]

I think I'll wait a few days or maybe a week. I'll keep checking in here to see if anyone's having any major issues before I proceed.
But then again I may get sick of seeing that little red "1" on the System Preferences icon in Dock!

[Xairbusdriver]

I may get sick of seeing that little red "1" on the System Preferences icon in Dock!

A small piece of duct tape will prevent seeing that...

[Paddy]

Jon, out of curiosity, why would you not want IMAP? Do you only access email with one device? I guess I'm so far past using POP, with two Macs, an iPad and an iPhone that it seems crazy to even consider POP. But...different strokes and all that.

Outlook, as part of Microsoft365, certainly should handle being set up for POP - there are plenty of instructions online and Spectrum has their settings posted here: https://www.realifewebdesigns.com/web-resources/pop3-smtp-news-servers/spectrum.asp

Is there a reason you don't want to use Mail? I switched from Entourage to Mail about 10 years ago - Entourage had more issues than Mail ever has (for me, at least). Importing everything into Mail is easy-peasy, because they both use MBOX. Outlook doesn't - so the alternatives seem to be doing things like importing into Outlook for Mac 2011 or using a purchased converter, most of which seem to be in the neighbourhood of $49.

Or...just use Mail. Or Thunderbird.

[sluggo]

Is there a reason you don't want to use Mail? I switched from Entourage to Mail about 10 years ago - Entourage had more issues than Mail ever has (for me, at least). Importing everything into Mail is easy-peasy, because they both use MBOX. Outlook doesn't - so the alternatives seem to be doing things like importing into Outlook for Mac 2011 or using a purchased converter, most of which seem to be in the neighbourhood of $49.

Or...just use Mail. Or Thunderbird.

I recently went back to Mail after a year or more with Airmail 3. Airmail would just crash out of nowhere almost daily for no apparent reason. It had a lot of good reviews but it just never caught on for me no matter how many updates or how long I stuck with it.
Looking back, the only positive it had over Mail was to easily mark senders as spam or junk with a pulldown menu and have the setting stick. Is there a way to do this in Mail that I'm overlooking? Sure I can click the junk folder on an email and it goes away, but the sender can keep sending and it shows up in the Inbox. Doesn't seem practical to create a rule for every sender.

[jchuzi]

Jon, out of curiosity, why would you not want IMAP? Do you only access email with one device? I guess I'm so far past using POP, with two Macs, an iPad and an iPhone that it seems crazy to even consider POP. But...different strokes and all that.

Outlook, as part of Microsoft365, certainly should handle being set up for POP - there are plenty of instructions online and Spectrum has their settings posted here: https://www.realifewebdesigns.com/web-resources/pop3-smtp-news-servers/spectrum.asp

Is there a reason you don't want to use Mail? I switched from Entourage to Mail about 10 years ago - Entourage had more issues than Mail ever has (for me, at least). Importing everything into Mail is easy-peasy, because they both use MBOX. Outlook doesn't - so the alternatives seem to be doing things like importing into Outlook for Mac 2011 or using a purchased converter, most of which seem to be in the neighbourhood of $49.

Or...just use Mail. Or Thunderbird.

I use only one device and don't intend to get any others. I don't want any of my files stored anywhere except on my computer, and, AFAIK, Spectrum limits the amount of storage so that I could conceivably lose emails or cause Spectrum's server to choke. Both my wife and I are used to Entourage and like its interface; not so much with Mail (which I have tried but she has not). Outlook has a similar interface to Entourage. Outlook 2011 for Mac will not work in Catalina. I tried Thunderbird but prefer Entourage/Outlook.

Importing into Mail from Entourage 2008 is not that easy (it does not use MBOX format), nor is it easy to do it to Outlook, but I have figured out a way that works but is tedious.

Perhaps the most important reason is that my better half is averse to learning new ways of using the computer interface and I have learned, over 51 years of wedded bliss, not to argue! 

Many thanks for that link!

[Paddy]

Even if you're not going to move to Mail, Jon, someone else may want to - so there are various ways to do it. One is to drag folders out of Entourage to the desktop - whereupon they become MBOX files. Not a great solution if you have a lot of subfolders as they all have to come one by one.

Or, there is a script: http://www.office.mvps.org/database/export_mbox.html

I don't recall having any difficulty doing it.

[jchuzi]

Thanks, I didn't know that. I had tried dragging individual emails to the desktop but they became .eml files. I tried dragging an entire folder and you were right; it became an MBOX folder. Maybe I'll try Mail again sometime.

[beacher]

I've been reading that there are all sorts of problems arising for people who have already updated to Catalina.  The Mac Observer mentioned that one of their techs came out the other day saying that the idea generators (my phrasing) up-ladder aren’t the least bit interested in hearing from the programmers/engineers why some of their ideas are flawed.  Of course, it's possible that it was just a disgruntled employee, but he was talking about how they seem to be eliminating the connection ports (is that the right term?) for peripherals, so that they can extract a few more $ for dongles that don't work all that well; as if we’re not already paying enough for our beloved hardware!  I guess that I've hit the end of OS updates for me, and that somewhere in the future there’s a new MB Pro waiting for me, but only after they take care of the problematic keyboards, and return to a philosophy of giving us value for our money! 

[beacher]

Just testing to see if I use Firefox to post, it gets rid of the “Yahoo Instant Messenger” thingy that blocks part of my posts!

But I see that it doesn’t; anybody have a suggestion as to how I can do it?

  in advance!

[Xairbusdriver]

Do you have a less technical description or maybe a screen shot of the "“Yahoo Instant Messenger” thingy"?

Have you tried:
  Safari Prefs->Security: deleting or blocking all cookies?
      "        "    ->Privacy: DISabling javascript?

  Similar settings in Firefox Prefs->Privacy & Security->Content Blocking

[jchuzi]

Early adopters beware:   Missing message issues plague Mail users in macOS Catalina 

[Xairbusdriver]

Maybe the fix will be in 15.1
https://iphone.appleinsider.com/articles/19/10/11/apple-releases-first-developer-beta-of-macos-10151

[Xairbusdriver]

CATALINA MACOS 10.15 Supplemental Update mainly addresses a few bugs. It's available through Software Update if you've installed the new OS. TidBITS continues their recommendation to hold off upgrading for now.