MailTags and MailActOn OS X 10.9 Prerelease Builds

If you are an OS X Mail.app user, make use of Indev Software‘s awesome plug-ins MailTags or MailActOn, and have been holding off upgrading to Mavericks because these plug-ins aren’t compatible, there is good news and mildly less good news. Indev has been making the betas of both plug-ins available to the public so that Mountain Lion users can jump on the Mavericks bandwagon, and so they can get some feedback on the new plug-ins’ operability. Please note that standard beta software warnings apply, as stated on Indev’s own website.

“Use at your own risk! Keep a a backup of critical data.”

“These builds are not fully tested and may contain stability issues and other bugs. We will try to document known issues and fixes as they occur.”

I happen to use both plug-ins and I’m happy to say that for the most part, Indev’s betas have been pretty stable. Since the plug-ins are tied very closely to Mail’s inner workings, Indev generally doesn’t release the updates until they have been thoroughly tested on the release version of new Apple software. For at least the last three updates to the Mac operating system, within days of the release, betas of the new plug-ins have been made available for testing and for people like me who depend on their functionality, but just can’t wait to get the latest OS installed on their Mac. However, like the sign says, make sure you have a good backup of your data before venturing into beta-land.  (I held off on the link so you would read the warnings first).

So, you ask, what is the “mildly less good news”? The betas for both of these plug-ins represent what will end up as the next major version release. Indev is making the betas available for free to registered users for now, but once they get the green flag to release the polished versions, you’ll have to pay for the upgrade. You can go here to find out what is new besides Mavericks compatibility, and how much the upgrades will cost.

Each upgrade will be $14.95 for registered users of the current versions, and they expect to release the official, new versions before November 30.