Ideagen Mail Manager has been in AEC for over twenty years. It started at Arup and reports 48,000+ users across 2,600+ firms (Mail Manager for AEC). If you are reading this, you are probably evaluating whether to renew it, replace it, or extend what you already own in Microsoft 365.
Why firms go looking for an alternative
Among firms we've spoken with, the trigger is rarely that filing prompts stopped working. It is one of four things. A renewal notice arrives on a multi-year contract. A migration to SharePoint or a new document management system reopens the question of where email should live. Filing is still a per-email decision each person makes, so the project record depends on discipline. Or the firm wants to solve email alongside meeting minutes and other project admin rather than as a standalone purchase.
Public reviews echo parts of this. Capterra reviewers rate Ideagen Mail Manager 4.1/5 and praise the filing prompts and search, while the negative reviews cite two-year contracts, difficulty reducing seats, and renewal pricing surprises (Capterra reviews). Treat individual reviews as anecdotes, but the pattern matches what we hear.
What to evaluate in any project-email-filing tool
The category exists because project email is evidence. On a large project a single misfiled communication can carry schedule and liability cost, and the firms we've spoken with name the same goal again and again, a cleaner project record. Five criteria separate the options.
1. Filing mechanism, and the compliance rate it produces. The design question is where the human effort sits. Prompt-based tools ask each sender to confirm a suggested folder at the point of sending. Address-based tools file whatever is copied to a project address. Automated tools classify and file without a per-email decision. Whatever the mechanism, the number that matters is the share of project email that ends up in the record. Ask each vendor how they measure it, and measure it yourself in a pilot on one live project.
2. Where the filed email lives. Some tools deposit email into infrastructure you already own, such as SharePoint, network drives, or your document management system. Others hold it in the vendor's own repository. The first approach keeps the record yours if you leave the vendor. The second can offer better search and workflow on top. Decide which you want before you shortlist, because it splits the market cleanly.
3. Search across the record. Filing is only useful if retrieval works years later, across people who have left the firm. Test search on a real historic project during the pilot, including attachments, and time it.
4. Coverage beyond Outlook email. Project correspondence increasingly happens in Teams. Some tools capture it, some do not. If Teams threads carry decisions on your projects, make Teams capture an explicit pilot criterion rather than a nice-to-have.
5. Contract structure and total cost. The tools compared here all sell seat-based subscriptions. The differences are in term length, minimums, whether email filing is bundled with a larger platform you may not need, and what renewal looks like. Per the reviews cited above, renewal terms are where surprises appear. Whatever a vendor tells you, confirm against your own contract.
How the options perform
Ideagen Mail Manager
Mail Manager is an Outlook add-in that prompts the sender to file each email, using machine learning to suggest the right project folder ("Prompt and Predict filing," per their AEC page). Its two strongest cards are the storage model and search. It files into infrastructure you already own, including SharePoint, network drives, Procore, and Bentley ProjectWise, and its search is consistently praised in reviews. Because emails file at the project level, the record survives staff departures.
The tradeoffs follow from the same design. Filing is still a per-email human decision, so compliance depends on people accepting the prompt. Some reviewers find the prompt on every non-project email an irritation (GetApp). Reviewers also reported that it worked only with classic Outlook and not the New Outlook client. Ideagen has since shipped New Outlook support, and notes the New Outlook add-in does not yet match every desktop feature (Embracing Microsoft's New Outlook). Pricing is a seat-based subscription, with reviews mentioning two-year terms. Confirm against your own contract.
If you are happy with prompt-based filing and want the record in your own storage, Mail Manager already does exactly that. Run your renewal quote against the alternatives before you sign.
SharePoint and Outlook native (no third-party tool)
Microsoft 365 can approximate project email filing without additional software. Firms use shared project mailboxes, Outlook rules, drag-and-drop of messages into SharePoint document libraries, and retention policies. The appeal is zero incremental licence cost and no new vendor.
The costs are operational. Filing is fully manual or rule-based, there are no project-aware suggestions, and search spans mailboxes and SharePoint inconsistently unless someone builds and maintains the structure. Firms we've spoken with describe the result bluntly as PMs drowning in manual Outlook filing. If your projects are small and few, test this seriously before buying anything. If a defensible record across dozens of concurrent projects is the requirement, budget for the internal effort, because this option's price is paid in staff time.
Newforma Project Center
Newforma is the broadest platform in this comparison. Project Center's email tools include an Outlook add-in with drag-and-drop filing, project email addresses that file anything copied to them, and the ability to file an email directly as an RFI, submittal, or action item (Newforma project email, Outlook add-in). If you want email management inside a full project information management platform that also handles RFIs, submittals, and transmittals, that is what Newforma sells.
The tradeoff is that you are buying the platform, not a filing tool. Among firms we've spoken with that run it, the recurring themes are a dated interface, filing compliance that in practice falls well short of policy, and bundled contracts that are hard to shrink. Those are paraphrased impressions from our own conversations. We have not measured them. If the RFI and submittal workflows are what you are buying, pilot those explicitly. If you only need email filing, price the bundle against the standalone tools and see whether the difference funds the rest of your stack.
TonicDM
TonicDM is project information management built for architecture and engineering firms, with automatic email filing as a core feature. Email and files are organized by project, it works inside Outlook and Teams with no separate portal, and it positions the result as continuity and defensibility of the project record (tonicdm.com). AECbytes has reviewed it as a deliberately lean, low-profile product (AECbytes review).
Its automatic filing removes the per-email decision that prompt-based tools depend on, which is the right direction for compliance. TonicDM is a cloud product, so the filed record lives in TonicDM's system rather than your own storage. Pricing is published as a per-user subscription, with construction administration priced as a separate tier for the staff doing CA work (TonicDM pricing). If vendor-held storage concerns your IT lead, ask directly about export and exit terms during the pilot.
Cogram
Cogram is our product, so read this section with that in mind. Cogram files project email automatically using AI classification, works with Outlook and Microsoft Teams, and provides search across the filed correspondence (cogram.com/email-management). Email filing sits alongside meeting minutes, site reports, and other project admin, so the fit is firms that want one tool for the whole administrative layer. It works alongside the existing stack and changes one workflow at a time. Email filing requires Outlook or Microsoft 365 today. Gmail is not supported for filing, and we would rather say that here than in a sales call.
On security, since the record in question is legal evidence: no training on customer data, SOC 2 Type II, SSO (SAML 2.0), encryption TLS 1.3 / AES-256, customer-controlled storage, meeting minutes store no audio or video, project-level controls with sharing that never auto-leaves the org, built for human review.
The concession is track record. Mail Manager has twenty years of AEC deployments and Newforma has comparable history. Cogram is younger. If longevity of vendor is a top criterion, weigh that. If filing compliance and consolidation of the admin layer are the criteria, run us in the same pilot as the others and compare the filed record at the end of the month.
Comparison table
| Criterion | Ideagen Mail Manager | SharePoint/Outlook native | Newforma Project Center | TonicDM | Cogram |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Filing mechanism | Per-email prompt with ML suggestion | Manual / rules | Drag-and-drop, project email addresses | Automatic by project | Automatic, AI classification |
| Where filed email lives | Your storage (SharePoint, network drives, ProjectWise, Procore) | Your Microsoft 365 tenant | Newforma platform | TonicDM cloud | Customer-controlled storage |
| Scope | Email filing and search | Whatever you build | Full PIM platform (RFIs, submittals, transmittals) | Lean PIM | Email + minutes + project admin |
| Teams capture | Not advertised; Outlook-focused | Native but unstructured | Confirm with vendor | Yes | Yes |
| Pricing model | Seat-based subscription, multi-year terms reported in reviews | Included in M365 | Bundled platform, quote-based (no public price list) | Published per-user subscription | Seat-based, see pricing |
All pricing descriptions are models, not figures. Confirm against your own quotes and contracts.
FAQ
What is the best alternative to Ideagen Mail Manager? It depends on which criterion drives the replacement. For email management inside a broader project platform, Newforma. For lean automatic filing built for A/E firms, TonicDM. For automated filing plus meeting minutes and project admin in one tool, Cogram. For zero new spend, disciplined SharePoint and Outlook structure can work at small scale.
Can SharePoint and Outlook replace Mail Manager on their own? Technically yes, and at small scale some firms make it work with shared mailboxes and library structure. The cost moves from licences to staff time and discipline. Compliance depends entirely on people filing manually, which is the problem these tools exist to fix.
Does Mail Manager store emails in its own cloud? No. Mail Manager files email into infrastructure the firm already owns, including SharePoint, network drives, Procore, and Bentley ProjectWise, per its AEC page. That storage model is one of its strongest features and a fair benchmark to hold every alternative to.
What does project email filing software cost? Every option here is a seat-based subscription except the native Microsoft route. Vendors differ on term length, minimums, and bundling. Public reviews of Mail Manager mention two-year contracts and renewal increases. Treat any figure you see online as unverified and confirm against your own quote.
How should we pilot a replacement? One live project, one month, all options on the same project if vendors allow it. Measure the share of project email that ended up filed, time a search on a historic project, and test Teams capture if your teams decide things there. The filed record at the end of the month is the evaluation.
Does Cogram work with Gmail? Email filing requires Outlook or Microsoft 365 today. Meeting minutes and other Cogram modules work regardless of email provider.
Deciding
If you want help thinking this through, we offer a short working session mapping your current filing setup, your compliance rate as it stands, and what a move to each of these options would involve. Bring your renewal quote.
Related: Email management in Cogram · Granola AI for architects