Looking for a good, easy-to-learn email client

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An old friend of mine has finally decided that his ten-year-old desktop has had it, and will be shopping for a new PC soon. He had Outlook Express with his XP os, but he won’t be able to use OE with Windows 7. I’ve suggested webmail such as Gmail or Yahoo! Mail, but he may want a client to replace OE. Outlook would be overkill for his basic email needs.

So this should be the place to ask about what good, simple, easy-to-learn email clients are out there. They should also be free or inexpensive. I used Eudora for a long time, but I understand that it is now not being actively developed. Or am I wrong? Would Eudora be a candidate for him? What else is there?

Thanks,

Dick Moores

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Replies

Windows Live Mail
Microsoft’s WLM is the successor to OE that is nearly identicle.

Thunderbird 3.1
A easy Mozilla alternative.

Outlook (Windows, for Office Standard Suite)
MS Outlook

Gmail (Web-based, Free)
Web Based Gmail, a good free alternative.

Eudora Open Source Edition

Pegasus

Opera 10.50

Consider your needs prior to choosing a client. Identify a client with ongoing update intervals & product support.
Windows Live Mail would be ideal for someone coming from OE as it is nearly identicle.

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Windows Live Mail
Microsoft’s WLM is the successor to OE that is nearly identicle.

Even though I am completely happy with Gmail, and have no need for an email client for my current email (but see below), I thought I’d try out a couple of your suggestions. I discovered that I already had it WLM on my Vista laptop (it came with some recent updating I did), that it was very easy to set up, and very easy to use. I very well may suggest that my friend use it when he gets his Windows 7 desktop in a couple of weeks (I think his daughter is going to order it for him from Dell).

And I will continue to use WLM to deal with an old email address that had over 12,000 emails piled up at my webhoster. I’m now gradually unsubscribing that address from many email lists. BTW I haven’t found where to create filters yet. Are they possible?

Thunderbird 3.1
An easy Mozilla alternative.

I thought Thunderbird might be a good candidate for my friend, but after spending over 2 hours trying to get it set up, I gave up. It may be easy to use, but not to set up. I’ve since seen serious complaints about this — that Thunderbird 3 tries to make the setup of an account almost automatic, but when this goes wrong, doing it manually becomes extremely hard for many. This is what happened to me. My webhoster has a video about the setup, but it’s for version 2, and is of little use.

Outlook (Windows, for Office Standard Suite)
MS Outlook

As I said, Outlook is overkill for my friend, even if an excellent program.

Gmail (Web-based, Free)
Web Based Gmail, a good free alternative.

Yes!

Eudora Open Source Edition

I was a Eudora user and fan for many years, on my old XP desktop. I didn’t know about the OSE. I’ll set it up for myself and give it a try to see if it might be a good candidate for my friend.

Pegasus

Hm. Maybe I’ll take a look. Is it easy to set up and use?

Opera 10.50

I doubt that he wants to learn a new browser.

Consider your needs prior to choosing a client. Identify a client with ongoing update intervals & product support.
Windows Live Mail would be ideal for someone coming from OE as it is nearly identical.

I’ll send him a screen shot of WML to give him an idea.

Thanks for all your suggestions.

Dick

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And I will continue to use WLM to deal with an old email address that had over 12,000 emails piled up at my webhoster. I’m now gradually unsubscribing that address from many email lists. BTW I haven’t found where to create filters yet. Are they possible?

In WLM you create filters by going to the “Folders” tab then use the “Message Rules” button.

Joe

--Joe

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Windows Live Mail
Microsoft’s WLM is the successor to OE that is nearly identicle.

Less identical than you might think, and… I run into a problem with WLM that I moved me to no longer recommend it.

I had set up a brand-new Windows 7 computer for an older relative. Migrated all her old e-mail store from her old box’s OE and set it up with her ISP’s POP account. She began using it.

A few days later, she calls me desperate because her entire mail store had disappeared. So I had a look…

Turns out that in WLM, if you delete an e-mail account, it deletes your corresponding mail folders, with no way to recovering them. No “deleted items” folder, no Windows recycle bin, nothing. And it’s all too easy to do it by mistake, especially for an older person with non-optimal eyesight. Yes, that’s the expected behavior for IMAP accounts… but this was a POP account. Yes, apparently there’s a warning. But, as I said, this was an older user with bad eyesight.

I consider this a very serious design flaw. It may or may not have been fixed in the latest iteration (WLM2011), there may or may not be some sort of workaround to prevent that, but this soured me to WLM. I spent years dealing with OE’s bugs (some of them also data-destroying) because of customers who insisted on using it, and I’m no eager to deal with a new generation of them. WLM seemed at first a cure for OE woes, but I no longer think so.

Meanwhile, I have been using Netscape-descended mail clients for about fifteen years. From Netscape 2 to 3 to 4 to Mozilla Suite to Seamonkey with occasional forays into Thunderbird. I don’t delete much valid e-mail (spam is a different matter) — I still have most of those fifteen-year-old messages. I can remember only *one* instance of mailbox corruption in all that time, and it was an easy task to repair it by loading it into a text editor. I lost a grand total of *one* message in that incident, and that was just because I found it easier to delete it than to repair the message header.

So… yes, Thunderbird v.3 has its weird user-interface quirks (v.2 was very easy for OE users to adapt, v.3 not so much), but the Mozilla guys take dataloss bugs very seriously. The Microsoft team apparently don’t: mailbox corruption was a fact of life in OE, and they never really fixed it. So I trust TB and Seamonkey with my messages, and would trust other TB-derived products (Correo, Postbox, Eudora OSE…). I didn’t trust OE, don’t trust WLM — and for that matter, I don’t trust Office Outlook either.

I hear good stuff about Pegasus, The Bat, Alpine, Novell Evolution, Zimbra Desktop and other clientes, but I don’t really have experience with them to have an opinion.

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My method is glitch free. As you probably already have a Windows Live ID, go for W L Mail, import your contacts. Now open a Gmail account, add it to W L Mail then delete the other account if you don’t need it. Now you will have total control of what happens to your mail. If you choose my method I’ll help with set up.

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then delete the other account if you don’t need it.

If you delete the old account anyone who knows (and uses) the current email address will get bounce messages. I would forward it to Gmail for a while (a few years perhaps) .

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If you delete the old account anyone who knows (and uses) the current email address will get bounce messages. I would forward it to Gmail for a while (a few years perhaps) .

John, re read Dick’s post 1

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My method is glitch free. As you probably already have a Windows Live ID, go for W L Mail, import your contacts. Now open a Gmail account, add it to W L Mail then delete the other account if you don’t need it. Now you will have total control of what happens to your mail. If you choose my method I’ll help with set up.

i am interested in your method. how do you do it? i use gmail, no intention of using hotmail etc.
thanks

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i am interested in your method. how do you do it? i use gmail, no intention of using hotmail etc.
thanks

I have a Windows Live ID, it is used to log in to W L Mail. It contains all my contacts as does Gmail (I never use Gmail directly to read or write) WLM is more versatile.
–
1 Get a W L ID and download Windows Live Essentials, you can import your contacts from Gmail ( think)
–
2

–
3 Now delete Windows Mail Account.

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WLM gets my vote as well. Use it for all you email accounts. Mine is set up to check 3 different accounts each time I sign on. It will check them and organize them separately, then you can reply using whichever account you choose. Works well.

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I did.

I don’t actually see any connection between a new email client, and needing a new email provider. I don’t think Dick indicated any problems with his current provider.

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I’ve suggested webmail such as Gmail or Yahoo! Mail, but he may want a client to replace OE. Outlook would be overkill for his basic email needs.

Dick Moores

I did.

I don’t actually see any connection between a new email client, and needing a new email provider. I don’t think Dick indicated any problems with his current provider.

He did’nt.

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thanks, roderunner for the info

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I’m not a computer expert, but with Bill Gates past track record, I for one use nothing but what I just have to from microsoft. Windows Live Mail might be great, but you can bet the day is not far off when Gates kill WLM,

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Try Pocomail. I have used it for years after trying all the others.

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I find Koma Mail really useful, it is free, doesn’t require installation and can be run from USB memory on any PC.
Message database can be password proitected in case you lose the memory.
It can be found at koma-code.de. Help in English.

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I use a client on my machine, and most if not all providers also allow web access. The client I use will poll multiple severs and sort all that email into any number of folders based on rules the user sets up. The license is good for one machine, but 5 users. It will also allow for responding and origination email with multiple email addresses and sigs. One can even customize ‘stationary’ based on the originating email you use. All this in one client.

I was a beta tester so I am prejudiced, but I think it really is good. It is more customizable than Thunderbird, which is also quite good.

http://www.mailcopa-emailsoftware.com/ MailCOPA

It comes from England and cost $40 but for something as important as email for me, it is worth it.

bc

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Dick —

As you can see, there are numerous suggestions/solutions for your friend. Personally, *I* like Windows Mail, which is sort of the big brother to Outlook Express, and first introduced in Vista. With a couple of additional files, it can also be set up in Win 7 32-bit, which is how I’m using it now. Just a bit of warning though — both Outlook Express and Windows Mail are probably not as secure as other email clients. With due caution though, the BEST security IMHO is the user! That said, there is also another email client that may be worth a look. “Evolution” has been the default email client in several Linux distros for some time now, and there is also a version for Windows as well. It also works well as a free alternative to Outlook if you have need to connect to a corporate MS Exchange server.

I personally like Gmail, since it is full time HTTPS when doing webmail, but can also be configured for POP3 or IMAP access. *I* like the IMAP protocol, since it synchronizes all my email clients using that protocol on multiple computers. With all the choices available, there’s bound to be one that will fill your needs. Good hunting!

Cheers,
Phil Heberer

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I am a Eudora OSE (and formerly, Qualcomm Eudora) user, and I find the current Eudora OSE fills my needs for an e-mail client. Eudora development was forked into two branches about two years ago. The Mozilla (Thunderbird) folks developed Eudora OSE (really a skin of Thunderbird) while Qualcomm dragged its heels about developing Eudora 8 Pro (still not released to the public last I read).

I read Woody Leonhard’s warnings about the Windows Live ID awhile back, and with no indication of improved privacy, I will not set up a Windows Live ID for anything. I just do not wish to be forced to be “social” about my on line activities, period. But most OEM Windows Vista and Windows 7 installations have Windows Live Services already preinstalled, so if you don’t mind the privacy issues, why not give WLM a try.

For Service Providers, Opera’s partner Fastmail (http://www.fastmail.fm) is my first choice, as it does less tracking and ad serving than Yahoo or G-Mail (where I also have accounts). Bringing all three providers together into one client (Eudora OSE) is convenient. But Fastmail’s free accounts do not support Send Mail through their servers, and they are IMAP not POP-3. IMAP tends to erase messages from the server, and I have lost e-mail this way. I prefer POP-3. Fastmail does have a paid upgrade option which lets you do POP-3 and Send Mail, so consider that. My Yahoo Account is paid, as this is the only way to get POP-3 access from them legally. G-Mail has always offered POP-3 access for free.

Whichever client you choose, spend some time customizing it to suit your preferences. A little time spent on this up-front can save a lot of headaches down the road. For flexibility in how the client looks and behaves, I think you cannot beat Thunderbird. (As noted above, Eudora OSE is really Thunderbird with a Penelope skin.) I especially like to set up Local Folders for my IMAP accounts so that the mail is harder to accidentally lose forever, and I redirect certain types of mail to special folders (like, Comments or Communities).

For Web Mail, I do not like how G-Mail dispenses with Folders altogether. But some folks like Threads (G-Mail) better than Folders (Yahoo or Fastmail), so choose whichever suits your preferences.

-- rc primak

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In other replies, I saw discussion about Windows Live Mail and Gmail, both of which have web interfaces and don’t need to be accessed via an email client. I, in fact, have accounts in each of these. When I’m traveling, I use my laptop to access the web interface for these accounts, and I don’t use a separate email client on my laptop. However, for my main desktop computer, I much prefer to use an email client that allows me to store email on my own computer, and one that provides much more versatile and natural folder organization and manipulation to keep my email records straight. My wife, likes to do the same on her Macintosh.

I use Thunderbird on my Windows desktop pc, and my wife uses Entourage on her iMac. We have our email clients configured to leave email on the server. Our main email account is our Windows Live account, and we have our email clients configured to access that account via the POP3 protocol. We use our gmail account as a sort of auxiliary email account, so most of our email arrives to our Windows Live account. For the gmail account we have Thunderbird and Entourage configured to use an IMAP interface. As far as I can tell, Windows Live doesn’t support this. In general, I find the gmail account to be quite a bit more flexible to use than Windows Live, but since we use our email clients for most of our email access, that isn’t so important.

I didn’t find Thunderbird difficult at all to set up. There are a number of good tutorials available, such as ‘http://products.secureserver.net/email/email_thunderbird.htm’. Just do a google search on ‘Thunderbird setup’.

One of the things I like about Thunderbird is its support for a multi-level folder structure and its powerful filter capabilities that allows my incoming email to be routed directly to the appropriate folder. Thunderbird then provides a view that shows only the new unread email, regardless of what folder it is in. It is just a really slick interface. It also provides a very nice calendar (lightning).

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Well, just a quick wrap here:

MailCOPA will do both pop3 and IMAP, and multiple IDs, all in the same client. And you can do folders or threads or both. And as for safety, I have mine set to show HTML on incoming email, but not pull anything from the web (which call pull in unknown bits, and also alert spammers that the email address is real). Then if it is from a known good source I can click a button and see the full HTML message. A great help.

And if you have a network with a server, it can work off a net work server, and clients can log on from anywhere to see their mail.

It is not free but really versatile. And NO ads.

bc

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The OP (Dick) here.

I’ve seen some negative comments about Gmail. Here are a couple:

“I much prefer to use an email client that allows me to store email on my own computer, and one that provides much more versatile and natural folder organization and manipulation to keep my email records straight.”

“I do not like how G-Mail dispenses with Folders altogether.”

I’ve used Gmail since 2004, and have picked up a trick or two.

In lieu of folders, Gmail has labels, which as of recently can be nested.

I just took a look, and I now have 609 filters, and 466 labels. With shortcut keys enabled, I can easily open any of the labels with the “g then l” combination.

I used Eudora for many years, and had a bunch of filters operating. I recall that I had to be very careful about the order of the filters. No such concern with Gmail’s filters.

I use this template in creating a filter that will handle all mail from me To: or Cc: an address, or From: that address:

(From:address) OR (From:me AND ((To: OR Cc:)address))

(Yes, in a Gmail filter, you use “me” for your own Gmail address.)

Thus if the address is yy@xxx.com,
I paste
(From:yy@xxx.com) OR (From:me AND ((To: OR Cc:)yy@xxx.com))
into the into the “Has the words:” textbox . (I use Active Words for this — the most useful utility I’ve ever encountered)

If there are 2 addresses I want to handle with the same filter, I use
(From:(address1 OR address2)) OR (From:me AND ((To: OR Cc:)(address1 OR address2)))

Here’s the completed filter I have for service@arkivmusic.com:
————————————————-
Matches: ((From:service@arkivmusic.com) OR (From:me AND ((To: OR Cc:)service@arkivmusic.com)))
Do this: Apply label “Music/Arkiv Service”, Never send it to Spam
————————————————-
This will have service@arkivmusic.com mail appear in the inbox as well as in “Music/Arkiv Service”. Note that each email received isn’t copied anywhere — but it can be made (by a filter or manually) to “appear” in several places.

Note that the label is nested under “Music”.

I used to use curly brackets {} in place of OR, but I found that {} will fail if used in a too complex way. Thus I now almost always avoid them, and use (xxx OR yyy) instead of {xxx yyy}

Once a label is set up, it can be easily changed in several ways:

The menu opens with a single left-click on the label’s icon.

Every once-in-while it’s good to check what features are available in Settings. Especially on the General and Labs tabs.

Spam: I get quite a bit of spam, but rarely does any get into my inbox or into a label. I think I notice fewer than 1/day (though of course I don’t check all 466 labels!).

One thing I miss in Gmail: the ability to drag and drop an image or an attachment into an email. On the other hand, Gmail will send up to a total of 25 MB in attachments (but no executables).

Dick

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”I much prefer to use an email client that allows me to store email on my own computer, and one that provides much more versatile and natural folder organization and manipulation to keep my email records straight.”

I’ve seen this almost word for word about Gmail on several forums and it is just not true that Gmail is restricted to webmail.

I do not use Gmail as my main address but it is useful to have and I just download it as POP email in my desktop email client which happens to be Thunderbird.

The main settings I use for POP are:

pop.gmail.com
port 995
security SSL/TLS

The setting for leaving mail on server does not matter as Gmail keeps it anyway.

The latest update of Thunderbird also allows manual override of its attempts at automated setup. The workaround with earlier versions was to enter something not wuite right in the email address as that gave a chance to enter things manually, including the correct address. Until this update it did manage sometimes to insist on setting up for IMAP if that was available and then not let you opt for POP. Fortunately they’ve now solved that glitch.

I’m therefore back to recommending Thunderbird to anyone who asks me.

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The latest update of Thunderbird also allows manual override of its attempts at automated setup. The workaround with earlier versions was to enter something not [quite] right in the email address as that gave a chance to enter things manually, including the correct address. Until this update it did manage sometimes to insist on setting up for IMAP if that was available and then not let you opt for POP. Fortunately they’ve now solved that glitch.

I came to the conclusion after my miserable experience with Thunderbird that if it wasn’t one glitch it’s another — and that as with the turtles, it may be glitches all the way down.

Dick

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One thing I miss in Gmail: the ability to drag and drop an image or an attachment into an email.

Dick – Gmail can support image drag and drop – in and out – but it needs the browser to support HTML5 too – so use Firefox or Chrome latest versions

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An old friend of mine has finally decided that his ten-year-old desktop has had it, and will be shopping for a new PC soon. He had Outlook Express with his XP os, but he won’t be able to use OE with Windows 7. I’ve suggested webmail such as Gmail or Yahoo! Mail, but he may want a client to replace OE. Outlook would be overkill for his basic email needs.

So this should be the place to ask about what good, simple, easy-to-learn email clients are out there. They should also be free or inexpensive. I used Eudora for a long time, but I understand that it is now not being actively developed. Or am I wrong? Would Eudora be a candidate for him? What else is there?

Thanks,

Dick Moores

OP here again.

After spending many hours over several days trying to get Eudora OSE running, I finally succeeded after much trial and error.

I was thinking of Eudora OSE as a client to use myself — to handle mail coming in to that address I am shutting down. But I abandoned Eudora OSE when as a test I sent an email with an image in the body, and it bounced!

So I’ll recommend WLM to my friend for its similarity to Outlook Express, and also keep it for myself at least until I find something better. I’ve still to try MailCOPA, Koma Mail, and Pocomail.

Thanks for all the responses.

Dick

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So I’ll recommend WLM to my friend for its similarity to Outlook Express, and also keep it for myself at least until I find something better. Thanks for all the responses.

Dick

So what happened at the end of the day, Dick? I have just read the whole of this thread and will have difficulty getting to sleep without knowing the answer .

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Dick,

I believe your friend and you will be happy with WLM. As you found out, it seems familiar after using Outlook Express, but is more robust than OE. As a mail client you can set up WLM to check many different mail accounts. Good luck with it.

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Interesting post about MailCOPA. I hadn’t been aware of it. I read up on it on the web and saw its screen shots, etc. My impression is that it is quite similar to Thunderbird. When I began having too much trouble with Outlook 97 (I had to repeatedly rebuild the pst file and archive my main folders because it couldn’t handle the size) I switched to Barca. It is very similar to Outlook, but the calender function and several other features were only partly implemented. After a couple years I gave up on waiting for their apparently very small staff to really finish the job, and I switched to Thunderbird which had evolved quite wonderfully from a much earlier version I had tried a number of years earlier. Now, I think Thunderbird is quite mature and has great features. But, like Barca, and I wonder about MailCOPA, once you get started with it, you can’t really export your email in a form that can then be imported to another email client. It seems all these clients are great at importing from Outlook, and a few from Eudora, but that’s about it. None that I have found can export back into Outlook format so the email could then be re-imported to a new email client. The result is that we kind of get stuck with the client we’ve been using for a number of years. You can get IN, but you can’t get OUT without breaking the chain of email history. I still have to keep Barca on my machine so I can get back to review old emails I received when using Barca.

Another thing is support. Barca (by Pocomail) did give good email support and were quite responsive. Their problem is that they just didn’t seem to have the staff to fix their problems of weakly implemented calendar and some other deficiencies. My only complaint about Thunderbird is that, being an open source program, there isn’t really anyone I can call up and talk to about a problem. There are the user forums, but I always have trouble finding the information I need there. The saving grace is that I’ve hardly had any problems with Thunderbird, and its features are great, so I haven’t really had anything to call in about. But, if I ever want to switch to a new email client, I think I would “break the chain” again, because I think few, if any email clients will import from Thunderbird. How about MailCOPA?

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I also use the T’bird/Gmail POP3 combination.

A further advantage for me is that I can also use my BlackBerry as an email client to Gmail, which keeps what I do in sync with what Thunderbird shows on my PC.

Roger

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Dick Moores, I don’t know what version of Thunderbird you were dealing with, but the latest versions have been very stable with no glitches that I have ever encountered. I beat up on it pretty heavily and use a huge list of filters and a rather complex multilevel hierarchy of folders. I use both POP and IMAP interfaces with different servers, and everything just works. I haven’t found anything obscure about the setup, except that the “send port” specification is down at the bottom on “Outgoing Server” rather than local to any of the accounts (since it is common for all accounts).

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Dick Moores, I don’t know what version of Thunderbird you were dealing with, but the latest versions have been very stable with no glitches that I have ever encountered. I beat up on it pretty heavily and use a huge list of filters and a rather complex multilevel hierarchy of folders. I use both POP and IMAP interfaces with different servers, and everything just works. I haven’t found anything obscure about the setup, except that the “send port” specification is down at the bottom on “Outgoing Server” rather than local to any of the accounts (since it is common for all accounts).

It was version 3.

I just now tried to find the site that had posts about T’s glitches. I couldn’t find it again, but I did run across Thunderbird love and Thunderbird hate. Interesting.

I very well may have been unfair to T in that post you refer to. I realize now that half of the problem with setting up T3 was my web hoster, which I won’t name, but am thinking seriously of leaving. For what they term a “User Name”, they require a ‘%’ where you would expect an ‘@’. Also, all support could do for me was send me to a video about setting up T2 — and it seems there were major changes between T2 and T3.

A few days ago I took a look at Godaddy.com, a major web hosting company. I came away with a new domain name, rdmoores.info . $2.98 (IIRC) for the 1st month. I’m thinking of starting afresh with a web site, just as a hobby, and don’t want to spend a lot of money on it. Godaddy threw in one free email account, which works well — their webmail is an enormous improvement over my old webhoster’s.

Tech and customer support is available by phone 24×7 (email only at my old place), and they seem to be sharp. So I thought I’d give T3 another try, as a client for my new email address (I have no intention of replacing my beloved Gmail with it, however). I’ll report back on how it goes. T3 might be good for my friend (see my original post), because before OE he use Netscape’s email for a long time, and a post in this thread says T is quite similar to it. My friend wants as few changes in his setup as possible. So currently for his email client I’m thinking WML 2011 or maybe T.

Dick Moores

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i would like to solve a simple problem I think

I have a travelling laptop with multiple emails, Win Win 7 and Postbox Express (thunderbird) This doesn’t work when I connect to the internet via other peoples (ie hotels) networks ie not my own ISP.

Naturally I can get at my email (which set up as a POP account) via the ISP’s webmail feature so it is not a great inconvenience, also of course when I connect my laptop to my home network it works perfectly

Is there away round this problem wouldn’t be good if I could use Postbox on my main computer at home and the laptop when I am travelling

Any suggestions?

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I have a travelling laptop with multiple emails, Win Win 7 and Postbox Express (thunderbird) This doesn’t work when I connect to the internet via other peoples (ie hotels) networks ie not my own ISP.

I use my laptop (XP or Win7) and netbook (Linux) with Thunderbird when travelling and just completed a trip north to south across Australia mostly by train using wireless broadband and a different ISP to that I use on my desktop. I just copied the settings across (as the profile file in Windows and by physically copying the details on the eeePC running Linux not because it can’t be done the other way but because I’d lost my instructions). All but one of my email addresses are nor with my ISP but that ISP does allow logging on to email from other connections, which I believe some ISPs now block, supposedly for security reasons. You may therefore need to check with your ISP. The email at my own websites and gmail etc just works.

I presume the ISPs do this by blocking some ports, so you may need to make a note of other ports you can use.

There’s a portable version of Thunderbird which works from a usb stick at http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/thunderbird_portable

I thought I’d heard of most email clients but had never heard of Postbox Express so looked at the website. Seems to be a simplified version of Thunderbird but possibly a better search function. However the Exoress lacks some of the more recent Thunderbird advances such as unified folders.

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i would like to solve a simple problem I think

I have a travelling laptop with multiple emails, Win Win 7 and Postbox Express (thunderbird) This doesn’t work when I connect to the internet via other peoples (ie hotels) networks ie not my own ISP.

Naturally I can get at my email (which set up as a POP account) via the ISP’s webmail feature so it is not a great inconvenience, also of course when I connect my laptop to my home network it works perfectly

I have been contact with my ISP and their solution is to ensure that the Outgoing Server is set to ‘requiring authentication’
for Postbox and Thunderbird you need to set up the following
Tools-account settings- Outgoing Server
Select the Outgoing Server and then click Edit
make sure the boxes are ticked as follows

This has now solved my problems

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Pegasus – I’ve used Pegasus for about 10 years and have it running very comfortably on W7, both 32 and 64 bit versions, incidentally. I like it for lots of reasons; the two below are ones that I’d highlight.

1. The easy way in which one can view headers on the server and delete any mail that you don’t want (junk mail, malware) selectively, berfore it gets onto your PC.

2. I keep the Pegasus program and 10 years of accumulated e mails on a 16GB USB flashstick. This means that I can have access to e mail facilities from any machine I choose to use. Mostly I use a desktop, but if I’m away, I simply plug the flash drive into my laptop (or any other machine for that matter) and I’m able to do whatever I need to do. The flash drive approach makes backing up a breeze – simply copy the entire contents of the flash drive to a safe location. I use a NDAS drive at home, a USB hard drive while travelling.

I should add one downside – to date I haven’t found an easy way to put Pegasus onto my IPhone, and I don’t expect this to change, but my Dell Inspiron has built in mobile support using a 3G SIM and that is OK for what I need. It would also be possible to connect the IPhone to the PC and use it as a “modem”

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You have given me a clue.
IF an email client Postbox Thunderbird Pegasus et al is on a USB flashstick which is plugged into my laptop and my laptop is then connected to the hotel network, will I be able use the email client S/W?
BTW how do I set up S/W to operate off the flashstick specifically those above

The other side of the question, what is so special about Pegasus?

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I think I have glanced at most of the replies on this thread. What about “The Bat!” ?

I was a great fan of Eudora, but when that went off the air some years ago, I read (on the Donation Coder website/forum) about “The Bat!” I installed that and have used it ever since. I am an ordinary, somewhat aged, home user and it does everything I want. I have several email addresses, and on each I have set up several folders for regular correspondents. All the usual filters and rules can be applied, and there is an antispamsniper plug-in which I use.

So, lets hear it for “The Bat!”

Septuagent.

PS. In UK, Computeractive magazine’s current issue suggests “Zimba Desktop” as a free Outlook replacement. I have not tried it.

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I have several email accounts. I use GMail to collect all of my emails from the various accounts so they are all aggregated into 1 account. GMail also does all of the spam filtering which so far I’ve found to be the best spam filtering solution. I then use Thunderbird on my home computers to download my emails and I use GMail’s webmail interface to access my email at work or from public computers.

You may prefer to use Windows Live Mail client instead of Tbird.It all depends on which features you need. Or you may stick with just the web mail interface. I don’t recommend this to people who want to have access to their email when they aren’t online.

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Comment on the Bat. I used it for years and loved it. Then I switched to Thunderbird. Personally I like the Bat a little better than Thunderbird but Thunderbird is free and for most people it does all that they need.

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What keeps me with Thunderbird is the possibility of using MozBackup to easily do backups. Does anyone know if the other programs mentioned in this thread have such an easy to use system of backup?

I ask that because Thunderbird’s font handling abilities are less than what I prefer and I’d like to investigate other programs.

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An old friend of mine has finally decided that his ten-year-old desktop has had it, and will be shopping for a new PC soon. He had Outlook Express with his XP os, but he won’t be able to use OE with Windows 7. I’ve suggested webmail such as Gmail or Yahoo! Mail, but he may want a client to replace OE. Outlook would be overkill for his basic email needs.

So this should be the place to ask about what good, simple, easy-to-learn email clients are out there. They should also be free or inexpensive. I used Eudora for a long time, but I understand that it is now not being actively developed. Or am I wrong? Would Eudora be a candidate for him? What else is there?

Thanks,

Dick Moores

Getting back to it, if a client is what you are looking for, I had always used Netscape/Mozilla for its lightweight approach and simplicity. Thunderbird is the current iteration.
If webmail is your thing, most ISP’s offer a webmail interface; you don’t always have to use live or gmail or one of the other ones (unless you want an integratedd email account and client).

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I think when you boil everything down its just a matter of personal preference. I use Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo, all for different things. I did jump onto the GMail bandwagon when it came out thinking this might be the best thing since sliced bread. Many people will not use or do not like Windows Live simply because its Microsoft. The ” I hate Bill Gates” thing. However it just seems to me this. At Google’s inception it was a just a wonderful search engine as we all know. But in the ensuing years it has grown as a company, it has grown into a behemoth just like Microsoft. If you have a problem you have to search page after page of the “Help” section, just like Microsoft. Forget sending an email to them, you can click on the link for Tech Support but its just a circle, I can’t find a link to them. One reason I don’t use it much and you can add this to the problems with GMail, one I can’t seem to fix. I’m sure it can and perhaps its a very obvious one but I do know that GMails Help section tells me “that its a known issue and they are working on it” . My issue with it is simple, it will not show images, no matter what I do, and i’m running a new computer. I view Windows Secrets Lounge on my Hotmail account so I cn see that little green logo guy. So its back to apple’s and orange’s for me. They all have good and bad things about each. There is no stand above the other email programs in my humble opinion.

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I am exploring the Zimbra Desktop as a pilot for my employer, and while I like the interface and it’s very easy to use, I am not sure about the Zimbra archnitecture openness. It was a shareware platform until the company was purchased by VMWare.

Thunderbird 2.x has no way of exporting messages in my research.

Thunderbird 3.x has a more pleasant user interface than 2.x, based on my customers’ feedback.

Outlook Express offers no easy way of exporting messages.

Outlook 2010 and Oracle Calendar do not play well together, thus precluding BleakBerry synchronization (at my employer).

The Zimbra Desktop is nice, with a straightforward interface. The Zimbra server offers the full suite of unified communications, although I have not yet discovered the interface for VOIP.

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I don’t like Windows Live, the less I can have Microsoft programs poking around in my computer, the better I like it. I just strictly use gmail. I have no need to install another program on my computer just to read and send email. I have enough programs already, plus I don’t like the idea of downloading emails to my computer to read them. Gmail is very good at moving other email accounts to it (I have a Comcast email account and have everything that does there moved to Gmail). Web based email is the way to go IMO, it does everything an installed program will do without having to sit on the hard drive.

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I don’t like Windows Live, the less I can have Microsoft programs poking around in my computer, the better I like it. I just strictly use gmail. I have no need to install another program on my computer just to read and send email. I have enough programs already, plus I don’t like the idea of downloading emails to my computer to read them. Gmail is very good at moving other email accounts to it (I have a Comcast email account and have everything that does there moved to Gmail). Web based email is the way to go IMO, it does everything an installed program will do without having to sit on the hard drive.

I usually don’t respond to messages of this type but I do feel compelled to ask why in the world you are involved in a thread on a “Windows” Secrets message board. Are you just looking for an audience for your badmouth comments on the most popular OS on the planet? For that matter why are you subscribed to Windows Secrets?

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I still use Qualcomm’s Eudora. It works fine on Vista and Windows 7.

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I still use Qualcomm’s Eudora. It works fine on Vista and Windows 7.

How does Win7 handle the different mapi.dll file? I found with Vista that every time Eudora would start it would give me a message about not being able to write to or access the mapi.dll, until I ran Eudora as an administrator (this is an administrator account so I didn’t figure it would make a difference) Then every time thereafter even without running as an administrator it ran without any mapi error messages.

Now, did it replace the mapi.dll? On XP if you run Eudora it does, but if you run Outlook it will replace it back again. Neither app will say anything about this it happens in the background. I found out because ActiveSync (for those of you with pocket PCs or smart phones) will not work with Eudora’s mapi.dll, you have to run Outlook first to replace the mapi.dll file. I don’t want to hose the mapi file on my Win7 machines, not to mention 64bit version, and activesync is now part of the op system by default.

After reading this blog I decided to give Eudora OSE a chance as I was looking at Thunderbird already as I like Mozilla’s products, but I’d really like to stick with Eudora, although a calender would be nice.Hope Eudora OSE works better then previous review seems to indicate.

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Sylpheed is a simple, very functional and easy to set up text-based email client that is usable across a number of platforms, including Windows 7. It has a decent-sized base of users and an email list for questions, suggestions and comments, and the developer follows it . See http://sylpheed.sraoss.jp/en/. The latest beta is quite stable.

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Sylpheed is a simple, very functional and easy to set up text-based email client that is usable across a number of platforms, including Windows 7. It has a decent-sized base of users and an email list for questions, suggestions and comments, and the developer follows it . See http://sylpheed.sraoss.jp/en/. The latest beta is quite stable.

Looks good, but would someone not knowing regex be able to set up filters?

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Phil Heberer

Are you the famous Phil Heberer of C= fame ? Hit me at gmail. Jean.

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I was just going to begin switching to an email program I discovered by accident… eMail Client http://www.emclient.com/. It is free, it is simple to suck stored emails, contacts etc. I have been on a mission to find the best email, contact etc software other than Outlook. I will beat my hands with a hammer before I use Outlook again. Unfortunately, I started using it back with version 1 and that was a disaster. Over the years I progressed with each new version, right up until Outlook 2007. Each time it got better and each time I learned to use it better. Then one day with Outlook 2007, I started getting problems, bugs etc. After long hours of wasted time, it was discovered that I had maxed out the limit of storage… WHAT!? What crystal ball was I suppose to look at to know that? As you all are aware, once bugs creep into any Microsoft product, count on sacrificing yourself , your family and the dog before cleaning it all up! The moral of the story… no matter how hard you try to live with Microsoft Office products, eventually they will tear your hair out! I am currently using Windows Live Mail but am leary about it; I don’t like GMail so much; I am looking for the closest replacement to Outlook and this eMail Client looks like it might be OK? Another is Essential PIM? Another swiss army knive type is GemX Software Solutions – do Organizer. As you can see I’m digging!!

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I’m reluctantly starting to use WLM having tried Thunderbird — one reason I dropped Thunderbird was that I understand that all messages are in a single file so if one message is corrupted or infected you can more easily lose your entire message base. This came from security colleagues of mine.

My major dislike on WLM is the over complicated toolbars including having to go from one to another to set up Message Rules; not having a Make a rule from this message and other features that were in OE.

I did find that WET did a good job of transferring my OE message base including a pretty complex folder structure that messages are sorted into although so far as I can see those folders need to be moved from the Storage Folders area into the live part and the rules need to be recreated.

If these features are there and I didn’t find them please let me know — especially how to delete toolbar icons I don’t want on the toolbar used by my wife, who likes things simple!

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I did find that WET did a good job of transferring my OE message base including a pretty complex folder structure that messages are sorted into although so far as I can see those folders need to be moved from the Storage Folders area into the live part and the rules need to be recreated.

If these features are there and I didn’t find them please let me know — especially how to delete toolbar icons I don’t want on the toolbar used by my wife, who likes things simple!

What is WET?

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What is WET?

Sorry — it’s:

<>

It’s for when you are not installing Windows 7 on top of an existing earlier version eg on a new PC, or if your existing OS is XP which does not accept on top upgrades.

If you use it it is important to read the referred page and download the version linked to there since it is much much better than the version on the Microsoft DVD.

It comes with a default setup but if you dig down you can customize what it transfers since it will show you a tree of all your disks with check boxes against folders so you can select additional files or deselect ones you know you don’t want — my old PC had 3 hard drives each divided into 4 logical drives and had 3 different versions of WIndows on it!!

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… one reason I dropped Thunderbird was that I understand that all messages are in a single file so if one message is corrupted or infected you can more easily lose your entire message base. This came from security colleagues of mine.

I hope their security advice is better .

T’bird puts messages in a single file for each folder. I’ve got about 50 folders (mostly automatically sorted into by filters) and consequently the same number of message files. I back them all up, along with my other C drive data, at least once a day, through to three generations. I’ve never had a corruption problem but feel prepared for that possibility.

I’m running Win 7 and my files live here: C:Users[i]user name[/i]AppDataRoamingThunderbirdProfiles[i]profile name[/i]MailLocal Folders .

Roger

PS [A few minutes later]. You can edit T’bird message files with any ASCII editor. If there were corruption, I expect you’d be able to remove the corrupting message with a little light surgery and reimport the amended file.

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I hope their security advice is better .

T’bird puts messages in a single file for each folder. I’ve got about 50 folders (mostly automatically sorted into by filters) and consequently the same number of message files. I back them all up, along with my other C drive data, at least once a day, through to three generations. I’ve never had a corruption problem but feel prepared for that possibility.

I’m running Win 7 and my files live here: C:Users[i]user name[/i]AppDataRoamingThunderbirdProfiles[i]profile name[/i]MailLocal Folders .

Roger

PS [A few minutes later]. You can edit T’bird message files with any ASCII editor. If there were corruption, I expect you’d be able to remove the corrupting message with a little light surgery and reimport the amended file.

Thanks — that’s more clear: that the single is per folder.

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Seyboyd,

I have been using eMail Client for my Windows 7 client with great success. It offers everything that any version of Outlook does with two important additional features; a self healing database, and automatic updates from the author.

I was driven to this client as a result of my wife’s poor use of Outlook and constantly having to “rescue” her e-mail.

I would suggest a serious look at this product.

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I have been using eMail Client for my Windows 7 client with great success. It offers everything that any version of Outlook does with two important additional features; a self healing database, and automatic updates from the author.

That is this one, I trust?

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As it happens, I don’t like WLM. no need to list the reasons, I hope. There are too many, and some have not been mentioned, like the fact that it slows down as the database fills up, and can have unfixable problems. The new version that will appear on your machine soon is another minus, if you haven’t updated yet. UI bloat.

I liked OE despite the bugs and and moved to WLM when I moved to Win7. Now I find that other email software will not import from WLM and I am stuck.

(What I would really like is a utility which would go through all my archives going back to 1990 from Edora, Pagasus, OE, etc and make one dB out of them and elinminate dups. — dream on).

Anyhow, last time I used Evolution, it seemed a lot like OE, so I will give the Windoze version a shot. (thanks for the tip). I may still have the import from WLM problem, though. Haven’t tried yet.

BTW, for Gmail fans, there is an offline feature which will download up to five years of your emails and you can then work in your browser, even offline.

As for showing pictures, that is a simple setting you can set for your frequent contacts and others. I’m seeing all the WS images in Gmail.

It pays to take a half-hour every so often to see what has changed in Gmail by examining the settings.

I guess you all know that you can make free phone calls from Gmail?”

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Thunderbird with a Fastmail paid IMAP account has worked flawlessly for over 6 years for personal email account. Only difficulties have been with major Thunderbird updates. Thunderbird 3.1 was a big difference and took a while to get running well. Meaning the way I wanted it to. The folders work very well. I have more than 75.

I inherited Outlook from my employer and employer’s exchange server from the ’90s which I forwarded to my 64 bit Vista laptop via a Verizon high speed cell data connection. This was neccessary because the employers network was down too often and often refused to let me on. I opened a Gmail account for Outlook. All mail is forwarded and deleted from Gmail when read on my computer. I have many thousand emails archived with “Msgsave” which has proved to be a lifesaver when an email needs to be retrived . The employer purged all 90 day old email and creating PDFs of each email and attachmentswas not practical.. I am also using Standss “Quick File” and “Email Notes”.

For me it is easier to use both Thunderbird and Outlook than to convert to just one or the other.

For service providers Fastmail is still my favorite as the company sticks with just being an email service.

Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail/ Windows Live are all usable but are into “SOCIAL” networking which is absolutely NOT what I want with an email account. I find it annoying to have to shut off that feature. I almost closed my Live account in their recent “upgrade” which made everything public.  IMHO you would think the service would let you choose to turn on sharing rather than having to turn it off.

I alredy have a Facebook account but keep it locked down to just friends. I suspect that will need to get deleted one day since the service can’t seem to keep control of the data. I once wrote that I liked South Polar Gum Jum fruit which caused a weird bunch of unwanted ads to appear in my email.

Wordy old man today…

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Have a look at IncrediMail. It’s free to try and simple to use for anyone who has used OE. It has many bells and whistles but you learn to use those only as you need them.

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Since we are discussing email uses etc. I now plan to use eMail Client but iwth a little difference. I currently have three different email accounts funneling into Hotmail/Win Live now. I plan to have eMail Client go into Hotmail/WinLive and retrieve the email from there. By doing that, I now have email copies sitting online for online storage should I need to retrieve from wherever. I can also use the stored online emails to work with SkyDrive as well.

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All but one of my email addresses are nor with my ISP but that ISP does allow logging on to email from other connections, which I believe some ISPs now block, supposedly for security reasons. You may therefore need to check with your ISP. The email at my own websites and gmail etc just works.

I presume the ISPs do this by blocking some ports, so you may need to make a note of other ports you can use.

I think this is the key to my problem I will check with my ISP (iinet Western Australia))

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This thread has been very helpful, but I’m still looking for something that is portable and works faster than Thunderbird. TB with Fastmail has been great but TB got slower and slower. I have found some things to improve it’s speed, but maybe I just need to dump it on a new memory stick.

I would recommend a look at Essential PIM an Outlook like program that works on a stick. It’s too bad Qualcomm has let Eudora twist in the wind.

I have never found any program that handles vCards very well. They all import, but I don’t think many export or something like that, but I never can really use vCard effectively. Finally encryption is something that has lagged on email, TB gives it a good shot with an addon, but everthing has to be in plain text and no fonts.

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NoScript, Ghostery, AdBlock Plus, HTTPS-Everywhere, WOT, and Session Manager I consider the defence ones needed; Lightning, a calendar extension which makes it Outlook lite (with features a home user or home office user would need or use), MinimizeToTray revived (for convenience I leave SM in tray all day to download mail), and BBCodeXtra (for use in forums and such). And there are dictionaries in many languages for SM.

I say it’s the best internet app for most users. I am surprised more dont use it. I understand computer literate may use other email clients, but SeaMonkey is best for most folk.

Most folk have never heard of it. I’ve recommended it to several dozen folk, only one has not switched to it. I dont expect that most folk who frequent forums will use SeaMonkey; many want software that they can fiddle with and tweak. Yet, SM is fiddleable and tweakable; although it suffices for most folk with only the extensions I mentioned, plus a few others for personalization.

Did I hear someone say, how about the cookie extension? It’s built in, simple, and effective.

Cookie, Popup, Image, Data, Download, and Add-On managers are built in.

Most use of desktop, even laptops too, by home users is general purpose, so SeaMonkey best suited for that. I have a home office and SeaMonkey more suitable for that for me, moreso than Microsoft office apps, or OpenOffice. Most folk dont use Excel, Powerpoint, or other specialty apps beyond word processors.

SeaMonkey the more faithful descendant of NetScape.

I dont travel with a laptop anymore; I get three of my email addresses on my phone; I have installed SeaMonkey Portable on a usb drive along with other office apps and utilities.
Your office on a usb drive, that portable enough?

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I know this goes against the grain of the general anti-MS sentiment in this thread, but I have become a big fan of Hotmail (and Windows Live Domains**, but more of that later). Why?

You can access your mailbox/folders, calendar and contacts via a web browser; you can use Windows Live Mail client and have access to the same; you can use the Office Outlook Connector and do exactly the same; you can use any ActiveSync based mobile phone (Hotmail has supported ActiveSync since the end of August) and get access to the same. This is the same info stored and accessible by all, no POP3 copies of emails and wondering what you have actually replied to. All in all, it delivers a very Exchange like experience for free. The other advantage of both Windows Live Mail and the Office Outlook Connector is that they talk over HTTPS, so no mucking about with incoming/outbound ports while in hotel rooms, or using wi-fi, or someone elses ISP. It just works!

** I have my own domain registered and have transferred my MX records to Microsoft’s Hotmail’s Windows Live Domain service, so if using a web browser, I can simply go to webmail.mydomain.com and away I go. It’s like a poor man’s Outlook Web Access.

To the original poster, this might be a bit overkill for your friend, but it certainly provides flexibility of approach at zero cost – apart from the domain name renewal in my case.

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I like Yahoo! Mail Plus (http://overview.mail.yahoo.com/enhancements/mailplus). It offers the ability to create disposable email addresses, so you can have a different email address for every online account. If you start getting spam you can then identify where they got your email address from and then delete that email address. Gmail also has disposable email addresses, but they are less secure. I stopped using anything from Google – not even the search engine. I’m fed up with their constant snooping, spying, and tracking of everything we do whenever we touch one of their products.

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Eudora 7.1 is still the best (imo) – works fine on Windows 7/64, but Eudora OSE catching up – just needs to add mail management on ISP servers, and pasting pictures in messages and will be hard to beat.

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Keep in mind that Windows Live Mail 2011 looks neat BUT will not filter SPAM – try it and see. Spamfighter won’t filter it either. Yep, you’ll get a lot of mail. I got rid of this quickly (also not an easy task).

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The winner of the popularity contest concerning a best replacement for Outlook Express should boil down simply to personal preferences. I used Outlook 2003 but refused to pay $90 for the 2007 and 2010 versions so I started trying everything out there. I liked Gmail as a simple aggregator of all my POP accounts but as an email client it purely sucks. It is clunky, slow and in general a pain to use for mail composition. I tried Eudora, Thunderbird and several others and only found one that was pretty good; it was called emClient or something similar and seemed to be designed with the intent of cloning Outlook. For personal reasons I just went back to Outlook 2003 and found that it sufficed for me. Then just recently I decided to take a look at Windows Live Hotmail and was pleasantly surprised with its ease of use. I now use it to aggregate all my several POP accounts under one parent application. I was able to send mail from each address to its own parent folder and I get desktop notification of all incoming mail without being signed into Outlook. I have never been a fan of Hotmail until now but I have to say I do like it. I now plan to pare back use of Gmail if not to remove it altogether.

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Hi Dick.

I have been using incredimail now for about 6 years when it first came out it was rubbish so did not use for a long time but with change of owners and modification to there privacy act in the last 12 months the programe is now very good and the most like outlook express of all the email programs available today . I have had no problems since starting to use again over past 6 months.

I have the paid version so get no advertising. I would not reccomend the free version other than to see if it is what you are looking for.

You have nothing to lose so give it a go and if you like it buy it. If you dont like it just uninstall

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I use Thunderbird. It’s similar to OE.
Took some getting used to but it’s O.K. now

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Pegasus is the one. I’ve used it since about 1996 and wouldn’t change for anything.

"She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined.
She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot."
--Mark Twain

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Here is a good list I found: http://email.about.com/od/windowsemailclients/tp/free_email_prog.htm

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