Windows: Top email clients overview
What is an email client?
Email clients are programs that allows users to access their email accounts and manage their messages. They can be used across different devices including computers, laptops, smartphones and tablets and enable you to setup and manage one or multiple email addresses. Email clients are also called email reader or message user agent.
Email clients for Windows or MacOS are separate software you install on your computer, while webmail (another type of email service) is accessed via an interface in your browser.
Many email client programs are free and open source and allow you to receive, read, write, style and send messages.
Following is a hand-picked selection list of the best email client apps & software for Windows.
Thunderbird (Windows)
Thunderbird is an open-source email client developed by Mozilla Foundation. The project is led by Mozilla Corporation to provide a free, open source alternative to the expensive commercial software that dominates the market. This freeware email client is easy to get started with and full of intelligent features, but still very manageable. It features a mail account setup wizard for easy and guided setup, a tabbed interface (exactly like tabbed browsing), quick filter options when you search for particular emails and many options to customize you email experience. Pretty useful is the calendar integration and the one-click address book - a convenient and fast way to add people to your personal address book.
"Thunderbird - Emails made easy"
Many people have more than one email account. Managing multiple accounts can be hard and time-consuming. With Thunderbird, you can access multiple email accounts and arrange each Inbox, Sent or Archive folder in so-called Smart Folders to see related data (for example, all your incoming messages) in one place.
Outlook (Windows)
Outlook is an email client software developed by Microsoft Corporation. It was first released in 1996 as a Mac-only application and has since been expanded to include support for mobile devices, web applications, and synchronizing with Microsoft Exchange Server. Outlook can be used either as a standalone program on Windows or Mac (desktop and mobile) or via browser interface as webmail (outlook.com).
"Outlook - Free personal email and calendar from Microsoft"
Main features of Outlook include:
- Calendar
- Address book
- Task management (integration of ToDo)