1. Mozilla Thunderbird

The first and the most popular alternative is Thunderbird, the open-source email client from Mozilla. It is the best when it comes to speed and flexibility. It can expand its usability through plugins and add-ons like Firefox. That’s why most Firefox user will feel easier to work with Thunderbird.

Thunderbird supports all popular protocols including POP, IMAP and SMTP. Another advantage of Thunderbird is that it is available in all platforms while Microsoft Outlook is only available for Windows (and now on Mac OS X too).

One advantage of Thunderbird over Microsoft Outlook which I have personally seen is the use of IMAP. While Microsoft has done some work in this area in Microsoft Outlook 2010, Outlook still tends to hang and become unresponsive if using an IMAP account connection, Thunderbird prospers in this area and works very fast even with IMAP. If you prefer IMAP to access your email, Thunderbird is the best alternative with lots of other features and extensions.

Latest version of Thunderbird can be downloaded from Mozilla Messaging.

2. Zimbra Desktop

Zimbra Desktop is my personal favorite and I have, as a consultant, recommended and implemented it in many offices. Zimbra collaboration suite is an Open-Source competitor to Microsoft Exchange and Zimbra Desktop is an email client just like Microsoft Outlook. The strongest features of Zimbra Desktop is its ease of use and an elegant user interface. I usually work with IMAP when I’m not using Microsoft Exchange and Zimbra Desktop works like I’m working locally with email, such is the speed of Zimbra Desktop even with IMAP which no one can beat until now.

Zimbra Desktop has an auto-configure feature for Yahoo Mail, Gmail, Hotmail and AOL which makes it a snap to configure an account on Zimbra Desktop if you’re using one of these email services. It also includes a work offline feature which will automatically cache all your email locally so that you will be able to access your email even when you’re offline. This feature works with IMAP protocol which makes Zimbra Desktop the winner in the IMAP usage race.

Another feature of Zimbra Desktop that I like and use a lot is the conversation view. You can view all the email in a single email view like in Yahoo or Hotmail or you can combine the email in a single conversation view which makes it very easy to track and see the conversation going on previously with the same person. This feature is available in Gmail by default.

The new version of Zimbra Desktop also combines the social element with email by providing access to all your social accounts in one place. The supported social platforms include Twitter, Facebook, Digg etc.

Zimbra Desktop can be downloaded from Zimbra website.

3. IncrediMail

IncrediMail is rather a fun alternative to Microsoft Outlook. It provides a fun way of sending and checking email by providing a colorful experience. It provides all the features of a standard email client including POP, IMAP and SMTP but in addition to this, provides features like colorful and photo backgrounds while composing emails, email notifiers which are animated characters notifying you about a newly received email, incredibly high quality emotions making your email more attractive and fun.

IncrediMail also includes a feature called PhotoMail Maker which will allow you to add your personal photos as email backgrounds.

One disadvantage of IncrediMail is that it will force you to change your browser homepage and search provider to IncrediMail’s one. If you’re using Internet Explorer 9, it will warn you that some software wants to change your search provider. Just click on “Don’t Change” which will be fine if you don’t want to change your search provider in Internet Explorer.

Download IncrediMail.

4. Opera Mail

If you’re using Opera as your default browser, Opera Mail provides a very good alternative to any email client as it integrates the mail client right inside the Opera Browser. You can configure Opera Mail easily and there’s no need to open a separate email client. Your email will arrive and show up in Opera browser.

Opera also gives access to offline mail access feature so that you can browse your email even when you’re not connected to the Internet. It also uses a low bandwidth mode which comes in very handy when you’re using a slow Internet connection and especially while travelling. Opera Mail fetches only necessary information on low bandwidth mode.

Opera Mail also integrates a smart spam filter which will block all the spam email. It works in background and doesn’t bother you.

I especially like the organization features of Opera Mail. We can sort the mail the way we want. Getting only unread mail is easier than ever in Opera Mail. While Gmail introduced labels instead of folders, Opera Mail goes a step further by auto-learning feature. Now labels can learn how you interact with them.

Opera browser can be downloaded from Opera website. You can configure mail by going to the menu and selecting Mail and Chat accounts.

5. emClient

emClient is another great email client and a competitor to Microsoft Outlook. The new version of emClient has been specifically designed for running on Windows Vista and Windows 7. It is free for home use while you’ll have to pay for the service if you’re a business user. It supports all the popular free email services like Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail. It can also import settings and email from other email clients like Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird.

I especially like its search feature. It’s very quick and finds anything within the inbox instantly. Other standard features are also included that are by default in Outlook like tagging for messages, signatures and templates, email rules. It even includes translation service directly inside the inbox which makes it very easy to read the mails if you’re getting mails in different languages.

Besides email, emClient supports other collaboration and organization features like Calendaring, Instant messaging, Contacts organization etc. emClient can be downloaded here.

While there are many other alternatives, I have only discussed best five of them in my opinion. You can share your top choices through comments below.

Dwight

Dear Dwight, there is no need to amend the registry to set AOL webmail as the default email handler in Windows. Previously, we have reviewed MailTo.exe that can easily set Gmail as the default, but it doesn’t support AOL or any other webmail services.

To set AOL as the default email handler, GmailDefaultMaker will get the job done. (Even though its name stated “Gmail”, it does support AOL, Yahoo and Hotmail as well)

1. Download GmailDefaultMaker

2. Run the Installer.

3. When you reach the screen to choose your preferred email service, choose AOL.

4. Finish the installation.

That’s it. You have now set AOL as the default email handler in Windows.

Merry Christmas and Prosperious New Year to you too.

If you are a Mac and Yahoo user, a good news for you is that you can make use of MacFreePOPs to configure your desktop email client (particularly mail.app) to receive your Yahoo mail. You won’t be able to send mail though. (Windows and Linux users can use the popular YPOPs to configure their desktop clients to access Yahoo)

First download MacFreePop here.

Run MacFrePop. You should see the screen below:

If the update button is available, make sure you click it and update all the internal files. Failure to update the files might render this application useless.

Click on the Extra options to show a list of configuration options. Click on the freepopsd service tab.

Place a check in the first row of options and change the port to 2000 and the address to 127.0.0.1

Once that is done, click on the Start freepopsd service to start the server running.

Now open up your mail.app.

Go to Mail->Preferences and select on the Accounts tab. At the bottom, click on the ‘+’ to add a new mail account.

Enter your name, email address and the password. Leave the “Automatically set up account” option alone.

Click Continue.

Select POP from the dropdown option.

In the Incoming Mail Server field, enter “127.0.0.1“.

In the User Name field, enter the full email address (including the @yahoo.com). Click Continue.

MacFreePop does not allow you to send emails from your Yahoo account, but you can still configure it to send via third party email accounts (or your existing accounts).

At the Outgoing Mail Server dropdown option, choose a setting that you have previously configured. Click Continue.

You should be done with the new account setup. Back in the Account options screen, highlight the newly created account on the left pane and select the Advanced tab on the right pane.

In the Port field, change it to 2000.

Exit the Preferences window.

Back to your Inbox, click on Get Mail. Your mail.app will start to download all your Yahoo emails now.

Troubleshooting

Why can’t I receive emails?

• Make sure that you update all the internal files of MacFreePop by clicking the Update Available button.
• Make sure that you start the freepopsd server before you start to retrieve emails.
• Make sure that in the account setup section, you use ’127.0.0.1′ as the Incoming server.
• Make sure that you have changed the port to 2000 in the Account setup.

This free open-source mail client (available for Mac and Windows) combines few great features that can help users manage their emails better.

The developer’s site have a comprehensive list of Postbox’s features and abilities, but here are few that I personally find useful.

1. Create new accounts

The first time Postbox is opened, it will offer you to create a new account. You can also create another account later by going to File -> New -> Account menu. Compared to other email client that I’ve used so far, Postbox’s new account creation is the easiest. It supports major web mail services like GMail, Hotmail, Yahoo and even MobileMe.

2. Browse mails with tabs

Each time you select a mail, it will be shown on one of the window’s pane. There are two pane’s layout that you can choose: Classic View and Vertical View. You can toggle between these two views from the View -> Layout menu.

If you double click on one of the messages, it will be opened in a new tab instead of window. I think the idea is nice and produces less cluttered workspace.

3. Organize messages with topics

In Postbox, you can organize messages by topics. You can set and add any topics that you can think of according to your preferences.

The easiest way to add topic is by right clicking on the favorite topic pane and choose “Create New Favorit Topic” on the popup window. Then you can to assign messages to the topic by clicking the Plus (+) sign next to the “Topic” option in each message.

But if you need to assign topic(s) to many messages automatically, use filtering option for the fastest result. Go to “Message -> Create Filter From Message” menu.

4. To Dos

Postbox comes with the ability to create to do list easily. Not as elaborate as Outlook, but most people – like me – do not need advance organizing capability.

You can create a to do entry manually by clicking “New To Do” icon, or you can ‘tag’ a to do entry to a message by selecting a message and clicking the ‘To Do” button in the message view.

After that, if you go to “View -> Pin To Dos” menu, all the message with the ‘To Do’ tag will be listed above other message.

5. Attachment (and other) List

This app also has a attachment list feature that will show all the attachments from all of the messages in one page. Just click on the Attachment button under the search field. There are 3 other list buttons that you can choose: Images, Links, and Contacts.

The list will open up in a new tab. From here on you can choose to Save (to your hard drive), Send (to others via email), Upload (to Google Docs, but I don’t think this service is compatible with every filetype), or just to have a Quick Look.

This list is based on my short encounter with Postbox for Mac, but the feel for Windows version should not be far off. As time goes by, I’m sure I’ll add more to the “what I like about Postbox” list.

Have you tried Postbox? Whether you will like it or not, this nice app deserves at least a try.

And as always, share your thoughts and experiences in the comment below.

FreePOPs acts as its own POP proxy transferring data between your web-based interfaces and your choice of email program (i.e. Microsoft Outlook). Another nifty feature is FreePOPs ability to convert RSS feeds into emails allowing you to easily share your favorite feeds as you’re also able to download your feeds onto your desktop. This web application works with very closely with HTTP proxy servers and gives you the option of using a spam and virus filter as well for added protection and additional layers of security.

OS Support

FreePOPs supports a wide variety of operating systems, here’s a brief list defining a few:

• Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/3/XP/Vista
• Mac OS X
• Linux/Unix

Just a Free Email app?

FreePOPs is a simple, reliable, and exceptional way to download messages from web based email account to your email programs located on your desktop. Years ago when web based email readily became available, many used to wonder how to make these emails available to them without having to constantly login to their accounts. Finally there is a solution to the once hard to gain ease and comfort of always knowing what is in your mailbox with FreePOPs.  With this app, you’re able to gain access to your email within a matter of seconds while there is no required setup and configuration.

ScreenShot of FreePOPs checking a Gmail account to download the contents to your desktops POP account.

Our POP Journey Has Come to an End

Even though FreePOPs has few flaws like not being able to mark downloaded email as read or the ability to support SMTP settings that would allow you to send email, it is still a display of one’s creativity and ability to further innovate services and applications for a more beneficial use. As times progress we hope that FreePOPs will include more features like the ability to send emails, IMAP access, easier module configuration and more to come.

Click Here for a quick and free download of FreePOPs.