Simple email client. Top e-mail client rating

The browser has studied several e-mail clients for Windows and tells you which programs can be liked by active e-mail users who are tired of interfaces. Windows Live  Mail or Microsoft Outlook.

  Mailbird

Mail client  with an interface distinctly reminiscent of Sparrow for Mac OS. The second year application receives the IT World Award as the best email client for Windows.

The Mailbird team understands that many users want to emphasize individuality and improve the usability of the final product, and offers customers the following solutions for personalization: the choice of colors, customization of user interface panels and shortcut keys.

The tendency to expand the functional features of applications by connecting other applications is gaining momentum. The developers have taken this into account, so the application supports touch control and connection third-party applicationssuch as Facebook, Dropbox, WhatsApp, Twitter, Evernote, Todoist and some others.


The application is available in paid (Pro) and free (Lite) versions. Paid subscription, in turn, also exists in two versions: for a year and for life for $ 12 and $ 45, respectively. The paid version offers users a quick preview of long messages and snooze messages.

Dormant snooze messages allow the user to delay the reading of non-urgent correspondence for a specified period of time. When the grace period expires, the message reappears as unread.

Also, the Pro-version offers the connection of an unlimited number of email-accounts, against the maximum three free version. The trial period of the free use of the Pro version is 30 days.

  Mozilla thunderbird

Cross-platform email client from developers mozilla browser  Firefox.

The creators of the application laid the basis for the principle of OpenSource. The advantages of such projects are timely search and elimination of vulnerabilities, as well as quick product updates.

Application developers have not bypassed the issue of security of personal correspondence. Message encryption digital signature  and verification of certificates are responsible for the confidentiality of users' personal correspondence. Powerful spam filter copes well with its task and is trainable.

Of the functional features, you can highlight the support of modern mail protocols, RSS and Atom-channels, lightness, extensive catalogs of folders. Thunderbird is “friendly” with almost any encoding, it is able to filter messages and simultaneously work with several accounts.

According to Mozilla, the product is used by 495 thousand users in Russia and 9 million worldwide. The austerity and conceptual old age of the user interface is designed to brighten up the big green button on the product site that says “Download for free”.

  eM Client

Simple and convenient mail client in Outlook style.


Users are offered two versions of the product - Free and Pro. The $ 30 version offers the creation of an unlimited number of accounts (against the maximum two for the free version) and a license for commercial use.

The advantages of the application include the connection of third-party services Microsoft Exchange, Gmail, iCloud, support for touch devices and customizable widgets. Importing data from Microsoft Outlook, Windows Live Mail, Thunderbird, The Bat makes it easy to switch from other email clients.

  the bat

Mail client, characterized by powerful protective mechanisms on the one hand and the complete absence of built-in spam filters, tedious interface configuration and homely design on the other.


Against the background of free competitors, the application wins in ensuring confidentiality, keeps up when comparing functional features and loses usability with a bang.

In everyday correspondence, the security requirements of most users are met. standard means, which offer other email clients, because the price tag of 2000 rubles for the Home-version seems too high.

  Inky

Beautiful, modern and free email client.

In addition to the high-quality user interface, Inky boasts the ability to work with multiple accounts, flexible filters, cloud synchronization and convenient visualization, in which the user is invited to choose colors and icons for different accounts.

The developers have built in the application automatic sorting of incoming messages by relevance. Messages from closest contacts are marked with a blue drop, which means high message importance. Less important messages and spam are marked with less bright drops and dropped in the list.

In practice, it is not uncommon for the sorting to be carried out according to a temporary principle, which means assigning the most important message to the most recent one. A logical simplification of the sorting system, which destroys a great idea of ​​care and attention to each user.


In terms of personalization convenience, Inky is a trained and easily customizable client.

Finally, it is worth mentioning an interesting open source development.

Concentration on the performance of one function is the key to efficiency in software. Programs that are trying to create on the “all-in-one” principle are ultimately bloated, incomprehensible, and most of their additional functions do not work as well as we would like.

On the other side are programs that have a specific direction, such as Excel. Mail clients in this regard are no different.

Having a special desktop client that can process your email for you is a great way to have more free time and still be constantly organized.

There is nothing wrong with using popular web interfaces provided by most email services such as Gmail and Hotmail, but having a separate client is a great option not to keep the browser tab open on the email page for 24 hours.

I personally use Postbox for my email, but this program costs about $ 10. Fortunately, there are many other free and affordable email clients that just need to be searched in the right places.

Thunderbird

When Mozilla firefox  appeared on the scene in 2004 (then he went out under the name Firebird), he was able to move Internet Explorer  from Microsoft. In the same year, Mozilla released Thunderbird, which became a direct competitor to Microsoft Outlook. Since then, Thunderbird has maintained its popularity and is not going to give up its positions.

Thunderbird is packed to capacity with various functions, but does not suffer from slowness due to their number. The client can work with several email accounts at the same time, supports POP and IMAP, has message filters, folders for organizing letters, address labels and priorities, supports channels and Atom.

In addition, it has a system of plug-ins, with which you can add additional functions at its own discretion. The only thing the program, despite its prevalence and popularity, will not install new add-ons from unknown places.

Thunderbird is open software, yes, even cross-platform. It can be installed on Windows, Linux and even on a Mac, if desired.

eM Client


Although Thunderbird is the most popular free client for Windows, the eM Client has the best features. It syncs perfectly with any Gmail account, including email, calendars, contact lists, tasks, and even GTalk. If you switch to this client from Outlook, then for such a case eM Client has a special tool for importing data. In addition, the client's design is made in a minimalist style and looks quite nice.

you can use eM Client without fear of your own, since it encrypts everything that it sends. It even has an interesting feature to create your own. PC Magazine magazine included the eM Client to the top free software  three years in a row - 2010, 2011 and 2012. To understand why this happened very simply, you just need to start using it.

eM Client is available in two versions: Free and Pro. The Pro version costs $ 50 and gives you a commercial license for commercial use, as well as VIP priority support.

Also, the Pro version allows you to create an unlimited number of email accounts.
Download eM Client

Windows Live Mail


If you use it on your computer, then you have the opportunity to install Windows Essentials and get an excellent free email client called Windows Live Mail. It handles all your accounts  email and is very easy to set up. If you use SkyDrive, then in general is great! Windows Live Mail syncs with SkyDrive in real time.

Windows Live Mail is only available for Windows Vista, 7 and 8. If you use more early version operating system, for example XP, then, unfortunately, you are out of luck.
Download: Windows Live Mail

Zimbra Desktop


Zimbra Desktop was a great first-class email client a while ago, but for some reason it was lost from sight and it is still not clear why this happened. Its main distinguishing features are that it can synchronize in local mode, so you can read all the messages while in offline mode. Plus, you can collect all your accounts in one place and no matter what accounts it is: email or social networks.

In principle, you can use the Zimbra Desktop client as a place to consolidate all of your communication tools. And even despite such impressive functionality, Zimbra Desktop does not seem to be a bloated program. Even with such a huge number of functions, it works surprisingly fast and looks great at the same time. I cannot even sum up all the amazing features of a client, because there are really a lot of them.

Zimbra Desktop is free and is available for Windows, Linux and Mac. Download: Zimbra Desktop

Claws mail


Claws Mail is a GTK + based desktop email client. Thanks to this feature, it has a minimalistic interface and fast response time. In the design of the client, everything is intuitively clear and almost impossible to get confused, plus it can be customized. In general, the program is fairly reliable and easily extensible, which will allow you to satisfy all possible needs in the mail client.

When using Claws Mail, you can import settings and emails from other email clients, such as Outlook or Thunderbird.

If after some time you want to get rid of this program, then all the data can also be easily exported.

Using plugins, you can add some functionality, such as the ability to read RSS, a calendar with events, and some others.

For those who do not use e-mail for commercial purposes, the capabilities of the web interface of mail services often suffice. These provide basic functionality for working with mail and in most cases are dressed in a user-friendly interface, focused on beginners. Some mail services, such as Yandex.Mail, may even offer a choice of themes. But when using e-mail in a commercial environment, greater efficiency can be achieved due to the capabilities of a special type of software - e-mail clients, programs installed in the operating system, receiving data from the e-mail server and presenting it to the user in their own interface. Such email programs are usually able to provide multi-account work with by email, can offer flexible settings, filtering, sorting and other opportunities in working with large volumes of correspondence. Many mailers, plus this, also provide organizational functions such as a calendar, a scheduler, a database with contacts, etc.

In this article we will look at current offers in the market of mail clients for the operating windows systems  7, 8 or 10. Not all of the mailers discussed below are functional tools. The review also includes minimalistic products, such as email applications in latest versions  Windows With them review and begin.

  1. The Mail application in Windows 8.1

The Mail program, which appeared in the state of Windows 8, then migrated to its version-upgrade of Windows 8.1, became one of the aspects of Microsoft's global idea - to offer the user a new format of the operating system with the old habitual and new uncomplicated, designed for the inhabitant tools on board. The built-in Windows 8.1 mailer is a product in the style of the Modern UI (Metro) interface, and, as it is appropriate for mail programs of this format, it contains only basic functionality and a minimum of settings. The Mail program, being initially oriented not on functionality, but on the convenience of working with e-mail on touch devices with small screens, may be little: it supports work with several boxes, provides receiving, sending mail, moving it inside the box, the ability to customize the display letters in order of receipt or the type of conversations and a couple of little things.

The Windows 8.1 email client since version 8 of the system has not grown on board yet. The reason for this is the short time of the relevance of Windows 8 / 8.1 itself. The evolution of the mail client took place already in the version of the Windows 10 system.


  2. The Mail application in Windows 10

The Windows 10 e-mail client since the official release of this version of the system has been constantly changing, and users who have not disabled updates have occasionally been able to detect new options in the parameters. However, the mail client onboard Windows 10 differs little from the Windows 8.1 mailer. Among the significant differences is the choice of interface colors, background picture  and great opportunities when creating emails, in particular, text formatting and working with tables.


  3. Microsoft Outlook 2016

Native postal windows applications  never turn into functional mail clients, otherwise they will bury Outlook as part of a paid software package Microsoft Office. All that Microsoft is capable of as the creator of an email client, we will see in current version  Microsoft Outlook 2016. In addition to the functional mailer, Outlook also includes an RSS client, contacts, notes, calendar, task scheduler. Among the functional advantages of the mail client module are developed systems for tagging, filtering and sorting correspondence, applying notification rules and automatic movement to new letters to new letters. necessary folders, the choice of the layout of the Outlook window for convenient presentation of mail, autoarchiving and other features.

Microsoft Outlook is the perfect product for marketing. Mailer contains not just an extensive toolkit for formatting text when creating e-mails, it is, in fact, embedded stripped-down version Microsoft Word. When creating letters, you can work with tables, autotext, figures and express blocks, use Wordart and other functions. text editor  from Microsoft. For the text of letters pre-installed spell checking, there is a built-in translator, counting the number of words, the smart search function.


  4. Windows Live Mail

Another solution from Microsoft is a free client application for working with mail services, included in the Windows Live software package. It appeared as a result of the allocation of postal windows client Mail aboard Windows Vista. Windows Live mail in terms of functionality can be attributed to something average between Microsoft Outlook and minimalist email applications in Windows 8.1 and 10. While Microsoft Outlook is a product targeted at the corporate user, the Windows Live mailer is a product for the average person. It is created in the format of a Ribbon-interface (with a toolbar, divided into horizontally oriented tabs), provides, in addition to the mail client, the modules of the RSS client, a database with contacts, a calendar with the possibility of scheduling events.

The functionality of the Windows Live mail client is a cut-down version of Microsoft Outlook features. When working with mail, you can customize the convenient layout of the client window, apply filters, selections, sorting options, use the presentation of letters according to the type of conversations, create rules for automatic deletion of letters, moving to the necessary folders, forwarding to individual recipients, etc. The form of creating emails, compared with Microsoft Outlook, has a more meager arsenal, however, there are necessary text formatting options, and among the insert functions there is even the possibility of forming a photo album inside the letter.


  5. The Bat!

The review of third-party mail clients will begin with the foremost market - The Bat! , the most functional program of all presented in this article. The Bat! can offer the user a custom interface, mail sorting, advanced search by mailbox content, RSS client, database with contacts, protection against viruses and spam, setting an email access password, spell checking when creating letters and other features. One of key features  This email client has templates, a more advanced analogue of the Microsoft Outlook rules of conduct. Using The Bat! you can create letter blanks and set mailer rules.

The Bat! - mailer, paid product, there is a monthly trial version to evaluate all the features.


  6. Mozilla Thunderbird

Opera Mail consists of three modules - a mail section, an RSS client and a newsgroup client. For the mailer window, you can choose a convenient layout for presenting letters. Directly to work with e-mail correspondence, Opera Mail can offer a tagging system, mail sorting, and using the database with contacts. The possibilities for creating letters are minimal — text without formatting and attachment of attachment files.


  8. eM Client

The last participant in the review is the eM Client. Organizationally and functionally, it is similar to Windows Live, but, apart from the modules of the mail client, the calendar scheduler, the database with contacts, the RSS client, it also provides for the chat function. You can connect to eM Client chat accounts of such text messaging services as: Jabber, ICQ, IRC, MSN, Yahoo !, GaduGadu, etc. Among the features of the mail client, we find the standard set of functions such as mail sorting, tagging, advanced search engine and filtering inside mailboxes. It is possible to work with the rules for automatic deletion, transfer, transfer of correspondence to the necessary folders, etc. The eM Client interface is customizable: you can select a theme, customize the layout of windows and the position of the sidebar to your right.


While all previous participants of the review, except for The Bat! Paid, allow connection of an unlimited number of mailboxes within the framework of free use of programs, the free eM Client is limited to only two mailboxes connected.

Have a great day!