Microsoft Outlook has worked well for me on somecomputers, but has always been troublesome on one of them. I tried upgrading to the Outlook 2010 beta, and that’s been a horror story. Accordingly, I humbly solict recommendations about an e-mail software program for accessing several POP accounts. Thanks.
Case3L says:
I use Outlook for work, but for my school and gmail accounts I use Mozilla Thunderbird. It’s super lightweight, fast, and the newest version has some nice features like tabs and more powerful searching. Like Firefox, you can also download extensions which make it more powerful, but I’ve noticed it gets a little buggy when you have lots of extensions running. Adding accounts is pretty easy, and its not hard to set up several outgoing SMTP accounts.
February 9, 2010, 1:22 pmKent Scheidegger says:
Ditto. I use Thunderbird both at home and at work. Setting it up for multiple accounts is not difficult at all.
February 9, 2010, 1:30 pmMoshe says:
Thunderbird – with the Lightening calendar extension
February 9, 2010, 1:31 pmM-K says:
Mozilla Thunderbird for simplicity and reliability. And affordability. (It’s free.)
February 9, 2010, 1:34 pmBruce Boyden says:
I also use Thunderbird at home, and it works fine if you can get past the initial setup, but it has balked at importing Outlook Express folders with large numbers (thousands) of messages in them. Namely, it slows to a crawl even when working with other folders. Still haven’t had the time to figure that out.
February 9, 2010, 1:34 pmCory J says:
I second Thunderbird. Additionally, if you’ve grown tired of a software solution you can setup a GMail account to retrieve POP email using their “Mail Fetcher” option.
February 9, 2010, 1:35 pmLong time lurker says:
I have used “The Bat!” from ritlabs.com for many years and am very pleased with it. Multiple POP/SMTP accounts is a breeze.
It is not a PIM, just a focused email client.
Highly recommended.
February 9, 2010, 1:42 pmKroll says:
I think a Glock 31 .357 is likely to solve your problem.
February 9, 2010, 1:48 pmFantasiaWHT says:
You can either setup gmail to fetch, or have your account forward to gmail. When you send an email or reply, you can choose which account to show as the sender.
February 9, 2010, 1:49 pmJohn Burgess says:
Don’t know if it would fit your needs exactly, or your philosophy, but I’m happy enough with Yahoo’s premium e-mail ($20/yr). It consolidates the e-mail from all my different accounts readily.
February 9, 2010, 2:26 pmJ. Aldridge says:
Can’t go wrong with Thunderbird as pointed out above.
February 9, 2010, 2:27 pmChristopher Cooke says:
I assume your operating system is Windows (XP, Vista, or 7). I would second the recommendations of Thunderbird, with the Lightning Calendar extension, primarily because of its price (free). However, I have found it to be a bit buggy (but I was using it on another OS). If you are going to use pop mail, I recommend forwarding all pop emails into one web-based account, such as gmail or yahoo, sorting the mail in that account. I prefer gmail because it has a superior spam filter than yahoo’s email program, but either works and, once again, the price is right.
Personally, I have abandoned POP mail for IMAP, which means that you don’t have to download the messages and if you access a message on one machine, it will thereafter show up as “read” even if you access it elsewhere. Although it is not perfect, IMAP is a big improvement over POP.
February 9, 2010, 2:30 pmJon says:
Gmail. You shouldn’t have to worry about losing thousands of emails if your PC should ‘involuntarily retire.’ Keep it in the cloud.
February 9, 2010, 2:49 pmzuch says:
Get a Mac.
Cheers,
February 9, 2010, 2:49 pmDon Miller says:
Interesting, I switched to the 2010 beta about 4 weeks ago and really like it.
Could you give some details about what problems you are seeing, so I can be ready when I start testing it with some of my end users?
I will add a vote for Thunderbird though. It is a nice email reader.
February 9, 2010, 2:53 pmSonicfrog says:
I gave up on using in house email clients a few years ago because I’m always tinkering with my computer, installing different flavors of Linux (yes, I’m a distro-junkie) and got sick of losing my email. I now use gmail exclusively and don’t worry about losing my mail… and if it DOES happen, it won’t be my fault. If you MUST use a dedicated in-house email client, then I also endorse T-bird. It was what I used before I switched to gmail.
February 9, 2010, 2:54 pmJMA says:
I tried to make Thunderbird work, once upon a time, before I came to understand that idealism and software are not fun bed partners. Last time I checked, it still sucked (though I must admit that I don’t make a habit of testing bad software often).
For a light client, I use Live Mail. However, I don’t find any real difficulties with Outlook 2010, and I don’t tend to use my “light client” too often at home (as gmail is usually sufficient), so I don’t have extensive experience in this arena and, to be honest, if Outlook doesn’t work, I’m not sure Mail will.
Why did I know zuch was a mac user? :)
February 9, 2010, 2:56 pmChris Travers says:
Thunderbird is the one that comes to mind. Unfortunately, I have had my mailboxes get corrupted from time to time…..
I have generally found Evolution to be a more rock-solid client with fewer problems. It is also free and there is now a Windows version. That is, unless you are creationist or a Ximian ;-) (Ximian is the name of the company that first developed Evolution. They were acquired by Novell a few years back.)
(Does this suggest Evolution is not intelligently designed? I don’t know… I do know it works pretty darned well.)
February 9, 2010, 2:57 pmptt says:
Microsoft beta anything… are you mad!?!!?!
February 9, 2010, 3:00 pm1040 says:
Hard to recommend without knowing exactly what kind of problems you’ve had in the past, or are having with the beta. Thunderbird is pretty good, though. Although I have found recent versions of Outlook, including 2007 and the 2010 beta, to be up there as well. Outlook also has features that you won’t find in Thunderbird.
February 9, 2010, 3:03 pmconservatarian dot net says:
AS a lawyer myself, I like time and Chaos’s Intellect as a contact manager and email program. Very powerful at reasonable price.
February 9, 2010, 3:14 pmconservatarian dot net says:
As a lawyer myself, I like Time and Chaos’s Intellect as a contact manager and email program. Very powerful at reasonable price. http://www.chaossoftware.com
February 9, 2010, 3:15 pmM-K says:
Having already recommended Thunderbird for general purpose use, I also have to agree with Long Time Lurker in recommending The Bat! If you need a really powerful email client (and are willing to invest time in learning its powerful quirks), The Bat! is hard to beat.
February 9, 2010, 3:51 pmBill says:
Thunderbird. And upgrade to a provider which uses imap instead of POP.
February 9, 2010, 5:15 pmSenator Christmas says:
David, what kind of problems are you having? Feel free to email if you prefer.
February 9, 2010, 5:25 pmSteve says:
I’ve moved all of my e-mail, calendar and contacts to GMail. I can access and send from multiple accounts and clients do not know the difference (for 99 percent of them).
I can move from my PC to my MacBook and everything is the same – synced. I can move to my work laptop and access everything. My iPhone has the e-mail, calendar and contacts all synced too.
If I want to access my account from a family members computer, I’m good to go.
If I update a phone number or e-mail address on the iPhone in GMail, it shows up by the time I fire up the laptop.
Biggest concerns? Back ups, and to a certain extent security. But those issues still exist with a full blown client like Outlook or Thunderbird.
February 9, 2010, 5:33 pmJohn Jenkins says:
What Bill says. POP is an antique at this point. If all you are doing is email, a desktop app is probably overkill and Outlook is certainly overkill. Google calendar is also excellent if you don’t require the enterprise features of Outlook.
Thunderbird is a good client, but if you are using Windows, then Windows Mail or Outlook Express will handle straight email duties and you already have it installed.
February 9, 2010, 5:37 pmRandom_Physicist says:
I use Thunderbird on my home computer and my university’s webmail elsewhere. I also have a gmail account that receives all of my mail but I don’t currently use it (although if I ever feel like it, it already has all of my mail so I don’t have to mess with forwarding/copying/transferring).
February 9, 2010, 6:14 pmGSP says:
I second Thunderbird. Great program, and runs super well, very easy setup, and very robust. If you have a Mac, use Mail.app, it’s the best out there, I think.
February 9, 2010, 6:17 pmJK says:
Thunderbird is the way to go for multiple email accounts. Stick with POP
February 9, 2010, 6:41 pminstead of IMAP. When you travel, you may not always have network access,
but with POP you can still search your email files because they are stored
locally. IMAP sounds great…until you’re at a Starbucks and the wi-fi is
flaky and keeps dropping you and all you want to do is look up an address in
an email that you already read (but forgot to copy or download).
John Moore says:
I used Eudora (by Qualcomm). Unfortunately, it is no longer sold. I have tried Thunderbird from time to time but it wasn’t as powerful. I’d like to see a better solution.
BTW, I also run all my email through Google gmail first – both for net-wide accessibility, and especially spam filtering.
February 9, 2010, 6:50 pmCornellian says:
I’m surprised at the number of Eudora diehards around. It must have been a great program to inspire such devotion years after it was discontinued. I felt that way about an old DOS program called Lotus Agenda. I had to give it up eventually but I’ve still yet to see any app that can do what it could do.
February 9, 2010, 7:08 pm1040 says:
most modern email clients allow you to keep a local copy of your imap files for offline use. i’ve generally found that imap is superior to pop in terms of features – specifically, the idea of folders.
February 9, 2010, 7:19 pm1040 says:
i havent moved my email to gmail primarily due to privacy concerns. google already accumulates so much information on individuals, the volume of personal info that an email archive would provide plus concerns about handing over to the feds etc make me loath to cede my email to them.
February 9, 2010, 7:22 pmChris Travers says:
I know a lot of people who swear by mutt as an email client. Probably not what I would suggest to a law professor though :-)
February 9, 2010, 7:36 pmJonathan says:
I 20th Thunderbird. The 3.0 evolution is very nice, I have had better luck than Outlook, and you can get free backup progs (both for Thunderbird, and external to it, like Carbonite), and it’s free!
February 9, 2010, 7:43 pmLaw Shucks says:
gmail, and you can run it offline if you have to.
February 9, 2010, 8:14 pmYitzhak says:
Sylpheed. Free as in beer and speech, rock solid, actively developed, active mailing list with responsive expert users and the dev, Hiro-san himself – a generally awesome client.
There’s also Claws, which began a while ago as a fork of Sylph. It may be more powerful in some ways, but I don’t know enough about it.
February 9, 2010, 8:28 pmjweaks says:
another vote for Gmail
February 9, 2010, 10:47 pmCurious passerby says:
I used Eudora (by Qualcomm). Unfortunately, it is no longer sold.
I have used Eudora (from my alma mater U of Illinois) forever on my Mac and still get info on upgrades. They have free and premium versions. Why does anyone think it’s not sold?
February 9, 2010, 11:15 pmChris Travers says:
I didn’t know Evolution 3.0 was released yet ;-) I thought the current version was 2.28.2
February 9, 2010, 11:15 pmChris Travers says:
Interesting. According to this site, Eudora is going open source!
Edit: Stranger and stranger. It looks like the New and Improved open source Eudora is Thunderbird plus a contributed plugin.
February 9, 2010, 11:16 pmCase3L says:
I’ve had it for a while now, but I seem to remember having to download it from mozilla’s website and install over the 2.28.x version. It didn’t automatically download the update and then install the next time it started up.
February 10, 2010, 12:41 amKirk Parker says:
zuch,
So what email client do you use on your mac?
February 10, 2010, 2:11 amChris Travers says:
Teasing you over choice of words.
Thunderbird is the Mozilla Foundation’s email client.
Evolution was written by Ximian (formerly Helix Code) as an attempt to be a Outlook-killer for UNIX-type operating systems. It was later ported to Windows after Novell bought Ximian, and there is a plugin to attach it to Exchange.
Both are Free/Open Source software.
On the whole, I have had fewer problems with Evolution than Thunderbird.
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March 8, 2010, 3:34 am