Does anyone know of any email clients for Windows that don’t suck? I’ve been using Mozilla Mail of late, but–apparently because of some bug–the thing won’t pony up and tell Microsoft Outlook that it is the default mail application. Wuss, er, milquetoast. I’d use Outlook (I’d need to create a new profile because it’s set up for work), but it’s hopelessly integrated with our CRM software at work and won’t start up without initiating a three-minute search for a specific SQL server on the network, by which time I’ve forgotten why I wanted to open mail in the first place!
Outlook Express is crash-happy and doesn’t play nice with my Palm Desktop Address Book. Pegasus Mail, though freeware, looks like they pulled it out of a $5 software bin at Staples. Eudora Mail is nice, but they want $40 to get rid of the ads, and I like to make a habit of spending money on software I really need. Minotaur, the Phoenix-like, Mozilla-based email client, is an exciting idea but smells suspiciously like vaporware. Oddpost is really cool–and their blog is hilarious–but I need a desktop application in order to launch “mailto” links, and it only works with Internet Explorer.
At this point, I’m really tempted just to boot to Linux just to use Ximian Evolution, but, let’s face it, as a project manager for my senior project I need to have my email client up all the time. That just isn’t possible while I’m working on Access databases at the office.
Suggestions?
Update: In the absense of the “killer email app,” I’ve gone over to the dark side.
Dude, you just about got em all covered. I would recommend multiple outlook profiles – It may be possible to disable the CRM component in your personal profile, so you don’t suffer the wait. Of course, the “choose your profile” popup each time is annoying.
Unfortunately, the CRM software is inextricably attached…I get the same thing for any profile I set up and, as far as I know, there’s no way to set an option.
I wouldn’t mind the “Choose Your Profile” thing so much–I already have two profiles set up because of another mailbox I need access to at the office.
Doesn’t anyone else find it a little absurd that no one has created the “killer” email client for Windows? I mean, email is only 20 years old, and there’s been absolutely no innovation on this app in about 5…
Well, maybe people are fleeing windows to alternative solutions.
have you tried using Imail from IPSwitch? I’ve been using it for years, and it works great on my NT servers.
-Steve
I have started thinking seriously of writing a mail client because of the absence of killer app for windows. If anyone is up to the task, I would like to hear something about the features that would appeal to a reasonably tech-savy user. I am pretty sure we don’t want another Outlook or Outlook Express………..any thoughts
-N
Hi N. Since this post, I’ve been happily using Mozilla Thunderbird. It’s a pretty solid product, and it’s open source, so my conscience is intact.
http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird
Just checked out Thunderbird 0.5, I would give this a serious look.
Sorry bout that, I had not refreshed the page before writing the last comment………..I am also thoroughly satisfied with the feature set and gui customizability of Thunderbird……looks like mozilla is on the right track……its not even a 1.0 release yet.
I was recently tempted by a little doggy. I call him mutt. He makes my life with email much easier.
http://www.mutt.org/
I never thought I would use a text-based email client. I went a while using it and Outlook (gah) at work.
But now I am sticking to mutt alone. It’s wonderful.
“All mail clients suck. This one just sucks less.” — Michael Elkins
Before I moved away from Windows, I used Kaufmann Mailwarrior. I don’t know if it’s still around, but mail software requirements haven’t changed much in years… here’s a page on it:
http://sy.cowiki.org/258.html
It was very stable with large quantities of mail, and basically “just worked”. Very nice, and free.
In Linux, I’d use KMail – that really is the best email client I’ve ever used (pretty much!).
I wrote a post about this last summer: http://peter.mapledesign.co.uk/weblog/archives/most_email_clients_are_obsolete.html
Innovation needs to happen, and it’s my belief it will be driven by information management techniques such as intelligent filtering/sorting (like the current Bayesian spam filtering, maybe with more AI built-in). I get approx. 2500 emails a month, and need some way to handle them.
Thunderbird is the way to go.
Tis is a silly post:
Kmail is a decent reliable emailer.
It is not features reach, but reliable, easy to use.
Pegaus Mail, is in my view the very best available emailer client, available, not only freeware, but also “payware”.
It is very reliable, has evry feature one can ask, including IMAP support, editing of “subject line”, deletion of attachments, filtering based ossibly on size, and much more…
It take a bit (not much) of work, and brain (not much either) to install, use and manage “Pegasus mail”.
My only regret is that Pegasus Mail is only available on Windows, and Mac….
The Linux users will have to wait.
Works fine with Wine though.