When it comes to choosing an email client, there are several factors to consider, from price to personal design and organization preferences. We’ve taken a look at three of the most popular email clients and broken them down.

outlookexpress

Outlook Express is a free email client that is included as a component of Internet Explorer. It is one of the easiest to use email clients out there. Users can create fancy stationery to personalize emails from various accounts (POP, IMAP, MSN, etc.), and mailbox screens can also be customized. It’s pretty simple to filter messages in Outlook Express. Users can choose from a set of 12 conditions and 12 actions to create an “if/then” combination to properly organize their incoming mail. For example, if the message has the word “mucus” in it, you can set up a rule to send it directly to your Deleted Messages folder. Also with the email addresses of the sender.

Notable features in Outlook:

  • Simple message rules for easy filtering
  • Block remote images
  • Preview emails securely before opening

thunder bird

Thunderbird is Mozilla’s favorite mail client, which mimics the browser’s tabbed format. Thunderbird users can open multiple emails and navigate between them by clicking from tab to tab. To search your emails, Thunderbird has filtering and timeline features to help you find what you’re looking for faster. There are also some easy ways to customize Thunderbird. People are “skins” that you can apply to change the appearance of your Inbox, and Themes will change the appearance of your icons. There is also a direct link to a plugin manager so you can review ratings and recommendations to help you decide which one(s) to install. A really cool feature is the Mail Setup Wizard. When you want to add a new account to Thunderbird, you don’t need to know the IMAP, SSL/TLS, etc. settings. Thunderbird will look for the settings in its database so all you have to do is add your email address and password for your new account.

Notable features in Thunderbird:

  • One-click address book
  • Attachment-reminder
  • Activity Manager

Zimbra

Zimbra is an open source creation that incorporates a desktop environment, email client, and calendar all in one. The open source edition is free, however the network edition is not. Zimbra’s email client allows you to view (or hide) messages as part of conversations. So instead of seeing each and every message in a thread, you can click on the last one to find out how many emails, attachments, etc. they are part of that particular conversation. Attachments can also be viewed immediately as HTML instead of first downloading to Microsoft Word or other programs. Zimbra’s address book and calendar are quite impressive. Both are easily shared with others, either internally as a read/write access document or externally as a read-only URL. And Zimbra Calendar allows you to view multiple calendars as overlays. It’s a great way to keep track of the schedule of the entire office or a busy family!

Notable Features in zimbra:

  • Set up multiple email accounts with different email signatures and identities
  • autofill address book
  • WYSIWYG search tool