Best email client
Read on for our detailed analysis of each client
Email remains the primary method of communication between businesses, but there are a number of different ways in which emails can be used and stored.
The first main way is by using an email client, which will often use POP3, SMTP, or IMAP protocols to collect mail directly from a server to your PC or other computing device. This usually means downloading and installing software for an email client to receive your emails, and an server on which to store and collect your email from.
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The second main way is through a web application, which means that you don't need to download any software or even have a server to collect email from, as everything is store online by the web app provider.
EM Client is another free email client which can be installed in Windows XP and later versions. It comes with full support for all email services like Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, etc. It also comes with Calendar and RSS feed support. It can also be used as an instant messenger. Email made easy and beautiful. Manage multiple accounts with the best email client for Windows 2019. Download the #1 email client program free Now.
While email clients may require a little more work to run, they also allow for more control over user data. In other words, only you control your emails, and third-parties have no access to them unless you purposefully - or accidentally - allow it.
This can be an important consideration for business purposes, as allowing your email to run through web apps means that although it will be safely backed-up, it also means the provider has control over your data, and some companies openly acknowledge that they will scan private emails at least for marketing purposes.
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Therefore while consumers have tended toward the ease of use that web app emails allow, many businesses still prefer to control their own emails through an email server and email clients, in order to protect sensitive business data.
There are a number of email providers on the market, so here we'll look at the best in email clients, before taking a look at additional options, not least email web apps.
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1. Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft’s Outlook is the de facto email client for most businesses and enterprises, and has been around for decades, with its origins dating back to MS-DOS. Obviously it has tight integration with other Microsoft services, and that takes email beyond the simple exchange of messages.
Outlook has the advantage of being fully integrated with the Outlook Calendar, making it a snap to share calendars to coordinate meetings. This integration also extends to Outlook Contacts. Outlook is supported for the Windows platform, but also across the mobile platforms of iOS and Android as well.
Microsoft Outlook is available as part of the Microsoft Office suite, which can be purchased as the standalone Office 2016, or the subscription-based Office 365. A single user subscription to Office 365 Personal can be purchased for $7.99 per month or $79.99 for a full year. Office 365 Business is priced similar, with a slightly more expensive Premium edition that bundles collaborative software.
2. Mail and Calendar
The email client that’s good enough to come with Windows
While Outlook is a stalwart of the business world, Microsoft has long realized that it is overkill for many home users, so there’s a lightweight email client built into Windows. Way back when, this client was Outlook Express, but it has since evolved and in the latest version of Microsoft’s desktop operating system, it’s known as Mail and Calendar.
For any Windows user, the Mail and Calendar client is an obvious choice, as when you log into Windows 10 with a Hotmail, Live, or Outlook.com address, the account is already added to the email client.
It can also work with other popular accounts, including Yahoo, Gmail, and iCloud. Mail and Calendar has a useful feature known as Quick Actions, which, for example, allows the user to easily flag or archive a message. It’s also integrated with the Windows Calendar app.
3. eM Client
A full-featured alternative email client
This alternative email client is trusted and used by Fortune 500 companies which include Avis, McDonald’s and Toyota.
It offers a wide array of features, including a calendar, contacts and chat. Support is provided for all the major email services including Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud and Outlook.com. The latest version of eM Client (7.2) also offers PGP encryption, live backup, basic image editing capabilities and auto-replies for Gmail.
There is a free tier, but you need the Pro version for commercial use, and that also gives you VIP support and unlimited accounts (the free product is limited to two email accounts). The Pro version has a one-time cost of $49.95.
4. Mailbird Pro
The email client that bristles with app integrations
Mailbird Pro is an email client that promises to “save time managing multiple accounts,” and to make your email “easy and beautiful”.
While beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, as they say, it’s undeniable that Mailbird Pro offers many free themes to make email a more enjoyable and customizable experience.
Unlike some more Microsoft-centric email clients, Mailbird Pro supports a diverse range of integrated apps, including WhatsApp, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox and Slack, all making for a better streamlined workflow. However, one downside to bear in mind here is that there’s no support for filters or rules to organize your inbox.
Mailbird Lite is available for free, with Mailbird Pro costing $7.20 a year. Alternatively, you can buy a lifetime subscription to Mailbird Pro for $23.70.
5. Inky
Inky is an email client that focuses on security, using “sophisticated AI, machine learning and computer vision algorithms” to block all manner of phishing attacks which might otherwise get through.
This client uses an ‘Inky Phish Fence’ that scans both internal and external emails to flag phishing attempts. The proprietary machine learning technology can literally read an email to determine if it has phishing content, and then is able to quarantine the email, or deliver it with the malicious links disabled. It also takes things a step further and offers an analytics dashboard, which allows an administrator to see patterns of attacks based on dates, or targeted users.
The Inky email client does offer a free trial, but sadly, pricing details aren’t made available on the Inky website. However, the site does note that pricing is per mailbox per month on a subscription, with volume discounts available.
6. TouchMail
TouchMail is an email client that simplifies email by making it more visual. This also makes it easier to use on a touch-based mobile device.
The goal of TouchMail is to aggregate multiple email accounts together, in a single visually attractive interface which is user-friendly. It lets you see all of the day’s emails in one place, with messages color-coded by sender for easy identification. Emails from top senders can be easily sorted and managed, too.
This client is available for the Windows 10 platform, but not for iOS or Android, sadly. TouchMail is available from the Microsoft Store, and costs $9.99.
Other email clients to consider
An email client was traditionally a piece of software that was installed or downloaded onto your computer. However, these days an email client can also be a web application (as seen above by our inclusion of Outlook as part of the Microsoft Office 365 software platform). Here's we'll consider some additional email client options, both in the traditional sense of being a piece of additional software, and also in the more recent sense of being a web application:
GMail has become one of the most successful web applications for providing email in recent times, not least because it's free to use. Although there have been other popular free email sites, not least from Yahoo and ISP providers, a couple of advantages have made GMail stand out among the competition. The first is that it integrates with all Google services, and even if you're not using the G Suite range of applications cuh as Google Docs, the Google Calendar application works seamlessly with GMail. Additionally, GMail has one of the best anti-spam and anti-phishing filters out there, which helps keep users safe. Added this the fact that having a Google Account to access a range of Google services means having a GMail account at its core has made GMail the popular success for home and business that it is today.
Oulook.com is a free online email service from Microsoft. Despite Microsoft's push on Outlook as part of the Office Suite, you don't need to buy or subscribe to that service to get a free account on Outlook.com. This is certainly handy if you simply need a free email address that you can use online. However, as a free service it's not integrated with Microsoft's other products without a paid Office 365 subscription, so it has to be treated as a standalone account. This puts itself at a disadvantage compared to rival integrated services such as GMail, but Outlook.com does the job if you simply want a free if basic email address to use with no strings attached.
Thunderbird is the underrated email client provided by the Mozilla Corporation, better known for their Firefox browser. It's free to download and installation is easy. Once running, you'll find it contains all the features you'd expect from an email client. However, what makes Thunderbird different is that there are additional customization options. You can install addons to provide additional features and functionality, and there are different themes available to download so you can personalize your email experience. So if you'd prefer an email client you can tweak to give what you need, and change the look from the standard vanilla, Thunderbird from Mozilla could be well worth a look.
Yahoo Mail is one of the old established online email providers. Rather than software to download and run, it's a web application you log onto when you're online. Yahoo Mail is also free, which has long been the appeal of this service, especially as it's been available for decades and often provided a free alternative to paid-for Microsoft options. However, these days Yahoo Mail may not be seen to have advanced much beyond its original design, with little push on feature development, not least filtering of junk mail. If you desperately need a free email client then Yahoo Mail is an option, but it's difficult to recommend it over more developed applications such as GMail.
Your ISP because normally when you sign-up for a broadband (or even dial-up) account, your Internet Service Provider (ISP) will provide you with a free email associated with your account. Some will even provide a basic email client in their customer support platform that you can use. The positive is that you have immediate access to sending and receiving emails. The negative is that any such provision will be more limited than any of the more feature-rich alternatives listed above. Additionally, you're likely to repeatedly switch ISPs through your life, so it's probably best not to rely too much on one of their email addresses if you are simply going to move service later, especially when you could use one of the other options already listed here.
A free email client can change your life. That might sound ridiculous, but consider how long you spend each week checking your inbox, replying, forwarding and composing. It could easily be several hours, and even more if you use several different email addresses (as many of us do).
Using a dedicated email client not only makes it easier to deal with multiple email accounts, it also means you can take full advantage of extra features such as a calendar, contact management, and neat integration with other desktop software you're using. As with so many other types of software, email clients are not born equal, and it's important that you don't lumber yourself with one that is underpowered, confusing to use, or that offers poor performance.
Take a browse through our best free email client selection and you will undoubtedly see a few familiar names. But you'll also find some that you may not have heard of or tried, so perhaps it's time for you to test drive a new email client!
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1. eM Client
The best email client, with support for a huge range of email providers, integrated chat, smart translation, and simple migration
eM Client has been around for nearly 10 years now, and throughout that long development it's evolved into the best free email client for Windows.
eM Client makes it easy to migrate your messages from Gmail, Exchange, iCloud and Outlook.com – just enter your email address and the client will adjust the appropriate settings for you. eM Client can also import your contacts and calendar, and it's easy to deselect these options if you'd prefer to manage them separately.
There's an integrated chat app too, with support for common platforms including Jabber and Google Chat, and the search function is far superior to those you'll find in webmail interfaces.
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Unlike most free email clients, eM Client is also packed with advanced options like automatic translation, delayed send and encryption. It's a remarkable set of tools, and for managing two email accounts, it's ideal.
If you have more accounts, it's well worth considering upgrading to eM Client Pro for a one-off fee. This lets you connect an unlimited number of accounts, access VIP support (in the unlikely event that you need it), and use the email client commercially.
2. Mailbird Lite
A great-looking client packed that connects all your social apps
Mailbird Lite isn't just an email app – it's a whole communication platform to which you can add apps for scheduling, chatting, file syncing and teamworking.
Free users miss out on features such as speed reading, email snoozing and quick previews of attachments, but Mailbird Lite is still an excellent choice. The Lite version only lets you connect one email account but, it's optimized for speed, and looks great to boot.
Setup is simple; enter your email details and Mailbird Lite will find the necessary POP or IMAP settings automatically, then get to work importing your messages. It offers to connect with your Facebook account, so it can liven up your inbox with your contacts' profile photos, and can also link with Whatsapp, Google Calendar, free task manager Moo.do, and teamworking app Asana.
3. Hiri
Packed with time-saving tools that'll improve email habits
Hiri is usually a paid-for premium email client, but it's free for TechRadar readers. It's designed primarily with business users in mind (it currently only supports Microsoft email services including Hotmail, Outlook and Exchange), but home users will also appreciate its productivity-boosting features.
If you find yourself spending too long managing, reading and replying to emails, Hiri is the email client for you. It includes a smart dashboard that lets you see how many unread messages you have at a glance and how long you should wait before checking them (after all, how many really need an instant reply?)
The Compose window is designed to save you time too, offering only the essential options (no fancy formatting) and including the subject line at the bottom so you don't have to write it until you know how to summarise the message.
These little touches make Hiri a truly exceptional client. If Microsoft is your email provider of choice, it should be well up your list.
4. Mozilla Thunderbird
Plenty of features and extensions – as you'd expect from Mozilla
Thunderbird, from Firefox developer Mozilla, has just undergone a total overhaul that brings it right up to date. Not only does it look smarter, it also works much better. You no longer need to download and configure an extension to make full use of your calendar, and cutting, copying and deleting events is effortless.
You can connect as many email addresses as you like to Thunderbird, and it's totally free, with no ads or prompts to upgrade. It's also very flexible, with a wealth of customizable options – and if you can't see a particular feature, you can expand Thunderbird with third-party extensions.
Thunderbird still takes a little getting used to (there are so many options, the interface is a little confusing at first), but it's a superb email client that'll serve you well – particularly if you have lots of accounts to manage.
5. Spike
Give your inbox the WhatsApp treatment
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Spike is a versatile free email client, available for iOS, Android, Windows and Mac, with a handy web app for those occasions when you don't have time to spend installing software.
It's billed as the first 'conversational' email app, which essentially means it presents messages and replies in bubbles in real time, in a style that looks very much like WhatsApp. This works particularly well for the type of short emails that you're likely to send to friends and family, making it refreshingly simple to keep track of long email chains that would usually be a mess of nested messages.
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Spike is free for personal use, with support for an unlimited number of email accounts and up to 10 'group chat rooms'. If you're sick of trawling through messy lists of replies, it's a breath of fresh air.
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