What is a mail client software

Most email clients today support multiple email services, including Gmail , Yahoo , Yandex, Outlook, and self-hosted business email systems, and they often make it possible to consolidate emails from all connected addresses into a single, unified view. Some email clients come only with the most essential features, while others support things like encryption, contact management, out-of-office responses, phishing filtering, image blocking, and others.

Although excellent free Windows 10 email clients are easy to find these days, but paid desktop email clients are often more polished and come with professional support. It is one of the best email programs for Windows 10 that stores mail in the MH mailbox format. Email client is a software application that enables configuring one or more email addresses to receive, read, compose, and send emails from that email address s. It also provides a central interface for receiving, composing, and sending emails of the configured email address s.

When a sender sends an email to anyone, the email is first sent to a mail server like SMTP. Once the IP address is located, it checks if the recipient domain has any mail exchange server or not. The MTA server then decides where to put the email and sends it to the recipient, and the recipient gets the message. Yes, Windows 10 has its default email program called Mail App.

However, you can change the default email program as you want. For example, you can set Outlook as your default email program in Windows It stores messages on a server and synchronizes the emails across multiple devices. It allows operations like download email messages on your computer and delete them from the server. When you send emails, the webserver processes your mails and decides which server to send messages to.

The mail service provider downloads the mails and places them in the inbox of the recipient. Skip to content. Here are some important features which must be included in any best email clients: It should allow you to send unlimited messages to anyone.

It can manage multiple email accounts by combining archive, inbox, or sent folder. It should allow you to access calendars and plan events. It should allow features like undo send, restore email as well as scheduled delivery. Report a Bug.

Previous Prev. With Thunderbird , you can specify where your email is stored locally, schedule backups, and manage server settings. It also provides some security features like end-to-end encryption that aren't found in other clients. Because it's open source, Thunderbird has a catalog of add-ons by various developers to help enhance the user experience. And it's all free. It doesn't have the most modern UI—it's modeled after Mozilla's browser, Firefox, and uses a tab system—but you wouldn't choose Thunderbird for its style points anyway.

Still, you have options. To see them, click on the hamburger menu at the top right. From here, you'll be able to customize the look of the app, select privacy settings, and choose basic functions like email composition options. Compared to other email clients we tested, Thunderbird was noticeably a little slower to push sent emails out and receive replies. For example, the same three emails, which arrived at the same time to eM Client, took another five minutes to show up in Thunderbird.

Smart templates and Quicktext let you create email templates for quick responses. Send Later lets you schedule future times to send emails or send messages repeatedly using rules such as "every two days. Thunderbird Pricing : Free. One of the more modern and user-friendly email clients tested, Mailbird 's array of third-party integrations makes managing both email and your most-used apps easy.

When connected, the integrations share the UI with your inbox, which makes Mailbird attractive for users who don't want to leave. Slack, Trello, Google Drive, Dropbox, and Twitter are just some of the apps with native integrations.

To get started, download the client, add your email or connect to an existing client , and you're ready to go. As your emails sync, you'll be asked to select a layout and connect third-party apps. To connect, click on your app, sign in, and you're ready to go without leaving your inbox. Each app you add appears as an icon in the sidebar for one-click access. With my Slack account connected, I just had to glance at the sidebar to see activity and quickly respond to messages.

One way to use your inbox without resorting to other tools is the Snooze feature. If you want to be reminded of an event such as a webinar, right-click the email, pick a date and time, and the email will appear back in your box at that moment. It will also be stored in your Snooze folder to let you see what's coming up. With the unified mailbox feature, you can add multiple email accounts and manage all emails and folders from your one inbox.

Windows Mail. I've used Windows Mail regularly since the '90s and continue to use it as a secondary email account because it's both free and simple to use. Click the settings wheel to find all your available options, from personalization to notifications.

You can create a signature and set up basic automatic replies. Personalization lets you create a few different themes with accent and background colors. One feature I like is the Focused inbox—a filter that learns which emails you read regularly and places these in a separate inbox. All other emails are put in the Other inbox. You can specify Other emails to be moved to the Focused inbox by right-clicking and selecting Move to Focused.

There's also a Microsoft To Do add-on that lets you schedule tasks and create repeatable to-do lists with a few clicks from the taskbar. You won't really find many bells or whistles here—which, for plenty of people, is perfect for your inbox.

Windows Mail Pricing : Free. Read our full Microsoft Outlook review. 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.

The latest version 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 license fee. 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. Read our full eM Client review. It comes in two main versions: Personal and Business. Unlike some more Microsoft-centric email clients, Mailbird Business 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.

Mailbird Personal is available for free, with Mailbird Business available as a subscription or a one-time lifetime license. Read our full Mailbird review. Inky is an email client that focuses on security, using AI and machine learning algorithms to block all manner of phishing attacks which might otherwise get through. 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. However, the site does note that pricing is per mailbox per month on a subscription, with volume discounts available. Hiri is a paid-for premium email client that is 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 summarize 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. Hiri is available to buy annually or via a lifetime license for one-time fee. Both options offer a 7-day free trial. Read our full Hiri review. First released back in , Google's Gmail has become the market leader in free email services with more than a billion users across the globe.

Gmail's stripped-back web interface is a highlight. Most of the screen is devoted to your inbox, with a minimum of toolbar and other clutter. Messages are neatly organized via conversations for easier viewing, and you can read and reply to emails with ease, even as a first-time user.

There's plenty of power here.