The Bottom Line
Unfortunately, IncrediMail lacks some productivity features if you have to deal with large amounts of mail.
Pros
- IncrediMail is a friendly program, easy and a lot of fun to use
- Plenty of stationery and multimedia content is available for IncrediMail
- IncrediMail offers fast search and can organize email folders in a useful fashion
Cons
- IncrediMail supports IMAP accounts only in a very limited and rudimentary way
- IncrediMail does not offer templates, text snippets and learning filters for efficient email use
- Free version requires a change to your browser home page and search, includes ads in outgoing mail
Description
- IncrediMail lets you access multiple POP, IMAP (download-only) email accounts.
- Large collections of stationery, animations, emoticons and sounds can be used in IncrediMail emails.
- IncrediMail sports animated new mail notifiers, 3D effects and animations throughout.
- Basic message rules, a fast search engine, flags and folder filters help you organize email in IncrediMail.
- You can set up IncrediMail to accept only mail from approved senders into your inbox.
- IncrediMail Protection Center, a subscription service, filters spam and alerts you about links to harmful sites in emails.
- IncrediMail can block remote images in emails (problematic privacy-wise) and lets you bounce mail.
- It is easy to transfer IncrediMail data and settings to a new computer. Paid option IncrediBackup offers simple backups.
- Anonymous usage data collected by IncrediMail identifies the most popular letters and other content.
- IncrediMail supports Windows XP/Vista/7.
Guide Review - IncrediMail 2 6.26 - Free Email Program
Of the latter, IncrediMail has plenty: you can send and receive messages using rich formatting, of course, or apply rich stationery (called IncrediMail letters), add handwritten signatures, send e-cards, insert sounds and what not; you can also change IncrediMail's (somewhat homespun) interface with themes, have animated characters announce new mail and have typewriter sounds accompany your, well, typing.
IncrediMail also works. It downloads mail faithfully from multiple (POP and IMAP, including, e.g., Windows Live Hotmail, Gmail and AOL Mail, of course) accounts into ever growing folders. Thanks to handy search functions, you can focus on certain messages — say, mail from a particular sender, attachments or unread emails — easily in a folder or, of course, search all your archive for keywords and characteristics swiftly.
What is true for emails also applies to people: they are easy to add and to find, can have distinguishing icons or pictures assigned. IncrediMail will also suggest likely people to remember based on your correspondence patterns, and managing groups is a breeze.
Unfortunately, IncrediMail is not so helpful and courteous with composing messages. You can set up signatures, of course, and have IncrediMail send out-of-office replies; IncrediMail does not, however, include message templates or text snippets for faster answers. Free-form message labels or self-learning folders to organize mail in a very personal or totally automatic manner are missing as well.
You can subscribe to a capable spam filter, though, and IncrediMail comes with messages filters that muster the essential tasks. Speaking of subscriptions, it is really unfortunate that IncrediMail's IMAP support is lacking: you can only download new mail, not subscribe to folders and access their online contents.
(Updated June 2011)
