The Bottom Line
Barca does most of the things Outlook does to help you organize your work and life, and it may be the better email client. It's a pity Barca lacks virtual folders.
Pros
- Barca has many features (including a great spam filter) that help you handle mail efficiently
- Strong security and privacy protection don't keep Barca from being convenient and comfortable
- Barca integrates email with calendaring (shared in Pro), a diary and task management
Cons
- Barca can feel a bit sluggish
- You cannot set up smart folders or folders that learn from example
- Barca does not offer integrated support for secure messaging
Description
- Barca lets you access multiple POP and IMAP accounts as well as Usenet newsgroups.
- Versatile filters can handle incoming and outgoing mail automatically and Barca is fully scriptable.
- A combination of Bayesian and intelligent rules-based spam filters detects junk emails precisely.
- Barca supports both plain text and richly formatted HTML emails and has a powerful editor.
- Sanitizing emails and blocking remote images, Barca protects your security and privacy.
- You can mark messages with custom flags and show only certain mail easily in any folder.
- Mail stored on disk can be encrypted and the Barca interface can be password-protected.
- Barca also includes group/shared calendars and task management, a planner, a diary and sticky notes.
- Barca supports Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/3/XP/Vista.
Guide Review - Barca 2.1 - Email Program
It is not uncommon for Outlook to be the purse in which an entire life is kept. With varying success, it helps helps organize same, too. As an email client, Outlook is good, but not exceptional. As a calendar and address manager, Barca works a lot like Outlook and even throws in a useful planner and a diary feature. But as an email client, Barca shines.
Barca's PocoMail roots make it extremely versatile with flexible templates, filters and PocoScript, the powerful scripting language. Reading and composing emails is both comfortable — including full HTML support — and secure — Barca can sanitize potentially unsafe emails. Barca comes with an easy to use Bayesian spam filter.
It's a pity neither the filtering engine nor searches can be used to build smart, virtual folders that automatically track relevant emails. It's nice how Barca integrates email with its other features, though. You can turn any note into an email or any email into a to-do item, for example.
