Gawab.com: Free Email Service

Review of free Gawab email

Though Gawab.com has been discontinued, the following information remains for reference.

Gawab.com is a speedy, stable, and usable free email service with 10 GB online space, POP, and IMAP access as well as many web-based goodies. The Gawab.com IMAP implementation does not give you access to labels, and full message search is missing from the web interface.

What We Like
  • Offers just shy of 10 GB of online storage.

  • Free POP and IMAP access.

  • Label, search, and save search criteria.

What We Don't Like
  • Spam filter somewhat ineffective.

  • No full message search.

  • Limited support.

Gawab.com email accounts offer these features:

  • Free web-based email accounts with 9.77 GB of online storage.
  • Access a Gawab.com account in any desktop email program using IMAP or POP.
  • Download mail from existing POP and IMAP accounts, and send mail from these addresses.
  • Sort your mail using folders and free-form labels.
  • Labels, sender, date, subject, size, and other criteria can be used to search once, or automatically in smart folders.
  • Compose messages in plain text or using a rich-text editor, or insert HTML code manually.
  • Track mail you send. Gawab lets you know, by way of a web beacon placed in your message, when it is opened.
  • A spam filter moves obvious junk out of your Gawab.com inbox, and you can report spam (or false positives) easily.
  • Mail filters file or forward messages automatically, and an out of office auto-responder replies while you're away.

Review

From the Middle East, Gawab.com makes it easy to compose emails in Arabic script even if your operating system and browser do not. That is not all Gawab.com does, and not all it makes easy either.

It's easy, for example, to move mail to folders in Gawab.com or to add a label. All it takes is dragging and dropping. You can set up labels freely, apply them to messages swiftly, and include them in search folders with other attributes (including size, date, subject, and sender).

That, together with a swift search field for each folder, makes spotting important mail simple. You cannot search the full text of a message, however—either once or in a smart folder. Also, the Gawab.com filters only move messages to folders and not, for example, label them. Gawab.com does filter spam in an effective manner, but it could catch even more junk.

If you want your messages in a rich web environment and also on your desktop (in addition to the Gawab.com 10 GB of online storage), use POP to download them and IMAP to access them seamlessly. Gawab.com does not offer access to labels via IMAP, only to Inbox, trash, sent, and spam. It fetches mail from IMAP (and POP) accounts, though, and you can send mail from any email address using Gawab.com on the web.

When composing mail, you can use rich text editing, a virtual Arabic keyboard, and direct access to the HTML code behind your mail. In addition, Gawab.com tracks message delivery with a small hidden image (not transparent to the recipient).

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