Readers Respond: Which Free Windows Email Program Do You Use?

What sparked your new enthusiasm, or what keeps you hooked on your long-time choice? Share Your Pick

Stay Away From Thunderbird

My PC crashed while this program and firefox were running. Now I get the same message for both programs that they are already running and neither will open. After spending a lot of time going through the steps outlined by the help site, they still don't work. Don't risk using this program. Researching this, I found that this is not an uncommon occurrence.

—Guest Vince

New cool-ness: MAILBIRD

I've been trying this new windows email clients: Mailbird -free (www.getmailbird.com) I love the fact that it is really easy to use with minimalist design. Really makes my emailing routine much easier..

—Guest seira

Little More Research, Heinz!

I can't see you telling us anything we don't already know or makers don't use in their own promotion. How about telling people Windows live mail now makes you have a separate inbox, sent box, delete, box draft box for every email address you have. I have 5 for business, so my standard set of five boxes has increased to 25 - that means I have to monitor 25 separate boxes instead of 5. Is this progress? No, it's Microsoft stamping all over their users and not allowing them to use their earlier formats, because Microsoft do what's best for them, not their loyal users.

—Guest mike

Thunderbird Bombs in Late 2012

I've used Thunderbird for years and been satisfied with it. But they've changed it with auto-updates and now after the message is sent, I notice that the font changes in some parts. One sentence is size 14, one size 10, and so on. Is anyone else seeing this? Also, my cursor jumps to a different line while I'm typing occasionally. Oh and the delete function will sometimes delete a whole paragraph which I wasn't deleting ABOVE the line I'm deleting. When I click "undo" on the edit drop-down box, it is put back. Very jumpy.

—Guest LindaK

E-mail programs.

I used Netscape 7 mail for years and liked it very much. Then my old laptop died and all my e-mails and the address book disappeared with it, ouch. I now have a Mac Book Pro and use its Apple mail. It works good as well, but I am still missing my old very large address book. If I could fin[d] Netscape mail somewhere, I would try to use it again, it had some very nice features on it.

—Guest Arno

Love the OLD Eudora

I use the old version of Eudora, still. Don't like the structure of Thunderbird, never touched Outlook. The old Eudora (Ver.7) lets me open several windows at once and keep them all visible within the frame. Which other email client provides that? It makes it easy to copy text from one window into another and in general lets me organize my messages better. The "new" Penelope is just a Thunderbird with Eudora icons. Duh.

—Guest Aeshna

Thunderbird Downgraded

I used to prefer Thunderbird, never had any trouble. After a recent TBird "upgrade," I have been unable to: 1) send any attachments no matter how small, 2) forward any HTML-formatted email messages. I am ready to switch, Thunderbird now is unusable!

—Guest TclGuru

For pretty e-mail

I too loved IncrediMail but got fed up with it crashing. The last time it did it, it was going to cost a fortune as something had hijacked the IncrediMail tool bar and completely stopped the computer dead. Couldn't seed or receive e-mail either. After investing in new computer I downloaded "Dream Mail" easy to use and for guest ShonnaNa. This has pretty e-mail as well. Just click on "Tools" and then "Template" management and take your pick.

—Guest kryssykk

Windows Live Mail Lock-up

Live is not fault-tolerant. There is an e-mail in the OUTBOX folder with an invalid 'send' address. Every time I start Live, it tries to send the e-mail and since it can't connect, blocks any further actions. There is no way to correct it, since I can't go past the connecting message box! Microsoft should do better than this for a general audience. I'm here looking for a new e-mail program.

—pjkettlejr

Mozilla Thunderbird

grandpajack had exactly the opposite experience that I had. For me, Thunderbird set up correctly, moved from machine to machine easily, stores its parameters in a sensible way and has NEVER lost an email for me. Outlook Express, on the other hand, is a total mess. Difficult to install, does not play nice with other programs. Cannot do things in OE that are intuitive in T-Bird. I guess whichever program you learn to use first, is "intuitive".

—paladin_iii

Outlook Express 6

There is no match for Outlook Express 6 to date, it needs to be added to Windows 7 and above and should be left on the choice of the users to opt and not the discretion of Microsoft.

—Guest Naveed

PocoMail Brilliant

I recently downloaded a trial of PocoMail. Loved it after 45 days trial runs out. Two options, buy it or get it for free buy buying another product from other suppliers. Didn't want to do that so clicked to buy it only to find out that it can no longer be bought. You can still download it though so it begs the question what the hell are they up to?

—Guest kryssykk

Thunderbird is no good!

I've been using TBird for a few years, and now it locks up constantly for a myriad of reasons. Everywhere I looked, the reviews said it was the best. Then I got to this site and saw all the reviews by people who said it's no good. It seems like Eudora is a favorite here, so I'm going to try that. [Guide Note: Eudora Open Source Edition is a modified version of Mozilla Thunderbird.]

—Guest Mark Steele

Like IncrediMail

I'm from India, and using incrediMail since 2007. I become addict to that and cannot think of using Gmail or Yahoo directly. It's so simple. Unlike Gmail, it keeps each email separately. Only issue is the search function doesn't work properly, really an "useless search". 29 $ annually, is slightly higher.

—Guest vincent George

Regarding Seamonkey

Regarding SeaMonkey, I agree, except for one thing in the most part—It is not "Pretty". I Want Pretty. If there is a way to make it like Incredimail, I have not found it, and I am here now looking for my old friend. Even AOL mail no longer has the fonts etc. (SeaMonkey offers me less than 10 choices of my unlimited number of fonts) It will not let me Highlite. Does not have a decent transparency tool to put my pictures in there, but realize, none of the others here that I have tried will either, except Incredimail.

—Guest ShonnaNa