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Free email clients

crazyfingers

crazyfingers

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I've got a new Win10 computer on the way and decided that this time I will not pay for MS Outlook.

So far I'm leaning towards adopting Mozilla Thunderbird. I like that Thunderbird allows for multiple email accounts. I use Gmail and Comcast. I like that it's a desktop app and will store emails locally. I don't know what disadvantages there will be. I use IMAP email now.

I have been trying to discover if Thunderbird or any free email client out there will import my multiple and huge Outlook OST files but perhaps keep them in a separate archive.

Am I overlooking something? Are there truly superior products that I should consider?

Thanks for any thoughts on this.
 
crazyfingers said:
I have been trying to discover if Thunderbird or any free email client out there will import my multiple and huge Outlook OST files but perhaps keep them in a separate archive.
Click to expand...
no, they won't - .pst files are MS proprietary, only outlook can read them and display them in an email client, any company trying to make an email client that uses .pst files would be sued.

however, you can get 3rd party software to import/export the contents of a .pst file to another format, however it can be tricky to find a decent one that is free.

Am I overlooking something? Are there truly superior products that I should consider?
Click to expand...
is there a particular reason you require an email client in the first place?
both gmail and comcast have perfectly fine web interfaces and robust storage limits, so unless you're keeping dozens of gigs worth of old emails there's no logistical reason that you need to have a mail client.
but if you're wanting an actual app for it, could check out eM client or mailbird, there's several others as well.
 
I have two gmail accounts and 3 comcast accounts that I needs to check frequently and want one place where they will all come and and alert me when they arrive. Not interested in browser based email.

And I do frequently need to find emails from multiple years ago.

EM only allows two accounts on the free version. I am also looking at mailbird
 
I don't get why people have so many accounts.

I usually have two. One for actual commination and business. The other for a throw away I use for things like registering for web sites. Anything that requires an email account. If it gets backed up with junk mail I do not care.
 
I like Thunderbird. It's much simpler than having to check web-based mail for all of the accounts, and it does its job just fine. Not sure what to do about the OST files, though. A quick search says there are some free OST file readers, but I haven't read enough to know how good they are.
 
I did find something on-line that will (it says) convert OST files to something that Thunderbird can read. I will have to see if that's necessary.

I installed Thunderbird on this old computer just to see how it works. It seems OK. I only set it up on one Gmail and one Comcast address and it started downloading thousands of emails. It might not be necessary to convert the OSTs depending on how far back it goes.

As to why I have so many email addresses, I have a Gmail that identifies my real name and an older Comcast that also does. I have a Comcast with an unidentifiable name. And then my wife and I share a Comcast email that a lot of people still use but Comcast is not as reliable as Gmail so we opened a shared Gmail too. And then I have an even older Comcast that I don't use any more except as an account for a Dropbox on one of my mobile devices. I still get messages on all 6 emails though most of the traffic is on 4 emails.

I use Dropbox on the tablet, the phone and the notebook and wanted each attached to a different email.

All of that is why I ended up with 6 email addresses
 
crazyfingers said:
I did find something on-line that will (it says) convert OST files to something that Thunderbird can read. I will have to see if that's necessary.
Click to expand...
please be exact, because a .PST and .OST are *completely* different things that function totally differently, so i want to make sure that you're not wasting a huge chunk of your time trying to figure out WTF is going on.

a .pst file is outlook's primary storage file type - if you have any storage folders in outlook (ie, folders that are created on the left side that are not part of your email account folders), this is a .pst file.

an .ost file is outlook's exchange cache file, this is basically a clone of your email account kept on the hard drive in order to be accessed when outlook is offline.

so, your verbiage is kind of weird because keeping "multiple huge OST files" doesn't really mean anything, because you can't "keep" those, or create them, or use them in any actual way, there's no means to interact with an .ost file.
i THINK what you mean is a .pst file, which you would expect to see multiples of.

but, if you're looking at your C drive and seeing .ost files, know those are NOT anything you've stored anything in, those are just cache files that contain nothing but a copy of your active mailbox.
 
I use Thunderbird for the account which I got with my ISP, even though I don't use that address for much of anything. I really need to go through it sometime and unsubscribe from some email lists. I now use Gmail for all of my personal emails, and have a second account there when there was an issue at work for which I needed a workaround. It got resolved so I almost never log in to that account anymore, but it's nice to know it's there if I need it. I also have a Yahoo account which I use for a lot of junk stuff and don't check terribly regularly. I've got a lot of old emails there saved which I also need to go through at some time.

But yeah, I like Thunderbird. It's got some spam controls which do a decent job of keeping junk out, and allowing me to filter out unwanted items.
 
I ended up with Thunderbird. Still trying to tweak notifications of incoming mail. I like how I can check all 6 inboxes separately or combined. I ddin't have to deal with OST files as the servers appear to have kept that history back to 2010 in one case. I never mentioned PST files.

I'm generally still trying to tweak the settings but I have it about 95% working how I want it to.
 
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