Nowadays, there are multiple online email services with enormous user bases (like Gmail) but also standalone desktop applications that provide a varying degree of functionality or sophistication but importantly, allow the user to store emails locally and can significantly enhance the productivity for those that need to search or access their email or embedded attachments very often.

 The Multitude Of Email Managing Apps And The Implications

        Given that new applications keep appearing while older ones stop being supported, users are constantly faced with the need to migrate from one application to another. Thus, some might need to export Thunderbird to Outlook or Incredimail to The Bat, or even from older to newer version within the same family of apps, like in the case of Outlook.

Top Desktop Email Clients

Among the most popular standalone applications for managing emails, attachments, calendars, and contacts the following can be mentioned:

• MS Outlook – this is the most popular tool developed and actively supported by Microsoft. It boasts extensive functionality with rich search and email sorting features, rich contact information. Given that it comes preinstalled and free with every new Windows installation, it is a very natural choice for individual users but also for enterprises;
• Thunderbird – one of the important competitors to Microsoft products in the past. This free program has been developed by Mozilla (the same company behind the famous Firefox browser), however, it could never keep the same evolutionary dynamics as Firefox and the mainstream support was ultimately discontinued because continued development was not justified financially. Nevertheless, the program packs a lot of features, the possibility to add third-party plugins, it supports several accounts, has no adds, etc., but has a somewhat cluttered interface;
• eM client. It has been around for almost 10 years and was made to support a very comprehensive list of mail providers. It supports encryption, advanced search, automatic translation, integrated chat. Besides, exporting and importing data is very well implemented. TechRadar even named it the best email software for Windows 10 and other Windows versions, which is quite an honorable title. Importantly, however, to be able to use several accounts (more than two), the Pro version is needed;
• Mailbird lite. Unlike the pro version, the free version of this email client supports a single account and does not offer attachment previews, email snoozing, speed reading. Nevertheless, it comes with some important benefits, such as speed, ease of setup, integrating with social apps and Google calendar, it allows team working, scheduling, chatting, etc.

Even with the abundant choice of free email managers, it is hard to pick one to satisfy even basic requirements. Thus, most people would prefer to settle with one choice forever (migration is a headache) and be sure it does not get discontinued soon enough. Also, most users have multiple accounts (e.g. business, personal, spam-tolerant accounts), so often, it is crucial that the software supports them all and allows adding accounts as needed. All these arguments speak in favor of properly evaluating your unique needs and settling with a choice that satisfies the most important ones.