What are the best free email clients to manage your emails?

Over the years, we tend to increase the number of e-mail addresses we use, especially when we need to consult e-mails both personal and professional. This may require us to connect to multiple email clients web. To avoid wasting time having to navigate and identify yourself in several places, there are free solutions to centralize, consult, administer and personalize all your correspondence. Windows offers one integrated into its operating system with Mail / Outlook, but it is possible to find others more complete and more adapted to its needs.

Futura gives you an overview of the best free email clients today and reveals their specifics.

Mozilla Thunderbird: the most famous

Mozilla Thunderbird is very often the first option that comes to mind when it comes to finding an alternative to Outlook. This email client, as its name suggests, was developed within the framework of the project Mozilla, whose most famous program is undoubtedly the popular Navigator Firefox. It is free and open source software, supported by a large community and which has continued to improve since its first version in 2003.

Mozilla Thunderbird is intended to be both comprehensive and easy to learn. For this, it embeds an account creation wizard. Some email clients require you to know and fill in the parameters IMAP, SMTP et SSL/TLS of the various services used. Mozilla Thunderbird only requires the name, email and password. It then configures everything itself by looking for the information from the email providers it needs in its database. The address book can be opened in one click from the letters received to add information on the correspondent (name, photo, date of birth, etc.). It even has a tool to remind you to attach a document if, when analyzing the message that the user is writing, it detects keywords such as “attachment”, “attached”, “attached” or file format names.

Like on Mozilla Firefox, it is possible to open several tabs simultaneously and switch from one to another with one click. Mail / Outlook, to name but one, only allows preview of a single email; sometimes it is frustrating to waste time opening and closing the same messages over and over again during a work session.

In addition to its multiple functions to filter, search and archive its e-mails, Mozilla Thunderbird is a customizable software. Indeed, it is possible not only to change its appearance thanks to hundreds of “Personas” (themes), but also to choose and install dozens of add-ons improving handling, productivity and data protection. .

Finally, Mozilla Thunderbird includes some basic security features. It protects the user against phishing by warning them of the dangerousness of the message and by signaling that the link contained in the e-mail sends them to a website different from the one indicated. It also offers tools for detecting junk mail and notify when a security update is available.

It works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Mailbird Lite: the most customizable

Mailbird Lite is an email client (awarded annually since 2013) that offers a comprehensive email management experience. It has a clean interface that is easy to understand and fully customizable.

It thus has many configurable layout tools with hundreds of colors available and the transition from a dark theme to light in a few seconds. It also offers the possibility of individualizing the sounds of notifications, whether with those offered by Mailbird Lite, or those from your library. It allows you to connect to your Linkedln account in one click from the inbox, but also to integrate applications into its interface such as Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, Google Agenda, Asana, Todoist, WhatsApp, Evernote, etc.

It also contains advanced features like the ability to configure shortcuts keyboard to archive, reply to messages, compose, forward, but also an optimized search bar to find attachments and the ability to put certain messages on hold to focus on the most important.

A downside is to be made, however, the Lite version only authorizes the management of a single e-mail address. In addition to the unlimited number of addresses, the pro version, offered at a very affordable price, adds additional features like fast attachment view, improved reading speed and priority access to customer service.

Mailbird Lite is only available on Windows at this time.

eM Client Free: the most efficient way to boost productivity

We already recommended eM Client to you in our article on best free software 2019 for pc. This messaging client stands out as a very credible alternative to the aforementioned solutions thanks to its multiple functions granting a clear saving of time and productivity, as well as its simple and fast installation with the automated import of the parameters of the various courier services.

eM Client Free integrates a backup automatic data it contains. The user no longer has to worry about keeping their emails and can keep their focus on the tasks they have to do. It also has an advanced table editing tool, making it easy to resize cells, rows and columns. Image editing is also simplified: images pasted into emails are automatically adjusted to a suitable size. The user can always change the size of the image if it is not satisfactory; moreover, he has the possibility of turning it and turning it over.

Finally, it has a feature to configure automatic replies on Gmail and another to create and import PGP keys. These are used to encrypt and digitally sign e-mails. The Free version of eM Client allows you to link two email accounts (for example, the main personal account and the business account). Switching to the Pro version has the advantage of being able to associate an unlimited number of accounts and to have access to VIP customer service.

eM Client is available on PC and on Mac.

ProtonMail: the most secure

We mentioned it in the article ” How do I make my messages and files truly private?», ProtonMail is a web messaging service intended for people concerned about the good protection of their data. It is a complementary software to those we have presented: unlike the others, ProtonMail does not allow you to manage the accounts of various email clients. via a single interface.

Its objective is different: to offer the highest level of security for sending and receiving e-mails. Thus, the user has a new e-mail address which he can use for the transmission of important or sensitive information. ProtonMail is completely anonymous, there is no need to enter personal data to create an account and the logs of IP addresses are not kept.

It is distinguished, therefore, above all by a encryption end-to-end, ensuring the lowest interception risks for this type of program. Normally, only the sender and the recipient can read the content of messages. The data is in fact encrypted using a key to which no one has access except the user. Interesting clarification: ProtonMail servers are located in Suisse. They are therefore subject to Swiss legislation, which is reputed to be one of the most protective in the world with regard to the personal data of customers of companies on its soil.

The free version of ProtonMail is limited to one email address and certain size restrictions. storage and the number of messages sent (500 MB and 150 messages per day all the same).

The Plus, Professional and Visionary versions allow you to increase storage, the number of e-mail addresses, the number of messages sent daily and the number of users.