Postbox – a great email client

Overview

Ive been using email for many years, since the days of Fidonet on dial-up bulletin boards in the 1990’s. Over time, Ive seen email grow and develop, and the quality of email software and web-based services improve. For many years in the late 1990’s and early 2000 I used Outlook, which at that time was the killer application for email, albeit very clunky by today’s standards. After a brief flurtation with Outlook Express, I eventually changed to Mozilla Thunderbird, which has been my email client of choice ever since. This has been a close tie with Windows Live Mail, which I also like very much, but Thunderbird has always edged it out because of its high degree of customisability through add-on support.

Recently I heard about Postbox, from an article on Lifehacker. Postbox is based on Mozilla Thunderbird, but has quite a few useability tweaks. It comes in two versions, Free (lite) and Paid (full).

Having trialled the Full version on my Work Desktop for the last week, I will take the plunge and shell out the minimal $39.95 registration fee. It really is an excellent piece of software. Although not as ‘fully featured’ as Microsoft Outlook, there’s plenty of features there for even the most discerning consumer. In comparison with Outlook, the advantage is that its very fast, and won’t slow down older machines.

The range of add-ons is not as broad as Thunderbird, but there are numerous ‘hand picked’ options available to extend functionality. ‘Out of the box’ my only criticism was that it didnt have a Calendar. A few mouse clicks later I had Lightning intalled, and now its just peachy.

While $39.95 is not quite as good as ‘free’, from a value-for-money standpoint, this is a clear winner in my estimation. Highly recommended for those looking for a robust email client without the bloat of Outlook 2010 and with more features and useability than Thunderbird/Windows Live Mail.

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Features:

Ultra-Fast Search
Try a few searches and compare for yourself!

Document and Image Search
Instant and direct access to files hiding in your email.

Quick Move
Move messages without moving your mouse.

Tabbed Email Browsing
Like a Web browser, view email content in tabs.

One-click Archive
Quickly sweep messages out of your way.

Editing / Annotation
Edit inbox messages just like a word processor.

To-Do Tagging
Use email messages to get things done.

Categorize by Topic
Organize messages by keyword in a flash.

Compact Header Mode
Make the most of your available screen space.

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