Discussion on:

Five top alternatives to Microsoft Outlook

If you are using an email system like Office 365 or Google Apps, why use an email client at all? If you store your email on your own computer you have to load a client like Thunderbird, configure it, patch it, update it, and back up your data. When you are on a different computer you can't access your old email. Why not just use a web browser to access your email?

I can see needing an email client if you need access to old email when you are away from the Internet. Other than that, an email client is starting to seem irrelevant.

Actually if you use BPOS or Office 365, your email goes where ever you do. This is true for people that use the installed client as well. If you move to another PC that you've never logged on to and it has Outlook and the sign in tool installed, all your email is available to you with a more powerful, fully featured client in seconds.

When the Internet is not up, your email client still has your downloaded messages. If you can always guarantee access to the Internet, then you can rely on a web-based client. If not, you need a way to keep your messages locally.

Actually when you have to work with emails, it is almost always to receive them, or to reply to them. Offline emails have absolutely no use.
But if you need them anyway, you can perfectly use Gmail, which has also a locally installale plugin that allows ytou to read them offline, without sacrificing the mobility from one PC to another or to your smartphone or tablet.
It's been long that I have stopped using Outlook (even if I have it as part of Office), simply because it is a nightmare to transfer the mails (and sort them again) once you have to change your PC (the export functions in Outlook do not work and take a considerable time).
Gmail works for me for everything. It's fast, reliable, accessible from anywhere, clean, non obtrusive, and offers a considerable storage even for years of emails, provided that you cleanup them regularly as you should (notall emails are to be kept).
I have used now Gmail for more than 6 years, and even transfered all my past archives to it, including from several email accounts. I will never come back, because I have never lost any important emails in it, unlike with Outlook in the past for archives that proved to be not workable, and even very slow, and not accessible.

I agree. I use gmail in conjunction with Incredimail. Works great. Wouldn't change unless something happened that I could not get it to work.

as has happened in a number of publicised cases where gmail has summarily and without warning done so with some people's accounts

We will supposedly point our Outlook/Windows Mail to the GMAIL server. For now they have a GMAIL and exchange server in house. When most of the area is converted, they say they will hand that server off to GMAIL servers in the cloud. We will still be able to use server based Outlook email, but just not a Microsoft Exchange one.

The internet may not have been down where you live, but entire countries have gone offline due to copper theft etc. I also spend a reasonable portion of my time in areas with no possibility of internet connections but use that time to work and respond to messages I downloaded earlier.

Wow man! We live in the desert, and we went to fiber optic years ago!

Here in Africa it is used in abundance, fibre is rare

That's an interesting conundrum. I wonder which is more expensive - replacement with fiber or keep putting up with copper theft. I should think their would be a source for fiber cable somewhere in Africa - Perhaps South Africa?

I do productive stuff when I'm OFFLINE. Are you a irrational cloud zealot or are you just oblivious to reality?

Email can be composed OFFLINE, Graphic artists do their work offline, video & music production can be done offline.

It should be PLAINLY obvious that countess PRODUCTIVE tasks are accompolished OFFLINE.

Please stop spouting inane nonsense.

You just need to change the option to leave a copy of your mail on the server. This way, your service provider hosts your data securely, you don't need to worry about backing-up and you can access it anywhere.

For the benefit of productivity, client applications are most useful, though with the imminent standardisation of HTML5, I predict the web-based client to be as feature-rich and fluent as Outlook.

Embedding images, sharing calendars and what-not will soon be accessible with third-party sites, but I can't see M$ developing a free, full-featured web client for the pure fact that it will not generate revenue unless it's heavily laden with advertising, which frankly puts people off and subjects them to spam, data mining and malicious content.

Not all mail servers will allow you to keep your mail on the server indefinitely [without paying extras]. My ISP assume you aren't keeping it on the server ass they only give [by default] 20mb of space [I think] but pay extra for more storage.

Microsoft has a full featured web client called Outlook Web Access but it ain't free and since Outlook itself isn't free....

It's called Windows Live Mail & I'm quite satisfied with it. It has no advertising ...

No online email service can guarantee 24/7, 365 days a year uptime. Even if the service isn???t experiencing problems, It must have a period of maintenance that makes the cloud unavailable to ensure the service is properly functioning.

All you ???cloud??? advocates stupify me. You all ecstatically promote the clouds benefits while ignoring its plainly obvious disadvantages. Why is it so hard to see the disadvantages?

I can definitely see the clouds obvious advantages but at the same time, Its disadvantages are a valid concern that mustn???t be ignored or brushed aside.

I want my email stored locally & while that???s still possible via downloading from a cloud email system, I don???t want to rely upon the cloud. So, This requires LOCAL software.

why I can't trade server based email for the cloud is legal reasons. There are Federal laws governing the email requirements of certain regulated businesses, forcing them to have local machine storage of each client email. The client must be legally identifiable to do business over the web; so I have to have a service that stores my emails on my hard drive, and use my real name on the account.

Why would anyone use webmail or cloud apps?

because many people access their email on multiple devices these days and want to see all their mail. If you just had local storage it would be a total nightmare to manage

has come up with a way to let their customers use Outlook to synchronize all devices thru GMAIL. Now we can use any device - smartphone, tablet, or PC, and still be synchronous across all platforms and devices. They are getting ready to dump Exchange.

I use Outlook predominantly, but use my iPhone to check for mail very often (and fairly regularly to reply as well). I also use webmail when I'm in front of a PC that's not mine.

we weren't able to connect to our server based email accounts, with anything but a PC.

I use my ISPs email for my personal correspondence & other important correspondence such as when I order something.

I use gmail for trivial email

You've identified one obvious one (discrediting your own point!) - you don't have access to your existing mail if you don't have Internet access (which doesn't always mean the 'net is down - often I take my laptop places where I don't have Internet). I often need to check old mail - to check on something I told a client (a price, timeline etc), to open attachments that have been sent to me, or to check out all sorts of things people use email to tell me.

On the attachment thing, having a local client means you only need to download the attachment once. With webmail I need to download it every time.

With webmail I need to log in every time.

The webmail experience is poorer. If I click on a mailto: link on a website it won't open webmail - it will open my default mail client. If I want to send someone an attachment I can right-click and Sent To Mail Recipient with a mail client. With webmail I have to go to the login page, log in, click New, click Insert, browse for the file, click Attach and wait for it to upload. That's a significant difference.

When uploading images local clients and/or addon software offers to resize the images down before sending. If I want to do this with webmail I have to manually do this first.

There are quite a few similar cases to the above where a local client provides a better experience.

Gechurch: I couldn't agree more! With an email client like WLM you can click on a mailto: link and Windows automatically opens a new email in your default clent and inserts the mailto: address, which is just so easy. And the photo resizing ability in email clients is so often useful too.

And as some have already stated, if you configure your local client to always leave a copy of your emails on the server, they are all accessible from any other computer in the world too, just the same as with web-based email.

And I would hate any client, whether it be local or web-based that doesn't allow you to create and use folders, as I prefer to sort mail into folders to keep track of individual sales/purchases. I currently have about 80 folders on the go and I save the main emails as .html files to sub-folders in my Sales/Purchases folders. Then when the purchase or sale is complete, I just delete the folder in my email client (WLM) knowing the important ones have all been saved for future reference.

As for backing up and getting all your emails and email accounts back if you re-install your OS or move to a new computer, you only have to save your email accounts once and as long as you store them off your C drive, you only have to import them, which takes nano-seconds! And the first thing I do when I set up WLM is change my WLM message store location to My Documents/WLM. That way, all my current emails are automatically displayed again, in my newly re-installed client!

So although it is human nature to always wonder if the grass may be greener on the other side of the fence, usually it is not - and sometimes it is even LESS green! Which is why I will probably resist the temptation to try out any new email client until such time as WLM ceases to fulfil my needs!

I'm using "google mail offline"
An app for google chrome/chromium that lets you use your gmail and read emails automaticly saved to your harddisk, i also set up sync from my gmail to download mail from other boxes including wp and hotmail.
I can choose account to use while sending mail.

No need for using anything else

ps. In fact thunderbird is the best

It's been a while, but I was, for many years, a Pegasus user. I recall traffic on the PM discussion group that it was, in fact, possible to connect Pegasus to Exchange (although it wasn't a trivial exercise - Exchange does not play well with others).

Since many corporate environments are Exchange-bound, it would be useful to have info on any clients that will connect with it. Most corporate IT departments aren't about to ditch whatever they have invested in Exchange, so a client not compatible with it is pretty much a non-starter.

Evolution is probably the best open source email client out there if you need to connect to Exchange. Works great for Linux and Unix/Mac and there is Windows builds available as well if you are stuck there.

I've been using Thunderbird for years and am very happy with it, but the address book leaves a lot to be desired. Also, some synchronizing software doesn't recognize it. One advantage of TB, and perhaps others, is the add-on capability. I use very few of them, but the support from the individual authors can be stunning.

We've used Thunderbird for awhile now at most of our offices and it's been pretty good for us. It's not quite as robust as Exchange, particularly in the calendar area but it works well.

I really like OWA in Exchange 2010 and we'll probably migrate to that because it frees us from the desktop software support.

Outlook is more than just email. It also is contacts and calendar, both personal and company wide. And has nice things like Chief/Secretary just by difining permissions and probably more stuff.

Yes, I was looking forward to seeing an article that would show REAL alternatives for Outlook - not for Outlook Express (or Windows Mail nowadays, I think). This article only lists some well-known email clients with just a fraction of the MS Office Outlook functionality.

As for Thunderbird I have seen several cases where the email database has crashed resulting in several hours of recovery work. Even a simple task like moving the application to another computer has been a nightmare.

I have to disagree with you here. I frequently move Thunderbird from one new computer to the next and it's quick and easy. Just install the application, then copy the profile folder and subfolders over to the new computer. When you bring up Thunderbird again, all of your accounts, contacts, plugins, and email databases and folders are ready to go. It's also very easy to set it up for multiple computers accessing the same servers. I have my home, laptop and work computers all sharing the same emails without confusion or difficulties.

As for the robust nature of the databases.... In 10 years of using Thunderbird, I've had one database crash, and that was in an early version (3.x I think). They are up to version 12 these days and I have not seen a crash or problem in years. I have dozens of folders with thousands of messages archived in each.

although I've yet to use it I've seen it praised over Thunderbird on most Linux sites and magazines...but just like any client that downloads your email you lose the ability to view your emails from anywhere unless you have your laptop with you. I've used Thunderbird from time to time but not being able to view my emails on the web caused me to stop using it. I'd rather have the ability to view my emails from anywhere instead of one location.

I have multiple emails using several providers. Gmail, Yahoo, Comcast, Exchange, etc. The things is that almost every email provider today has a web based email client. If you want to use an email client on your desktop, you simply configure the settings to leave a copy on the server, and all your emails will remain on the server, where you can access them from the web from anywhere. This also allows you to access your dowloaded (synced) emails when away from the interent. I would try that, and if the client you have on your desktop doesn't support it, I would use a different one. I do know that Thunderbird (free) has this feature, as well as Evolution (free), and Outlook (never free).

I tried Evolution, but it dumped the email from multiple email addresses into one inbox. There was no way to set up multiple email accounts in Evolution. I dumped it immediately.

Evolution uses separate folders for each mail account by default now, I believe. At least that's how it has worked on the last three installations I have done. It's easy to keep accounts separate.

Scott

I used it for years before moving our company to Exchange/Outlook (cost decision), very feature rich and had all the bells and whistles. Kind of surprised to not see it mentioned here.

We still use it, and it is still highly popular. I don't understand why it is not listed as the number 1 alternative. My only guess is that MS is the alternative to notes as notes and domino does what takes 4 or 5 MS servers.

NT

I used it for years and still really believe in the Domino platform as a whole.

My company has used Outlook for many years but we found it particularly annoying when trying to sync the calendars of each of the developers. We've moved to web Gmail and even though the UI isn't slick it works well for us and the calendars sync well. The only problem we've faced with the UI is trying to move inexperienced users from using 'folders' to adding a 'label'.

We use GroupWise. As a server, it beats Exchange in lots of ways. ($$$ and manpower being the two biggest.) And, the GW client connects just fine with imap, pop, Exchange, and many other back ends. If you get the latest client, you can have Twitter, Facebook, etc. panes open as well to keep track of all your connections.

But who uses Groupwise? It's like Notes/Domino. The number of companies using either of them are dwindling. In fact, for Notes/Domino there is no schedule for upcoming versions. So it could die at 8.5.

Oh is the GroupWise client free?

Others mention Google Apps. As a competitor, this is likely the #1 escape route for ex-Outlook users. Outlook isn't an email client, it's an address book, Calendar, notification center, and all around business planning console. Google Apps comes closest to handing all these features to the user.

Jack, thank you for introducing new alternatives in the start of my IT career i used Outlook i think 2 or 3 days but never used it again. Now i'm in love with Gmail and it's new sleek and stylish look i'm also thinking to checkout Thunderbird's feature!

I think the key word is mail clients. I think even in a corporate environment any of these clients can be used- sometimes without IT even knowing about it, users should just be aware that there are not missing anything as sometimes mailbox rules are not enough.
we have had some users setup forwarding rules (usually store and forward) - they don't do any maintenance on the actual mailbox though. I like thundebird

I wish we had Outlook but it is doubtful.

You seem to be talking about Outlook Express, which is just an email client
and not Microsoft Outlook.
Outlook is a complete customer/contact relation management suite.

One of it's coolest features is the ability to track all correspondence with a person
including documents that you have sent.

I use Outlook at work because I have to and Gmail for everything else. Here's my two cents:

Contact Management: Both Gmail and Outlook have pluses and minuses. With Gmail, they are always available no matter where I check my mail and it is really easy to add contacts. Downer is that the default setting for Gmail is to keep ALL your contacts in the contact list, which can get top-heavy. Outlook only adds those contacts you want, since it's a manual process, but they are a pain to move to another client when you get a new PC. Advantage: Gmail

Conversation tracking: Outlook is restricted to the search, which just brings up all the emails it thinks are related to the one you search on. Gmail, on the other hand, tracks conversations as a matter of course. It's pretty easy to collapse and manage things and to review even lengthy back-and-forth sessions involving multiple threads and multiple people. Advantage: Gmail by a mile.

Folders vs Tags: For personal use, I prefer Gmail's tags, but for business use, folders are more convenient. I don't want to have to search through eighty tags to find what I want, and I hate having to use the generic "Archive" to get things out of my Inbox. Advantage: Outlook.

Tasks and calendaring: Without using a separate tool (Google Calendar), Gmail doesn't even do this, so chalk up a + for Outlook here. If you don't use this feature much, it's not a big deal.

For business use, Outlook may still be worth the money. For personal use, there is no way I would shell out for Outlook.

Just allow me to provide you with a tip. In Gmail, you do not need to sort emails in folders or after tags. You can just use the search function. The amount of time I have saved by skipping archiving, which you had to do in the old Outlook days, is simply amazing.

While the search in Gmail is way better than in Outlook, it's the clutter factor that drives me nuts. I only want stuff in my inbox that needs my attention. It's a huge time waster to re-read old emails searching for things. Thus folders are really useful because I can compartmentalize all the conversations relating to a given topic into a single folder and date it for removal. If I have to search, I have to remember two or three things about that particular message to find it without a lot of searching. Gmail's lack of folders force me to do a search, which means spending time typing when I could be looking through the folder in a click. It's all about efficiency, and search adds a painful step.

This is the same reason I don't use the "search" function from the Windows start bar more than once a month - I already have things organized according to how I use them. If I have to search to find it, it means that I'm trying to find something I never thought I'd have to keep around.

Obviously missing for corporate environment is Lotus Notes...

Almost every mail client that I've ever used had the ability to leave messages on the server. IT departments like to set up desktops to download and not leave a copy because it reduces their storage requirements, but this setting is easily changed.

How do the various alternatives handle archiving old email, searching it and retrieving as necessary? This is becoming an increasing issue as the archives become larger and larger.

Email archiving is dangerous for a couple of reasons:
1) Legal. Any email you still have can be subpoenaed in a lawsuit. If you have a corporate policy that allows unlimited archiving of email, I'd strongly advise that you revise your policy. If you really need a record of a conversation, save the email to file and store it in a timed-delete folder. There is NO transaction that has an indefinite history, and you don't want old matters coming back to bite you in a lawsuit. Our standard policy is 30 days. If you need to keep it longer, it goes to file.

2) Storage: How many times do users keep old emails they don't need? That's the default behavior. The problem is trying to FIND anything in that mess and underlies the real problem: disorganization. Train your users to categorize emails into things I need to _do_, and things I need to _know_. Read and delete as much as possible and set a time limit for EVERYTHING. The real question is: what is the real possibility I will EVER need this email again?

Do not not keep emails....it's so expensive en case of troubles.
And don't put any thing on any digital medium you don't want it to be public.

Payroll records (including e-mail) must be kept far longer than 30 days. Check with your attorney.

Maybe i am the only one.... i do not like outlook because i have to pay for it! Even though i am not an exchange user! For the record i use MDaemon and access my mail from ANYWHERE via the World Client.. it even provide an admin console over the web.

All for a fraction of what you pay for exchange and it integrate well with Blackberry. In reality i do not see any reason why you should tether yourself to any POP email client and by the way extend that to the whole MS office suite...why not? there are more than capable replacements i.e Open office etc..

Regards

I think one issue that hasn't been addressed is whether email can be recovered after corruption. I know with outlook there are many recovery programs available, does anyone have experience with recovering files used by these outlook alternatives?

Lotus Notes, although up front is a complete replacement to Exchange, does NOT have to be used in that fashion. You can purchase Lotus Notes for the Rapid Application Development platform that it is, and integrate Exchange using Lotus Notes as a front-end. You can then use the rich features of Lotus Notes database development tools, integrate Email functionality for work-flow and forms-management, and still keep an Exchange back-end. Exchange's database is slightly more powerful than Lotus Notes (back a few years ago, not sure about today). Lotus Notes Email front-end matches perfectly (almost 100%) to Outlook.

Used Outlook in the corporate world for a decade but switched to Thunderbird at the home office years ago and have been very pleased with it. I liked Outlook Mail but it was frequently riddled with viruses until the company where I worked got more aggressive with security. After getting acquainted with TB, I never looked back. I love the program; it does everything I want and well.

Here's a little secret, there's a better backend than Exchange, it's called Domino and it runs on just about anything.

Please STOP using Lotus Notes - every time anyone tries to send us an attachment from Lotus Notes .... it fails, we can't read it. Luckily, very few of our customers use it.

Your Exchange server/client is setup to incorrectly. You will have issues with any Exchange alternative if that is the case.

Can't remember the exact setting, used to have to fix this every once in a while back in the day.

I use Thunderbird simply because by using Mozback up I can save everything,settings passwords and email,or just one of them and use that to transfer everything to another computer or use it as a backup.
Its so simple to do and don't know if any other email client can do that with such ease.
Certainly reading archived outlook mail has been, for me, impossible and Id never go back to it.

I've been working with Thunderbird for a couple of years and I do not miss Outlook at all. I have pop client, archives, contacts, events, etc. and all can be sync with my phone (Windows Mobile first, Android now). Yes, it is not as simple to configure, but Outlook is not a piece of cake either.

Cheers,

When considering the things that Jack did not have the space for...I would like to add one small things that may need be considered one day...there is room now for the office software edition that is not compatible with anything else and only adds security by doing so. So those who know the routine can just compile whatever equals that and deploy it out as the norm.It's important though that individual not make the same mistakes Microsoft does.

This article is looking down the wrong end of the telescope in my opinion. Organizations should be looking to displace their corporate email systems, not replace their email clients.

Here are five email "displacement options" (in alphabetical order) to consider:

IBM Connections
Jive Social Business
Salesforce.com Chatter
Socialcast
Yammer

I have used it for years - One ridiculous flaw. If you switch folders while it is downloading it will frequently crash. You then cannot restart pegasus. I discovered the cure after numerous crashes.. In the mail directory there would be a file with suffix cnm and zero length - delete this file and Pegasus functions perfectly again. Previously I had find dlete all files in the directory and find last backup and restore.

Thunderbird is great but it does not work well with Google Apps mail and newer Windows 7 for some reason.

We have over 30 email accounts (personal, business, and one for each case we manage). We have tried several times to migrate to Outlook but find it very difficult to setup and manage multiple email accounts. Multiple account setup in Thunderbird is quick and easy to manage. We use Outlook for contacts and calendar but not business email. We have one outlook email account setup to work with our databases for special email blasts to claimants in cases we manage. If we could do this with Thunderbird we would. The biggest problem we have with Outlook is that all email accounts are stored in one .pst file which gets blotted. Thunderbird creates a separate file system for each account which allows for easy archiving when a case is complete (also better email compliance management). Outlook has some good features (Sharepoint connections etc.) but needs a complete redesign.

Believe it or not, my many friends and I sitll believe good old AOL has the easiest and finest e-mail account one can buy. I use the paid version. I've had many friends grump and complain when some rare glitch takes place. I've been on AOL since 1996. These friends complain, leave AOL and then every single one of them has come back. They found the grass isn't always greener and they like AOL's easier than anybody's mail system and free security. E-mail is all a matter of choice but I'll take AOL's paid plan hands down and so will my friends.

How did you even get on this site? Seriously?

Tell me about it...!

AOL certainly has the advantage that it is "tried and true."

Another advantage is that, if you can keep users from clicking on links in an e-mail or downloading and running attachments it seems pretty bulletproof to embedded malware, just because it *is* a non-standard client.

There are plus and minus sides to it.

Plus:
- The AOL desktop client is free,
- Installs pretty simply
- Uses a broadband connection without a hitch
- Embedded links and images are disabled in incoming e-mail until the person receiving the mail allows activation -- eg: they can't just "click" or view - they have to request the enabling of the click or display
- The above mentioned non-standard mail structure prevents a lot of malware issues (if you can keep people from clicking on links or opening attachments!)
- The old restriction of 1,000 unread messages in yur inbox is now gone
- you can offload the mail (inbound and outbound) into AOL folders with ease
- It has had really high availability to the e-mail servers at AOL over the life of the product
- Will happily connect to other clients (like outlook ) through IMAP/POP3/etc (H*ll, it even works with the Blackberry e-mail application without special configuration)
- Truly accessible anywhere you can get a broadband connection

Minus -
- The non-standard file structure makes it a major hassle to archive outside of AOL, even between releases of AOL on the same machine
- To offload the mail file folders you have to go around Robin Hood's barn, such as connecting through an OUTLOOK client and saving to a PST file or forwarding all you old mail to yourself through AOL
- Well-nigh impossible to access the offloaded "File Cabinets" if you have to move to a new machine (or even a new major release of AOL)
- Adware in the mail directory page
- becuase the desktop client isn't *just* an e-mail server, it can turn into a tiome sink when users look at other things
- the "anti-AOL" sentiment that many geeks have because they percive it as "un-kewl"

Lets face it, AOL was one of the first (and I think the oldest surviving) e-mail clients aimed at consumers, and proved that connecting to the interwebs didn't need to be the sole province of "geeks" or "nerds."

Just because you might not like AOL itself, it *does* work well for the overwhelming proportion of its users. (Another advantage I've found -- if my jobsite e-mail is down for whatever reason, but I still have connectivity, I can have someone send me a file or link though my AOL account and I can easially keep on working)

Friends just don't let friends do @hole! I can't tell you the nightmares that I've experienced trying to get my client's computers cleaned up after one AOL disaster after another. It is hard to believe they are still in business! Of course most of their customers refuse to install the AOL client software; so that is probably part of the reason they have survived. My brother, who is still a customer, learned this years ago, as well.

I don't even allow the existence of AOL software on any of my client's machines, if they refuse to uninstall it, I simply delete them from my client list. Not to mention it takes using REVO uninstaller to get it off the machine properly.

troll?

I set up separate folders for clients and projects in outlook. At the conclusion, I create a new appropriately named outlook data file, movre the corresponding folder to it, then close it in outlook. There's my archive.

I wish more software developers would clone the PST file structure and make their software work with it. Maybe some day the Libre Office or OpenOffice.org developers will find a way to integrate their database or spreadsheet moidules with Thunderbird and Writer. The world needs a real knockoff of Outlook .

How does that PST file work on .. oh say Unbuntu? .. or iOS?
I prefer a more OS agnositc file structure like the nsf in Notes.

I use Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail. I'm considering Zoho.

For me, the email is secure enough (though most things are not critical). The great advantage is that if my PC crashes, or I need to check something somewhere away from home (usually using my laptop), I don't have to worry about things getting lost or not synching up.

But then, I'm not that social.

I use Thunderbird with several email addresses at several servers, and I use the Lightning calendar plugin synced to my Google calendar. If I make an appointment on my Android phone, it shows up in Thunderbird, and Vice versa. I've used Thunderbird for a decade, and give it my highest compliments. Some of my customers, however, have had problems with Thunderbird. Sometimes they're not aware of the tabbed user interface and get lost; sometimes it's issues that go beyond user training. I'm well versed and deal with issues as they come. Most users, though, just freak and say "It doesn't work", I've removed Thunderbird and put in Windows Live Essentials Email for a few users that just got too frustrated with Thunderbird.

I am using windows live email.
All's well in the eastern front.

While not free except to try, I've found IncrediMail a great email client. Better still it does everything I need, a couple of things I had them add, while still being as simple to use as Outlook Express.
One thing it allows, after I requested it, is you can input a group into an email and then expand it and delete one or more of the entries for that email only. I have a circle of about 30 friends with whom I exchange emails. When I get one from one of them I forward it to the rest, if it's interesting or funny enough to pass on. I put in the group and then remove the sender so only people who haven't seen it receive a copy.

It also allows unlimited number of signatures, formatted any way you like with pictures, sound anything.

It also has the best emoticons of any email program.

Honestly, that is probably the worst email out there - buggy and full of spyware. If one of my clients wanted that on their network I would ask them to go elsewhere for IT support.