Once upon a time a single company ruled them all, Microsoft. Okay, that time hasn't really left us, the fact of the matter is that as far as mainstream email goes, Microsoft Outlook is the defacto standard. They certainly are the only ones with any marketing of their solution also. With that said, there are other email clients. Yes, they work just as well. No, they are not viruses or fake. In this article we break down some key features and discuss how to (securely) obtain these email clients for use on all your devices.
Even better, we don't make recommendations for clients that only support Windows or Mac, read on with faith that we have solutions that work no matter what!
Lets review 2 top solutions and help rule out at least 1 client in depth below.
Recommended: eM Client
With wide support for all email types, and support for encryption, undo send, and more, we really like this one. Just like Outlook, you can organize your emails all together, view contacts, calendar, and even send mass mail with ease.
Checkout our short on sending mass mail for free with eM Client (or read it here)!
It feels like Outlook, but has a free version and costs less to upgrade and keep the latest version! With features like Mass Mail, templates, and more, it checks a lot of boxes for the power users out there.
For our privacy concerned individuals, you can disable email tracking which is nice. I know your next question, but does it integrate with Zoom or Teams for meetings? Yes!, Zoom and Teams linked!
They also support read receipts for sent messages.
Recommended: Thunderbird
Sometimes less is more, and Thunderbird should speak to minimalists everywhere! Thunderbird has long been about open source, they are in fact owned by Mozilla and offer similar features like a unified inbox, tagging, and email scheduling.
Indeed, the UI can feel a little dated for the younger folks out there, but whoever said the latest is the greatest hasn't had to restart their computer 5 times just to get something to work the right way, if I never have a problem with it and it works, I love it.
For what it's worth, there is a healthy add-on marketplace as well!
Not Recommended: Mailbird
We bought the hype off of their website, "many users trust us", "4.5 stars on 1,390 reviews". Yeah, not so much.
First off, when you download it it's easy. Get logged on, then it asks you to setup integrations. The list is great, seemingly integrating with Slack, ChatGPT, Grammarly and more. We chose Slack and ChatGPT.
ChatGPT works just fine, but Slack seems to have issues. At first I thought this was great to have it all combined, but it didn't really work.
Then on top of this, I really didn't get any online meeting integrations of note, not nearly as easy as other solutions out there.
With that said, it does have support for mail tracking which can be handy for sales teams.
Feature Table
A quick feature comparison for these 3 email clients with the list of features I focused on as differentiators!
| Client | Mass Mail for Sales | Email Tracking | Online Meetings (Zoom, Teams, etc.) | Ease of Use | Life-long License (1 time) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| eM Client | Yes, very helpful! | Yes | Yes (free) | Very | Yes |
| Thunderbird | No | No | Some, but not all | Very | Yes |
| Mailbird | No | Yes | Separate Add-on (must buy License) | Yes |
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