Choosing the Best Email Client Software

What is an email client?

A mail client is software that allows you to work with different mailboxes using one platform. The main advantage it provides is time saving. After all, you no longer need to enter each mailbox individually. 

The client helps to:

• Receive, store, and send emails
• Sort messages by their importance and type
• Edit emails with options for font style, color, and size or using templates with preset layouts
• Set up automatic sending
• Export and import emails into other programs

Many email clients have an extensive list of features either thanks to built-in functions or compatibility with external programs. For instance, some of the advanced capabilities include email delegation, setting up auto-responders for when you are out of office, and organizing emails into folders or labels.

In addition, an email client allows you to store your email data on your computer and in the cloud. Whereas web-based email services store everything on the server only. This is why email clients are better for business: it’s easier for you to access your work emails and they are better protected.

How to choose the best email client software

Choosing an email client can be tricky because everyone has different needs and preferences. However, we compiled a list of a few key characteristics to look out for:

Supported platforms

Supported platforms and device compatibility are critical factors in choosing an email client. Can the software be used on multiple operating systems (for instance, on Linux and Mac), or just one? Make sure to check if the software can run on your device before purchasing or downloading. Check if it has a mobile version for on-the-go access.

Normally, email clients have no issue working with widely used providers such as Google or Yahoo. Still, if you’re using a less known service, it’s best to confirm that the client can support it ahead of time.

Available features

Get to know the features of your client of choice and how it integrates with other programs. There are some email clients that offer more than others in terms of features and connections. Some might be really useful for work with such features like task management, calendar integration, and note taking. Others might be more suitable for personal use with options like customizable themes and automatic email sorting into folders. 

Design and ease of use

Feeling comfortable with your email client is important. What’s convenient for you is mostly a matter of preference. Some people like simpler layouts while others might prefer more advanced features. Take some time to explore and test out the interface before committing. Consider if it’s user-friendly and how easy it is to navigate through the various options and settings. Also, think about if you find the interface aesthetically pleasing and customizable to your preferences.

Price

Make sure that the pricing works for your budget and needs. Some email clients may have a one-time payment option, while others offer a monthly or yearly subscription. Some might even have a free version with the basic functions: sorting, sending, mail search. Compare the options and pick the best fit for you.

15 best email clients on the market

Using a functional email client can make managing and organizing your inboxes much simpler, ultimately improving productivity and streamlining communication. 

We have compiled a list of the best email clients available, which will optimize your experience whether you are using it for work or personal purposes, and regardless of what type of device you use. This list includes both paid and free options. We’ll highlight their strengths and list the best features. 

Thunderbird

Supported platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux.

Price: Free.

A popular email client that stands out for its simplicity and flexible settings. Thunderbird uses a classic interface, complete with tabs for easy handling of multiple emails at once. It includes features ranging from a powerful search function and an integrated calendar to an activity manager and plug-in support that makes it even more powerful.

Thunderbird is completely free on all platforms.

Features:

• Classic tabbed interface
• Manual configuration of mailbox settings
• Integrated calendar
• Flexible setup of alerts
• Email sorting by tags
• Smart Folders feature for organizing your emails from different accounts into one inbox
• Automatic blocking of suspicious content (protects from email scams)
• Smart search with one-click message filtering functions
• Remote access to email content

Things users don’t like about Thunderbird: 

• The user interface looks a little old-fashioned.
• Drag-and-drop feature is not available.

Microsoft Outlook

Supported platforms: Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Web.

Price: Free. Premium features – $6.99/month for 1 person or $9.99 for group use for up to 6 people.

One of the most famous email tools, which is especially popular among corporate users. Outlook manager is deeply integrated with the Outlook calendar, and has a built-in task scheduler, notes, and address book. To handle incoming correspondence, there are flexibly configurable rules, smart sorting, and easy keyword searching.

Other features include the text-formatting tools familiar to Microsoft Word, the ability to create groups to discuss projects together, and support for scripts to automate routines.

Users can either sign up for a limited free version or purchase a Microsoft license to get the full range of features, including ad removal, more storage (1TB), and advanced security measures.

Features:

• Offline mode in the Web version of the client (with the ability to read and respond to messages, respond to requests, manage your calendar, etc.) 
• Calendar and invitation sharing
• To-do list
• Integration with other Microsoft Office products
• Managing and storing contacts
• Enhanced protection against spam and phishing (premium subscription)
• Compatibility with mobile and desktop computers
• Possibility to use third-party add-ons
• Automatic extraction of important events from supported email senders and addition to your calendar (premium subscription)

Things users don’t like about Microsoft Outlook:

• Compared to other email clients, this one isn’t as intuitive or modern. 
• It can run slowly even on new computers.

Gmail

Supported platforms: Android, iOS, Web, Windows.

Price: Free.

Gmail, the email client created by Google, has garnered a reputation for being user-friendly and efficient. Its interface is simple and intuitive, allowing users to easily navigate and organize their inboxes. It also offers a range of useful features such as label customization, conversation threading, and automatic spam filtering. 

Additionally, Gmail boasts ample storage space and the ability to integrate with other Google apps. The client allows you to access and manage email from various third-party services, such as Yahoo and Hotmail.

Features:

• User-friendly interface
• Efficient organization systems (labels, filters)
• Customizable swipes
• Built-in task list
• Expansive storage capacity up to 15 GB, plus integrations with Google Drive and Photos in free plan or up to 5 TB in the paid Business plans)
• Robust search function (including advanced search options)
• Artificial intelligence-driven security technologies to protect against spam, phishing, and malware
• Smart Compose feature for completing a sentence based on the user’s email history
• Integration with other Google apps and services (Calendar, Drive, Meet)
• Offline access with the ability to read and delete messages, search emails, write replies (your email will be saved into an “Outbox” folder and automatically sent the next time you go online.)

Things users don’t like about Gmail:

• Emails from known, valid addresses can sometimes still end up in spam folders.

Mailbird

Supported platforms: Windows.

Price: Standard package – $2.28/month, Premium package – $3.44/month.

A powerful email client with flexible settings and integration with many popular services, from cloud storage to social networks. Mailbird allows you to process mail quickly by supporting hotkeys and speed reading. Useful features include message delay, spell checker, attachment search, notification settings, and design themes, including a dark theme.

A full-featured version of Mailbird is available by subscription or by purchasing a perpetual license. As an introduction, you can use the application for free, but with a limit of three accounts and without some options like the use of personal and business applications (WhatsApp, Trello), etc.

Features:

• Single inbox
• Flexible interface settings 
• App integration 
• Snooze messaging for later 
• The first email speed reader to get through your emails twice as fast
• Customizable sound settings 
• LinkedIn LookUp to deeper your professional relationships
• Attachment search

Things users don’t like about Mailbird:

• The absence of a mobile app.
• This software is a resource hog and can slow down computers.

Hiri

Supported platforms: Linux, Windows, and Mac.

Price: Annual – $39, Lifetime – $119.

Hiri emphasizes simplicity. In addition to email, this app allows you to work with calendars, to-do lists, and contacts. Hiri also focuses on nuanced design. Its powerful interface makes it simple to navigate your email and remove any unwanted clutter from your inbox. The tool syncs all calendar events with Office 365 and Exchange. You can also share your calendars. Hiri has an offline mode for extra privacy. There are also reminders and the ability to turn off notifications.

Features:

• Availability of reminders and notes
• Synchronization with your existing calendars
• Separate folders for emails
• Built-in task manager
• Clean and intuitive UI
• Access to your company’s entire Global Address List to make any changes in contact as needed

Things users don’t like about Hiri:

• It doesn’t have a mobile app.
• The free trial period is short (7 days).

Front

Supported platforms: Mac, Windows, Web, iOS, Android.

Price: Starter – $19, Growth – $49, Scale – $99.

This email client is great for collaborative work. You can handle mail (and even the same email) as a team. All participants can discuss activities with each other.

You can merge emails from different services and integrate with more than 50 third-party services such as Salesforce, Slack, Trello, GitHub, Intercom, and Asana. Therefore, this client is especially beneficial to those who conduct business as it is a valuable tool for improving team communication and productivity. The features of sharing, assigning, commenting on, snoozing and resurfacing issues makes zero inbox possible.

Features:

• Manage multiple communication channels
• Templates for quick answers to frequent customer questions
• Autoresponder for emails
• Tags and keywords
• Task management
• Syncing with calendar
• Analytics feature to track information such as the number of emails sent and received, response time, etc.
• Built-in chat on site for an additional fee

Things users don’t like about the Front:

• There is no notification sent to the email sender if the recipient opens and reads the email.
• The mobile app can sometimes be slow and laggy.

Mailspring

Supported platforms: Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Price: Free, Pro-version — $8 monthly.

It is a feature-rich email client that supports Gmail, Outlook, iCloud and several other major email service providers.

The program allows you to cancel a message within seconds if you realize you’ve made a mistake. There is a quick search for the contents of emails. A dark mode is available in the tool. 

However, the free email client has some limitations. You cannot connect more than four email accounts to Mailspring.

The Pro version is beneficial for users who want email read notifications. The system will also let you know if an email hasn’t been opened for some time. There is a special section where you can see all the statistics about new emails read and links clicked.

Features:

• Support for multiple accounts
• Work with most email providers, including Gmail, iCloud, Office 365, Outlook.com, Yahoo!, etc.
• Keyboard shortcuts (including Gmail shortcuts)
• Automatic spell-checking and translation from different languages
• Responsive search
• Multiple layouts
• Theme support
• Customizable email templates for quick replies

Things users don’t like about Mailspring:

• The subscription costs more than other services.

Kiwi for Gmail

Supported platforms: Windows.

Price: Standard – $30/year, Premium – $39/year, Elite – $58.99/year.

Kiwi only works with Google accounts, but you can add an unlimited number of them. The tool allows you to combine multiple Gmail accounts and filter your inbox using the Focus feature. With it, you can organize mail by date, importance, attachments, and more.

The presence of indicators show you how many unread emails are in each account, so you can easily switch between them. Different accounts may have different color schemes to make it easier to keep track of them.

You can set different sound alerts for each account in the application settings. The program can display the number of emails in the Dock or menu bar. The application can be silenced for a while with a special switch.

Another advantage of Kiwi for Gmail is support for Google Apps. With just one click, you can launch Google Calendar, Contacts, and open the Google Drive window or Documents, Tables, and Presentations. 

Features:

• Multi-window interface
• Multiple accounts to work with
• Desktop notifications
• Streamlined interface
• Hotkey support
• Notification filtering feature
• Offline access for documents, spreadsheets, and Google Drive presentations

Things users don’t like about Kiwi for Gmail:

• Kiwi is limited in productivity tools and customization options as it is designed to replicate the Gmail experience.

Rambox

Supported platforms: Windows, Linux, Mac.

Price: Free, Pro version – $4.38/month, Enterprise – $14/month.

Rambox is not a traditional email client. Instead, it is a productivity suite that aims to help users organize their workspace by managing multiple applications from a single location. Rambox supports more than 600 applications, including major email clients, instant messaging and social networking applications, calendar and scheduling, and project management tools.

Features:

• Synchronization of services between different computers
• Unread message counter
• Keyboard shortcuts for easy navigation
• Multiple account support 
• Ability to disable sounds and notifications
• Theme customization
• Reordering and grouping

Things users don’t like about Rambox:

• It does not have a single mailbox for all incoming mail from different accounts.

Spike

Supported platforms: iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Web.

Price: Free, PRO — $5/month, Business — $10/month.

Spike is an email client that allows users to view emails in a chat format. Several types of email browsing are available: chat, dialog format with built-in additional features, and standard email browsing. Thanks to the chat system, users can respond to incoming emails faster.

The service also makes it easy to share pictures, videos, audio, GIFs, and documents. In addition to quick file sending, the app allows for audio and video calls, and shows when the person you’re mailing to has opened a message and started typing a reply. Moreover, users can create group conversations for any tasks and projects.

Finally, users can sort incoming emails and view the most important ones in a separate folder.

Features:

• Integration with cloud storage for large file transfers
• Calendars integration (Google, Outlook, Apple) for quick viewing of upcoming events in one place
• Notification management
• Prioritize the receipt of emails
• Data protection with an encryption system
• Dark theme
• Voice memos
• Automatic translation of emails
• Integrated audio and video capabilities to stay connected

Things users don’t like about Spike:

• It doesn’t have keyboard shortcuts and customization options.

eM Client

Supported platforms: Windows, Mac.

Price: Free, Pro-version – $49,95

This is a powerful email client with a modern interface, high performance, and tons of features for working with email. If you need to handle a lot of emails from several mailboxes and have a busy correspondence, then eM Client is the right choice for these tasks.

It has all the basic features you need: a calendar, contacts and task manager, and live chat between users. The program allows you to import settings and content from many other email clients, so the migration process is not difficult. The free version allows you to import two profiles only, while the Pro version has no import restrictions.

Features:

• Handy address book
• Backup option
• Advanced email management rules for organizing your incoming and outgoing messages
• Selection of custom themes or designing your own
• Support for an unlimited number of mailboxes (in Pro-version)
• The sidebar with communication history for quick access to contextual information
• Auto-translation of messages to different languages
• Spell check
• Email templates 
• Possibility to make mailing from several accounts simultaneously
• Compatibility with all the leading platforms like iCloud, Google Drive, Webex, etc. as well as with any email service 
• Quick and easy data import from Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and more

Things users don’t like about eM Client:

• The free trial is limited to two email accounts.

Inky

Supported platforms: Windows.

Price: Free 30 days. Further costs are calculated for each client individually.

In addition to a well-designed user interface, Inky boasts multi-account capability, flexible filters, cloud synchronization, and a user-friendly visualization that lets you choose colors and icons for different accounts.

Inky also features built-in automatic sorting of incoming emails by relevance. Messages from the closest contacts are marked with a blue blob, which means the message is highly important. Less important messages and spam are marked with less bright drops and are lowered in the list.

Features:

• User-friendly interface with accessible navigation
• Built-in search for correspondence
• Synchronization with cloud services
• Automatic sorting of emails by relevance
• Marking of permanent contacts in the list with an icon in the form of a drop
• Sorting contacts by importance

Things users don’t like about Inky:

• It does not always correctly identify spam mail.

Postbox

Supported platforms: Windows, Mac.

Price: $59 lifetime license.

Postbox positions itself as an email application for professional use. Postbox is very easy to use and has the usual email client design features. It synchronizes from Yahoo, Gmail, iCloud, Office 365, Outlook and from other email service providers. With its feature set, Postbox is a great option for those looking to improve their email productivity and organization.

Features:

• Focus Panel to handle and organize important emails with filters
• Quick access to favorite folders
• Powerful tagging system (Topics feature)
• Integration with address book, iCalendar, iPhoto, Spotlight, Dropbox, OneDrive, etc.
• Quick post function to forward important email content to Evernote, Wunderlist, Todoist, Zapier
• Reminders + Pinning system
• Customizable layouts
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Pre-written responses
• Robust protection against malicious emails

Things users don’t like about Postbox:

• License fees may not be budget-friendly for some users.

ProtonMail

Supported platforms: Web, Android, iOS.

Price: For individuals: Free, Unlimited – $7.99/month; For businesses: Mail Essentials – $6.49/month, Business – $9.99/month

If your privacy is paramount, it’s time to start using ProtonMail. ProtonMail is a Switzerland-based email service that offers enhanced privacy and security features. The program involves special transmission methods that ensure that only the users involved in the communication have access to the messages. 

ProtonMail prevents any unauthorized persons, including email providers, from viewing the mailbox. It also has a clean, user-friendly interface and allows for custom domain usage (for paid version only). It is a solid choice for individuals or businesses looking for heightened privacy and security in their email communications.

Features:

• Free plan with 1 GB capacity (or 500 GB in the paid unlimited version)
• End-to-end encryption of emails and password protected messages
• Use of cryptographic keys
• Possibility to send encrypted messages to the users of other email services
• Customizable retention times for emails
• Automatic email sorting with the most important emails at the top
• Two-factor authentication
• No need to enter your real first and last name when registering

Things users don’t like about ProtonMail:

• Restrictions for the free account (1 GB box size, no more than 150 messages per day, etc.)
• Lack of ability to work with other email clients.

Zimbra

Supported platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux.

Price: free.

Zimbra is a multifunctional email client. The idea behind Zimbra is to combine email with other teamwork tools. These include chat correspondence, one-to-one correspondence and group chats, etc. Zimbra can work both with its own email server and with other email providers (Gmail, AOL, Yahoo Mail, Microsoft Exchange IMAP). All in all, the Zimbra client is a great program for simplifying collaboration within a company.

Features:

• The ability to hold video conferences, share files, and broadcast screen content
• Setting reminders
• Message handling – cancel sending, message recovery, message delivery planning
• Full search by documents, attachments, and email texts
• Tags for grouping messages
• Built-in organizer, task scheduler, calendar
• The ability to integrate the client into various email services and social networks
• The presence of a special client (Zimlet) designed for downloading add-ons to the mail client (e.g. translator)

Things users don’t like about Zimbra:

• The lack of some useful features like tracking of email opens and text shortcuts.

Conclusion

An email client comes in handy for those who need to keep track of emails but have several mailboxes.

Using an email client allows you to manage multiple email accounts from one platform, saving time and streamlining the communication process. Clients allow you to receive, send, store, and sort emails, as well as edit them and set up automatic sending. Many also offer additional features such as delegating emails or setting up auto-responders. You can also export and import emails into other programs.

When deciding on an email client, it’s important to consider:

• Supported platforms, compatibility with devices and email clients you use.
• Available features and how well it integrates with other programs. 
• Ease of use, the design and layout of the interface.
• Price compliance with your budget.