Despite the popularity of web-based email accounts, there are still people who use POP3 mailboxes and email clients such as Outlook Express. If you're one of them, keep on reading because you're going to love this app.

SpamBrave is a powerful antispam tool that sets a filter between your mailbox and the mail server, analyzing each message you download and throwing all the spam away so that it doesn't bother you anymore. Of course, the program's efficiency depends highly on its training, and training takes time. But this learning process has been automated to a certain extent, which means that fortunately you don't have to go over all of your messages one by one.

SpamBrave can take a look at your Outlook folders and learn from what you consider good and bad email messages. If you don't have enough of them, it'll learn from its embedded spam library. Plus you can also create "white" and "black" lists with your approved and banned senders, respectively.

The program is seamlessly integrated into the Outlook interface as a new toolbar and includes some configuration settings with which you can adapt it you your needs.

SpamBrave is a powerful spam filter for Outlook Express that, after some careful training, can help you get rid of those unwanted messages.

Download SpamBrave Lite for Outlook Express 5.6 in Softonic

PopTray is a mail notifier with a large round of features. It can offer you the following:

• Unlimited number of Accounts
• Show number of messages directly on the TrayIcon (rotating by account)
• Quickly preview a message
• Delete messages from the server without downloading them
• Identify a message according to your criteria
• Configurable hot-keys/mouse-buttons/command-line options for most functions
• Plug-in support for protocol and notification
• Spam management using rules and white/black lists
• Multiple notifications (play sound, pop-up, etc)

Download PopTray 3.2 in Softonic

You wish to toss messages from your friends into special folders, send automatic replies to people from other departments, mark messages from your dear ones with special colours. Press Ctrl+Shift+F to quickly create a new filter based on the current message and define its functionality.

A sales manager should send personalised price lists and promotional material to her/his company partners. Just create Quick Templates by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Q, type the handle of the template you need and press Ctrl+Space - The Bat! will promptly insert text, attach files and make the message ready to send.

Every day, you have to go through endless lists of messages from somebody who wants to sell you something you don't need? You want to read messages only from people you need and do not waste your time reading all those ads? Just add BayesIt! anti-spam plug-in to The Bat!, feed it with examples of spam you receive and relax - BayesIt! filters our virtually all unwanted mail while messages you need get through.

Download The Bat! Home Edition 3.99.29 in Softonic

ePrompter automatically and simultaneously checks and retrieves your e-mail messages from up to 16 password-protected e-mail accounts, such as AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo, POP3, Earthlink, Excite, Juno, GO, Gmail, Email.com, Mail.com, Mindspring, MSN, MyWay, OneBox, Rediffmail, USA.net, and hundreds of other e-mail domains.

ePrompter not only lets you compose, forward, and reply to your retrieved messages, but also gives you the ability to delete unwanted spam or suspicious-looking mail without having to launch your e-mail program or having to go to your Web mail's site. ePrompter notification features include a unique rotating tray icon and a choice of five screensavers that let you know at a glance the number of new messages in each account, as well as audio alerts for new messages. ePrompter also includes autodial for automatic message retrieval.

Download ePrompter 2.0 SR105 in Softonic

Barca gets you through the day with ease, with a top-notch email facility (powered by PocoMail 4) and a powerful Calendar, Planner and Notes. Use the powerful features such as the Focus Box to instantly summarize results in any of your folders, or quickly view only contacts from a certain company, or from a particular telephone area code.

Use the built-in Calendar to plan your day, and the integrated Planner to plan your year. Instant Reply lets you answer any email in two seconds flat, while powerful filters are able to manage it all automatically.

Download Barca 2.5.3900 in Softonic

Don't miss a second of the World Cup action. This tool imports itself directly into your Outlook calendar and shows the schedule of every world cup match, from the first round to the schedule. It also informs of what English tv channel each game will be broadcast and the venue for each game. If you double click on an entry you can view extra information for each squad from the MSN website. Finally you can schedule alarm notifications for your favorite games.

Download World Cup 2006 fixture list 1.0 in Softonic

Notifier2 is a free windows program that allows you to monitor your multiple email accounts without having to log in. It sits obediently on your task bar and keeps a tab on your accounts. You can monitor multiple GMail, Hotmail or Yahoo accounts. Notifier2 also provides a preview for your email accounts. Only log in if you see some important emails come in. You can also send emails in 2 clicks using Notifier2. Weve saved countless number of hours for our users. Imagine all the surfing you can do instead. If you are a blogger or web site owner you can also monitor your affiliate accounts such as Adsense, Amazon, Sitemeter. Finally rid yourself off logging into Adsense every 2 minutes.

Download Notifier2 1.0 in Softonic

If you spend a lot of time away from your computer or need access to all your email accounts while traveling then Reach-a-Mail is a great solution.

When you're on the move, you may not always have access to your webmail or at least, access may be slow. And if you are traveling to a destination where Internet connectivity is poor then, you'll need some way of accessing your old e-mails. The only way to do this is to take them with you which is exactly what Reach-a-Mail allows you to do. In a nutshell, Reach-a-Mail is an ultra compact mail client which allows you to compress and take your mail and address book with you on a USB stick. If you're internet connection is working, you can also check new mail but if not, it can save all your e-mails for offline viewing before you set-off on your travels. This includes e-mail to multiple accounts so it's a great tool if you're running a small business or private project on a budget but have to move around a lot.

Reach-a-Mail installs easily on USB flash memory stick, allowing you to store your address book and any important correspondence you might need for day-to-day tasks. In the free version, you are plagued with ads but this Pro version is completely ad free and also includes a small RSS reader. You may be better sticking to your regular reader though as it doesn't seem to import feeds easily but it's the mail client that impresses most anyway.

Ideal for travelers and business people on the move, Reach-a-Mail is a small, portable and easy to use solution for those moments when you don't have online access to your e-mail and contacts.

Download Reach-a-Mail Pro 3.51 in Softonic

Simple Mail is a Firefox extension that can turn your favorite web browser into a basic, yet fully functional email client.

Once installed, you can configure Simple Mail with your email account details and manage your mailbox from just another tab in Firefox. The extension works with POP3, SMTP and IMAP email accounts – no webmail support here, but hey, simply open another tab and browse to your webmail page. Also, you can set up as many simultaneous accounts as you want.

Simply Mail behaves just like any regular email client: you'll be able to check your messages, reply to them, see any attached files and of course send new messages from a full featured rich text editor. The program also includes some nice options such as an address book or the possibility to download just message headers. Just bear in mind that this is meant to be a simple, lightweight client so there won't be extra features like signatures or spam filters.

If you only need a basic, simple-to-use email client for your POP3 email account, then Simply Mail can be a perfect solution, as long as you use Firefox as your web browser.

Download Simple Mail 2.69 in Softonic

PostSmile makes it easy to add fun and excitement to your email messages and web-forum postings. You can drag and drop images and animations, smileys and emoticons, text or HTML snippets, quotes and signatures into your email, message board or web-forum postings.

The program offers a wide variety of original artist-created smileys that are sure to leave no one indifferent. All smiley faces are divided into clear categories - Happy, Love, Sad, Communication, Other, Signatures, Famous Quotes, Love Quotes, Proverbs, Jokes and Compliments. But, you don't have to stop there! Our artists have created for you the world best Online Smileys Collection!

PostSmile works with the most popular email programs, including Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, Thunderbird, IncrediMail, AOL Mail and many others that support HTML-based email. And also it works with Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail and other Internet Web-based email systems.

The program is easy to use, has an attractive and compact interface with images, animations, emoticons, "signatures" and text snippets organized into categories. You may change the appearance of the Smileycons program interface by using the different "skins" provided with the package.

Download PostSmile 6.8.1 in Softonic

Becky! Internet Mailer offers numerous advantages. It is a simple and easy to use alternative to the big email clients. It has the following features:

Create multiple mailboxes

You can switch between several different settings, like "LAN" and dialup

New protocols are supported

IMAP4rev1 for e-mail and LDAP for the address book

Fast

You can manage thousands of e-mail at your fingertip

Write HTML e-mail with Becky!

Becky! is a complete HTML enabled e-mail client

Flexible template capability

Pepare standardized e-mail format for business and personal e-mail

Unique "Reminder" capability

Receive e-mail from "you" on scheduled date

Powerful "Filtering Manager"

You can sort messages into folders according to the filtering rules and define unlimited and/or conditions for one filtering rule.

"Mailing Lists Manager"

Helps you organize multiple mailing list subscriptions

"Plug-In" interface

Enables third parties to create useful plug-ins to customize Becky! for your particular needs

Download Becky! Internet Mail 2.48.00 in Softonic

So you’ve made the leap and installed the versatile internet browser, Firefox, but are you ready to trade in your Outlook Express for Mozilla’s open source mail application? Thunderbird is Mozilla’s award winning and free solution to manage your mail more efficiently.

Thunderbird woos users thanks to its flurry of options and the benefits of an open source application. Automatic updates ensure that you have the latest version of Thunderbird, preventing any security threats and offering you new features as soon as they’re available.

The biggest worry for users is switching from one mail application to another and losing precious information. With Thunderbird the switch is painless because you can quickly import your mail and contacts from your Outlook and set up your POP3 or IMAP account is a snap. To stay well organized we suggest that you take advantage of Thunderbird’s filters. While this option is nothing new to the experienced Outlook user, you’ll come to see that Thunderbird makes filters much more accessible, thanks to a simple selection of combinations and actions. Create distinct folders for your personal and professional mail and your newsletters and associate them with filters to avoid the hassle of constantly sorting your mail. Another feature we could single out is the integrated spell checker, a blessing if you send many emails and can’t be bothered to constantly verify your writing.

Although it isn’t visible right away, Thunderbird also features an RSS reader. Handy if you need to follow the news or specialist websites, this tool fits seamlessly into Thunderbird and you could almost forget that it is a mail application. Paste in the RSS feed from your favorite news source and the main messages window will reveal a list of all the latest feeds. The message pane is used as an integrated browser window to display the selected article.

Email is the number one source of viruses, that’s why Thunderbird offers various levels of message encryption, a spam filter and support for valid certificates. We found the spam filter particularly effective. Set it to “learn” mode, and it teaches itself to separate the valid email from the rest of the junk. You have to be mindful of this option though, because Thunderbird can become too restrictive and may decide on its own that one of your friends is suddenly persona non grata. Reviewing your junk folder every now and then should avoid you accidentally losing friends. Thunderbird also automatically turns off Javascript and by default does not load remote images, a good way to defuse the risk of viruses from dodgy emails.

Another known feature of the Mozilla line of products is customization. Just as with Firefox, Thunderbird can integrate a slew of extensions and add-ons to rev up your inbox. You can also add or remove icons from the actions pane, selecting the ones you use most frequently.

The one place where Thunderbird fails, and professionals will confirm this, is the failure to integrate Microsoft Exchange support. An essential tool in any work environment, the collaborative messaging software is sorely missed in Thunderbird and seriously limits its usefulness in offices. Furthermore, we can question why Mozilla included an RSS reader yet failed to incorporate a calendar, standard in most mail applications nowadays.

While the lack of proper business minded features will limit Thunderbird’s point in the workplace, the simplicity, customizability and security make it a number one choice for home users. If you’re worried about your safety on the Internet or are just looking for a more efficient way of handling your mail, Thunderbird is probably the best solution out there.

Download Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5.0.10 in Softonic

I use Gmail so much now that in many ways, I prefer it to even using Outlook. However, integration with Windows is nowhere near as good as Microsoft Outlook for obvious reasons.

gAttach! bridges that gap somewhat by allowing you to attach files directly to Gmail or Google Apps Mail directly from Windows. In other words, just right click on a file, select "Send To" and "Mail recipient" and the plugin will automatically open your Gmail client with the file already attached. It not only attaches files directly from Windows Explorer - it also opens up a whole new world of attachment possibilities from Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat, Windows Live Photo Gallery, Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.

There's not much more too it than that - it integrates perfectly into Windows Explorer. However, you may experience some glitches. If you are sending a file attachment whose filename is in a different alphabet to the one you use normally (e.g. your computer uses English but you're sending a Spanish attachment), it may not recognize or attach the file. It's also limited by Gmail's 20MB file attachment restriction. If you're logged into your Gmail, it won't prompt you for your details but if you are not, then it does ask you for your username and password which you may or not feel comfortable submitting.

For any Gmail fan, this is an excellent utility that makes attaching and sending files so much easier than opening your web client all the time.

Download gAttach! 1.2008.7.7 in Softonic

Do you use Outlook Express for your personal or business mail?. Is your data safe? Viruses, worms, trojans, power surges, hard drive failure and human error are just some of the many ways that you can lose your important email messages.

While most users understand the importance of backing up their email, many find that doing so is time consuming, complicated and too technical. You need to know what to backup, where the information is stored, which files to copy, and that's before you even have to think about restoring it when you need it, or for that matter, whether you've definitely backed-up everything as required. As a result, many users either postpone their backups, or are using partial data sets that may be useless when they need them.

Download Express Assist 9.6.1 in Softonic

Have you ever been worried of losing your archive of e-mails? MailStore Server is an alternative way of storing your precious mails.

The program supports multiple clients including those offered by Microsoft and Mozilla. This means it can work with Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail Accounts Exchange, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey mail accounts and those based on the POP3 or IMAP protocols. To set it up, you select the type of customer or mail account you want to use, establish a connection and then instruct MailStore to back it all up. While you are backing up email, you are kept informed of the status via messages delivered to your internet browser and if your files and attachments are too big to be backed up, there's also a compression tool and functions to export and burn your backups. The advantages to all this are several - first of all it provides you with peace of mind that your mail is backed up, it keeps all your e-mail in one place and it also frees up valuable space that may be being taken up on your server. It can also be an invaluable resource in the case of legal disputes to have backed up e-mails as evidence.

If you need a fast and easy way to backup your e-mail from a non web based client, then MailStore Server is as simple as they come.

Download MailStore 2.5.1 in Softonic

There's nothing more annoying than your personal inbox getting filled with spam trying to sell you viagra, financial services and all manner of other things you don't want.

Mailwasher Free is an easy solution for those that want to try and stop the avalanche of spam that may be clogging your inbox. These programs can be hard to setup but Mailwasher is refreshingly free of jargon and will help you get setup on just about any mail client in a matter of seconds. The program has even received glowing write ups by the BBC and CNN so you know you're getting something pretty decent here. Mailwasher has a clever preview utility which allows you to preview spam before downloading it onto your desktop - this is especially useful if it's malicious mail that could do damage to your hard drive. You can customise it to make it more sensitive to your needs too such as by adding friends to your contact list and also instructing it to bounce suspicious mail back to the sender. This is particularly useful as it will make the sender think your address is no longer active so your name is removed from their list meaning they won't be bothering you again.

A very simple but highly effective and powerful spam management tool that makes sure your inbox stays junk free.

Download Mailwasher Free 6.1 in Softonic

If you're a Thunderbird user, and you're always receiving links from friends but can't be bothered opening them in your browser, then this extension could be what you've been looking for. It simply adds URL bar to the Thunderbird interface which allows you to view websites without having to even touch Firefox, IE or whichever browser you use.

The good thing is it's easy to use and unobtrusive because it doesn't require anymore buttons adding to your toolbar because it simply adds it to the message pane that you are reading. if you do want to use your custom browser you can simply right click a link and choose to "Visit in Browser". It's also remarkably customisable for an extension allowing you to configure various Hotkeys with "about:commands" in the URL bar.

The obvious downside is that it is very small. It's often hard to read text and graphics although you can select a full screen mode. Nevertheless, this is an excellent tool for Thunderbird users and will save valuable RAM and productivity time spent reverting back and forth between your browser.

Download ThunderBrowse 3.2.1.2 in Softonic

The creating and sending of emails to many recipients was and is no problem, but this emails have a big disadvantage: They are impersonally and can't be equipped with special data of the recipient. SuperMailer changes this!

In this application you create your serial mails like in a word processor. The software enables you to create email as HTML or plaintext. The HTML part can be written in a integrated WYSIWYG editor. Insert placeholders into your message to replace this with recipient specific data while sending. Use attachments and personalized attachments.

With the tracking function (opening statistic, counting clicks on hyperlinks in you email), you can measure the success of you mailing campaign. With scripts free of charge, you can automate the management of your newsletter subscribtions / unsubscribtions. The script supports the recommend double opt in procedure.

Download SuperMailer 4.61.0.0781 in Softonic

Backing up email is not always easy, mainly because you need to find the right tool for the specific email client you're using.. unless you use Amic Email Backup.

This excellent backup application enables you to save all data in your email client as a backup copy you can then restore on a fresh installation or a completely new computer by using exactly the same program. Amic Email Backup supports the most popular clients, including Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, Netscape Messenger, IncrediMail and PocoMail.

The whole process is really easy: simply select your client, pick the data you want to include in the backup copy and let the program take care of the rest. What's more, you can also follow the program's wizard-style interface which is even easier.

Like I said, the program has also a restoring tool which you can use to bring your data back to the email client. Amic Email Backup also supports backup scheduling: use it to always keep an updated backup copy of your messages and you won't loose important information ever again. The only thing missing, apparently, is the ability to create incremental backups.

With Amic Email Backup you can easily create security copies of any data in the most popular email clients. Plus, the schedule tool lets you leave the hard work to the program.

Download Amic Email Backup 2.0 in Softonic

If you've got multiple e-mail accounts then keeping track of what you are receiving can be an absolute nightmare involving multiple browsers and lots of confusion.

A far better solution is something like POP Peeper which is an easy to use email notifier that runs in Windows task bar and alerts you when you have new email on POP3, IMAP, Windows LiveMail, Yahoo, GMail, Mail.com, MyWay, Excite, Lycos.com, RediffMail, Juno and NetZero accounts. The fact that it supports so many webmail accounts makes this a really attractive app although in reality, you may find that it doesn't detect mail until considerably after it has arrived in your account, if at all - especially with Windows Live Mail. However, it does allow you to send e-mail directly from POP Peeper and use the address book to email your frequently used contacts. Messages can be viewed in both HTML and plain text although newsletters and other mail with heavy graphics won't display properly in plain text. One major bonus is that POP Peeper is so small that it can be can be run from a portable device and password protected which means that it's fairly secure and is a decent solution for anyone on the move a lot.

Although it doesn't give you full control over your e-mail accounts, and may not even work properly with all webmail accoutns, this is worth trying if you have multiple e-mail accounts.

Download POP Peeper 3.2 in Softonic