Best 6 FREE Desktop Email Clients except Microsoft Outlook

Although everything is migrating to the web these days yet there are certain things people like to use as a desktop application. One such thing is Desktop email client.

Desktop email clients are the applications which is installed on computer and does certain activities like fetching emails from web-based services, calendar and address books etc. This is an application where you can get all your emails from different services.
The basic benefit of using these clients is you don't have to go to Internet everything you want to check email for a certain account. All your emails come to a single place and these applications makes it easy to manage your emails.

There are lot of such applications, some are free and some proprietary. Some does certain things well, some don't. But below mentioned few applications and services are best in class. Depending on people taste and experience, they choose one or the other.

I am listing the Best in Class Desktop email clients below with some of their features. You may decide which one you prefer:

1. Mozilla Thunderbird: (Windows, Mac and Linux) - Thunderbird with Lightning extension is just Outlook with the advantage that it is FREE. So if you are not in the mood of spending some money just for email client, then Thunderbird is the way to go. Thunderbird can do everything Outlook can do. Generally a default choice for Linux users after Evolution.
   Cost: FREE, Download Thunderbird here...
   
2. Zimbra: (Windows, Mac and Linux) - Zimbra is a Yahoo! product which is very new to this market. Check out my earlier post about it. Zimbra has so many features that it can easily replace Thunderbird and Evolution for Linux at least. I use Zimbra Desktop on my Ubuntu machine and stopped using Thunderbird and Evolution both. Best thing you can get all your Yahoo! emails without purchasing Premium membership.
   Cost: FREE, Download Zimbra here...
   
3. Windows Live Mail Desktop: (Windows only) - If you don't want to purchase Microsoft office and you are Windows fan, then Windows Live Mail Desktop is the email client you will wanna go for any Windows machine. Windows Live Mail Desktop provides you access to your free Hotmail or Live emails. You don't have to buy premium membership if you use this software.
   Cost: FREE, Download Windows Live Mail Desktop here...
   
   
   
   
   
4. Evolution: (Windows and Linux) - Default email application for those using Linux. Exactly same look as Microsoft Outlook. Evolution is not fully developed for Windows though as seemingly there is not much interest for this software in Windows because of the wide variety already available.
   Cost: FREE
   
5. GMX Mail Web Based: I have written about this service before. And I repeat again, it is definitely one of the best services to try online for email client. Very cool features, you can get all your email at one place and then access them wherever you are. It even provides you 1GB online storage as well. Check out this post.
   Cost: FREE, Create an account here...
   
   
   
   
   
6. Zoho Mail Web Based: Zoho mail is one of the many services Zoho provides. Its again web-based so you are not attached to just one machine to access all your emails. Zoho mail provides an option to arrange mails in folders and labels both as against other application which support just one. Zoho mail provides integration with other productivity services.
   Cost: FREE, Create an account here...
   

So, in fact there is a wide variety of free email clients which you can install or use online instead of buying Microsoft Office for around $150-$300. There are some very good applications available for complete office suite as well. Stay tuned for future posts on the same...

Over to you:

• Drop a comment here to let me know which services mentioned above you have used?
• How was your experience with those?
• Which one you preferred and stick to finally and why? That information will help me in formulating my future posts as well.