Everybody reading this article must have an email account that you use frequently. While you can always access it via its web interface, it is more convenient to have an email client on your Windows desktop, so that you can read and send mail quickly. This article will tell you about some of the best free e-mail clients for Windows 7.
Free e-mail clients for Windows 7
Windows Live Mail
If you are a Windows 7 user, then you definitely want to check this one out first. Windows Live Mail (also known as Windows Live Mail Desktop) is a part of the Windows Live Essentials suite and has been made available free of cost by Microsoft. It may be considered as the successor of Outlook Express that we used earlier in Windows XP. It integrates itself well with the Windows operating system. 
Pros and Cons of Windows Live Mail
Pros:
- Powerful Multi user support
- Conversation Organizer
- Photo Email
- Enhanced Security
- Custom Layouts and quick views
- RSS in your inbox
- Direct Blogging
Cons:
- Does not offer custom smart folder
- Cannot organize your mail using labels or reply with templates.
ThunderBird
It is an easy-to-use, open source email client by Mozilla Inc which comes with some great features.
Setting up an Email on ThunderBird is quite easy, even if you aren’t a geek you can do so as it has some pre-loaded settings for most of the popular email services such as Hotmail, Google Mail, Yahoo Mail, etc. It supports a one-click address book that allows you to add people or contacts to your address book very easily.
Pros and Cons of ThunderBird
Pros:
- Migration Assistant
- Mail Account Setup Wizard
- One-Click Address Book
- Attachment Reminder
- Activity Manager
- Quick Filter Toolbar
- Add-ons Manager
- Tabs
- Message Archive
- Smart Folders
- Phishing Protection
- Automated Update
- Open Source
Cons:
- Does not show related messages, sites, documents, posts, etc.
- RSS reader could be more powerful and better
- Doesn’t suggest tags and reply texts.
Opera Email Client
Opera Email Client is again a free email client from Opera, the developers of the Opera Web Browser and Opera Mini. Opera’s offline access to email is superb, the offline emails that are stored at the server are just run as they are viewed online. Opera can view texts and even HTML messages. It also offers great features for pre-supported email services.
Pros and Cons of Opera Email Client
Pros:
- Offline Access
- Low Bandwidth Mode
- All Accounts in just one email client
- Smart Spam Filters
- Auto-Sort
- Unread View
- Ignore thread and contacts
- Attachments Label
Cons:
- Does not offer flexible message templates or advanced automation
- Does not support secure message signing and encryption
- Opera can be idiosyncratic to the uninitiated.
DreamMail
Many consider it as one of the best email clients to use. It is free of cost and it is designed to handle Multi-Accounts. Moreover it shows good support for POP3 and IMAP servers. I personally feel that it has the most powerful junk box, that really takes out all the junk out of your inbox.
Pros and Cons of DreamMail
Pros:
- Multi Users and Multi-Accounts Support
- Signature manager and template designer.
- Special anti-spam filters that scan every dangerous mail
- Miscellaneous Protocol Managements
- Messages filtering
- HTML view and Text view mode]
- And many more…
Cons:
- Problem with language encodings
- Cannot set up virtual folders to organize mail
- Does not support IMAP accounts.
Alpine
Alpine is a free of cost console email client. Alpine is suitable for both the inexperienced email user as well as for the most demanding of power users. This software is a favorite with programmers, developers, power-users and geeks. Its is based on the Pine Message System, which was also developed at the University of Washington. The user experience is highly customizable through the use of the Alpine Setup command. Alpine is licensed under Apache license and its first version was released on December 20, 2007. You will get to know more about this tiny email client, when you will use it.
Pros and Cons of Alpine
Pros:
- Good Protocol support
- Console application
- Let you change the configuration within the software only
- Supports HTML text viewing
- Very Powerful
- Great Keyboard Shortcuts
- Very Fast interface
- And many other
Cons:
- Complicated to set up and, especially with POP accounts
- cannot control Alpine with macros or scripts
- Does not integrate OpenPGP security directly.
This was our list of top 5 email clients for Windows. If you would like to share your experiences with any of these or suggest some other free e-mail clients, please do so in the comments section. You suggestions are always most welcome.
