The trend of web applications is to remain online, in the so-called "Cloud" or "Cloud", without storing data on local computers. E-mail is perhaps the best example, because it is much more advantageous and safer to rely on Gmail or Yahoo Mail rather than download the mail to your computer, read it with a heavy program such as Outlook and risk that if that PC breaks, all mail is lost.
The ideal would be a hybrid mail client, a program that allows you to read the emails of our account, in a clean and modern interface, without however downloading anything to your computer, thus remaining "cloud" and functioning only if used online.
Mailbird is the best solution currently, an email client for Windows with IMAP support that can be used for almost all email accounts .
In short, this is a program that allows you to open and manage the emails of your mailboxes from your PC without opening the browser and without having to use Outlook.
Mailbird is available for Windows PC in three versions: Lite, Pro and Business.
At the moment there is not much difference between the Pro and Lite versions except for the fact that in the messages sent with the free version the word "sent with mailbird" appears at the bottom which should not bother for most needs.
Mailbird Pro removes all advertisements and costs, for now, relatively little, with an annual subscription or by purchasing the program permanently for $ 50.
I dedicate an article to Mailbird because it is a program that I absolutely recommend trying.
The download is quite fast and you are asked to register an email address.
At the first launch, it asks you to enter your mail name, email address and password.
After a few seconds, if the account is recognized, you can start, otherwise you must go to the manual configuration and indicate the parameters of the IMAP or POP3 and SMTP servers manually.
I want to clarify that if you set up the IMAP account, the actions done on the mail messages will be immediately synchronized with the server so there will be no download of messages on the computer and by opening the mail via the web everything will be as before (see also differences between IMAP and POP3).
It is also asked to connect the Facebook account to Mailbird, useful if you want to see the faces of people next to the Email address, if this is recognized as belonging to a friend on Facebook.
Mailbird works like any other email client.
The user interface has three columns: a left sidebar that can be expanded to show all labels, the list of emails in the mailbox in the center and the email preview pane.
In the left sidebar there are various buttons to view your inbox messages, favorites, drafts, sent messages and labels.
At the top there is the button to write a new message and to search.
Mailbird has many shortcuts for keyboard lovers, and there's hardly anything you can't do with some key combination.
As in Gmail, Mailbird shows emails in the form of conversations, opening all replies in the same message.
The composition of the messages takes place in a separate window and has all the options for formatting the text.
In the options, from the Mailbird button at the top left, you can configure the program to start together with Windows, configure desktop notifications when new messages arrive and you can also add other email accounts from here, maximum 3 for the free version of the program .
You can also create different identities, which means having different send-only and non-receive accounts.
You can also control keyboard shortcuts, the way unread messages appear, the colors of labels and more from the options menu.
Mailbird is an expandable program with other applications that can be browsed by pressing the button with the three dots at the bottom left.
From here you can add the contact list, the calendar, the most complete integration with Facebook, CloudMagic for searching, searching for attachments, Google Drive, Evernote, Dropbox and others to come.
Mailbird looks very similar to the Sparrow program for Macs, it is a very light, essential and complete mail client, more modern than Thunderbird and cheaper than Outlook.
Perhaps the only thing missing is the possibility of being able to customize the interface more and, for example, add your favorite labels to the left button bar.
Those who are unhappy with the program they use to read mail, both experts and beginners can now use MailBird with great satisfaction.
MailBird is for sure one of the best Email PC clients alternative to Outlook .
