Thunderbird - A Free, Open Source, and Powerful Email Client

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my question is email client versus web based access. is it necessary or better to have an email program? i use webmails and never felt the need. i have tried windows live. i like its vista look but i find web based access faster.

at least in gmail (web) i can filter items and send them to whatever folders i create. i can access such sorting from any place unlike in the case of email programs.

am i not utilizing the mail programs efficiently or do i actually not need them?

im talkin about home use. i have lotus notes at work and cant change that.

To be honest Leo if we compare between (thunderbird - outlook - other email clients) , thunderbird will be the first competently , But for me i prefer to use online mail service as Gmail.
Nice article leo ....
http://www.fosdir.com

I have a hotmail account that I can access from outlook and outlook express (still from way back in the good old days ;-)
Can I access my account in Thunderbird?

Also, is there a way to transfer my entire Outlook directory structure (in outlook data files) and contacts to Thunderbird without losing any attachments etc. etc. ?

I use gmail's web client because it's convenient and syncs easily (as in, it's the same everywhere cuz it's web based).

But as Leo has pointed out before, what if Gmail were to go away tomorrow? What then?

If you don't care, then web based is perfect for you.

If the thought causes heart flutters, that's where Thunderbird comes in. I leave Thunderbird open on my computer simply to download and backup mail. No, it's not organized very well, if at all, but it's backed up. If gmail were to disappear I'd be inconvenienced (as it is my primary email address), but I would have all my email.

I rarely ever have to look for messages in Thunderbird. And it's nice to have it there if I need it.

I like Thunderbird, but there are a few huge problems that the team refuses to look into. (I've been on the mozdev boards). 1: try sending emails with pictures, we do this at work all the time. Doesn't work in Thunderbird. Or forwarding. 2. Cant handle rich text properly. 3. Calendar plugin is not smooth, doesn't fully replicate Outlook functionality.

I would Love to replace Outlook, as it has ~no usability. (31 configuration forms and rising, and no evolution over time with the exception of the move to unicode, thankfully no 2GB limit anymore.) Tbird is a nice start, but the development team is not anything like Firefox's team, who fix bugs with the quickness.
Cheers!

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Novice: Ziggie answered before I could. :-) I'll also point
out this article:
http://ask-leo.com/how_do_i_backup_my_gmail.html

Leo

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Kevin: I can't speak to the mozilla dev team's
responsiveness, however:

1) I send emails with pictures all the time. As attachments,
embedded, what have you. Works great.

2) Rich text also works well, as far as I can tell. Better,
in some cases, than Outlook in my opinion.

3) Yes, the calendar falls short in some respects. I find,
though, that hooking it to Google Calendar goes a *long* way
to making it much more functional. But strong enterprise
users that rely heavily on calendaring and meeting
scheduling and the like may be better served by Outlook.

Leo

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Vincent: yes. There are add-ons that allow you to download
Hotmail, Yahoo mail and perhaps others, directly into
Thunderbird. My Hotmail account is mostly spam, so I don't
use them, but I did try them a while back and they worked
well.

Leo

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Vincent: I *believe* that Thunderbird will import the
directory/folder structure. I would strongly suggest you
test this. It's one area where it seems like many mail
programs fall down.

Leo

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