Mozilla Thunderbird

Mozilla Thunderbird is a free, open source, cross-platform e-mail and news client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. (Ref: Wiki).

If you are familiar with outlook express and microsoft outlook, this is a sort of an alternative. I'm just going to share this program as an email client. Let me just go straight to the installation + configuration steps.

Steps:

1. Download the program here and then install it. In this example I'm using Thunderbird ver. 2.0.0.17

2. Launch the program and you should see a pop-up window as shown below, otherwise you click Tools->Account Settings->Add Account.



3. Select the radio button called Email account. Click Next, put your name and the email address as shown below. In this example, I use my gmail account with imap enable.



note: for other email provider, get the server information (e.g server address, port number) from the email provider.

4. Enter imap.gmail.com in the Incoming Server field as shown below and click Next.



5. You will be asked for the Incoming User Name field, leave as it is and click Next. Then you will be asked for the Account Name, you can leave as it is and click Next. You will see a pop-up window as shown below. Click Finish.



6. Go to Tools->Account Settings. Click Server Settings. Set the settings as shown below i.e port = 993, Secure Connection = SSL, Check for New Messages Every = 1 minute !! Then just click OK.



7. Click Inbox, at the left panel. A pop-up panel will appear asking for your email password. Enter your password then click OK.



8. All your emails will be loaded, just click any mail you got to read it. Feel free to explore!!




I know most people read their email through a web browser. One advantage of using email client program is you don't have to check your email manually, like having a habit of checking email every 5-10min. With this program, you will be notified automatically once you receive new mail.