Looking for a way out of Microsoft Outlook Express? I’m sure there are still some users out there. Heck if you’re looking for a nice free email interface for your PC, then I strongly suggest checking out Mozilla Thunderbird. If you like the Mozilla Firefox web browser, be comfortable knowing that Thunderbird is an equivalent in terms of usability and function expandability via addons. Mozilla is a seriously solid brand name in terms of quality and amazing support resources. A big userbase means it’s easy to find solutions and answers online.
First and foremost, the reason I love Thunderbird is because of how easy it is to backup, pickup and drop your email package onto a new computer. With MozBackup, you can backup every aspect of Thunderbird. Address book, message rules and everything else. You can also password protect your backup file. There are a lot of online resources for how to import from Outlook Express, Outlook and others, so I’ll leave that tutorial hunting up to you. Be assured, after installing Thunderbird, there is an import feature that makes it quite easy. Bringing your Outlook Express files over from another computer is slightly more cumbersome, but I have done this on a couple occasions without issue.
I realize that there is gmail and the Microsoft Outlook Express replacement. For email handlers for your PC, there aren’t a lot of top options that aren’t named “Outlook”. Know what I mean? Getting yourself out of the Microsoft ecosystem of email handlers might be a smart move in the long run. I know many people who were irked at the so called Outlook Express that Microsoft offered. Some might call it a pathetic solution.
I’ve been such a big fan at Mozilla Firefox, that when I first read about Mozilla Thunderbird, I thought it is a safe solution. It’s safe in the sense that the doors aren’t going to close on the software and you aren’t going to be forking out money to use it. But let me restate what I love. I love the large userbase. This in turn creates a great deal of easy-to-find answers to your common questions about using Thunderbird. But even moreso, there is a large community of people who are creating various addons. These are community built and can offer some unique functionality that you would have never even considered.
For example, just recently I was sick of dealing with not resizing photos that I wanted to add into messages. A quick and simple search for addons and I found for me, a perfect solution. If I wasn’t quite happy with the options in the addon that I chose to install, there are a great number of other addons that I could have tried. So really, Thunderbird continues to evolve in functionality because people keep making it better. You don’t need to use a bunch of addons to make Thunderbird usable, but they are really worth looking at. Just search some popular addons and see if there is something that tickles your fancy.
If you haven’t spent a lot of time create message rules, Thunderbird offers a quick and painless method. There are a few different ways to create message rules, but you can just open up an email message that you want the rule applied to. From their, in the options, you can create a rule from that message. You can get really detailed and make a long list of criteria, but if you want to simply put a message from a certain sender into a specific folder, it’s simple to do. You may need to first create a folder in your “Local Folders”, which then makes it accessible in the rules menu. You can probably create a nice filing cabinet/folder system for your incoming mail which will tidy things up nicely.
I won’t detail every feature and setting within Thunderbird because it going to do most everything you need it to do. If you can think of something you need it to do, I’m sure that a few people created addons for the solution you need. It’s free, updated regularly and it’s easy to backup everything. I can’t think of any reason not to encourage everyone to use it. Mozilla Thunderbird can set you free from inadequate email handler software that you may be currently using.
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