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Alternative to Outlook

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Richard Cole

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Oct 31, 2016
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I currently use Outlook for my emails and use Windows 10 and to be honest I am coming to the end of my tether as it keeps on freezing and crashing.

I use imap to set up my emails and it does not seem to work very well on MS edge or Thunderbird is there a simple easy to set up and robust email package that I can use for my business, don't mind paying a small monthly / annual free.
 
You might want to check again.

I use Thunderbird and it's far superior to Outlook in so many ways.

And it doesn't involve Microsoft!

Some of the add-ons available are pretty cool as well and take your functionality way beyond what Outlook can provide.
 
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Just had a look at Thunderbird again and this is the reason i have not gone with it yet:

Thunderbird never finishes "copying to sent folder" on IMAP servers.
 
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I had too many problems with ThunderTurd and the support model was carp.

I switched to the paid for version of EM Client (very reasonable) and have not had any complaints, nor needed any support.

One consideration is migrating from one mail clients database format to another. I don't think EM Client will directly import from ThunderTurd (it may from Outlook). I pushed everything onto the server from TT and then downloaded to new local folders in EM Client.
 
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I just use GMail via a browser for my business and personal emails.

I find it much better then any of the email clients I've used in the past.

Andy
 
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Richard Cole said:
I currently use Outlook for my emails and use Windows 10 and to be honest I am coming to the end of my tether as it keeps on freezing and crashing.
Click to expand...

Hi Richard,
I'm assuming that you are using the free browser version of Outlook, is this correct? If so it's probably slow because it's waiting for adverts to load. This can cause the whole thing to freeze, especially when it's an animated ad.

As you are on Windows 10, you could switch to the native mail client. This ships free with Windows, it is not a advert platform and it works very well with all IMAP services I have tried. Just type 'mail' into Cortana to get started.

If you like the Outlook browser interface, you could try installing the Skype plug in. When launched Skype occupies the same space as the ad panel and effectively disables the ads.

You could install ad blocker, or you could upgrade the Outlook Web Application to the ad free version. Just Google OWA ad free.

You could also install the MS Outlook client.

Come back with detail on your set up and I'll be happy to make more specific suggestions.
 
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I had issues with outlook freezing on my PC. But I had about 4000 emails on there.

I moved over to gmail. I can use my own domain in the email address, completely free, easy to set up on android phones and I can access them literally anywhere.

There are some drawbacks but they are workable. It does take a little to get used to the differences, im not going to say they are better as 2 years down the line there are still things about outlook I prefer but I have not gone back or looked for alternatives so they can not be too bad.
 
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@tony84 spot on, I haven't used an email client for several years, they are so 1990's

For me paid gmail ( for business) is the way to go - do resell G Suite - gmail for business - so you'd expect I would say that - but I do genuinely believe that any device / any where through thin browsers / apps is better than 'heavy' client side software - and yes gmail does work off line )

If you do not want to not pay £3.30 per month - to use the free consumer gmail as your own domain, then all you need is a smtp service and a forwarder. Forward you domain emails to your consumer gmail. Go to settings / accounts - 'send mail as' and add the SMTP details. Select "Reply from the same address to which the message was sent" - job done you are using consumer gmail as a mail client for domain email
 
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Thanks for all your replies, I have had a look at most of the above.

thunderbird - just does not work with imap - gets hung up on sending emails

Microsoft built in email - to slow and i use it for my home computer and had emails go missing for no apparent reason.

Gmail, used it in the past but only with gmail email, something I might come back to but I prefer a simple system that is easy to set up, and this sounds like you have to tweak it a bit first.

Zimbra - not sure of this one and seen mixed reviews.

EM client looks the best fit, I will download the free version on my home pc and try it and if I like the feel will go for the pro, at £29 for single licence it fits the bill.

I have the Outlook as part of Office 2007 so does not have adverts but just does not like Windows 10, which i know some people hate but the only issues i have had with it are with Outlook and I have been using it now for over a year.
 
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The issue you are going to have with imap and a a desktop system is if you have a lot of emails it will start to slow over time. It does not matter if you use outlook or something else, I tried moving to thunderbird and operas version and all were the same.

If you want help setting up gmail take your laptop to a pc shop, they will set it up for you £20-30 for about 20 minutes work.
 
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Use Gmail - it's excellent for business. You can share accounts, calendar, docs and info with staff, add signatures, import from and send as other email addresses.
Plus because it's Google you can use it across all your devices.
 
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tony84 said:
if you have a lot of emails it will start to slow over time....I tried moving to thunderbird and operas version and all were the same
Click to expand...
I guess mileage may vary. I've got over 20 GB in one of my Thunderbird profiles and more than 100K emails. It flies like the wind. Super fast. And that's on my older laptop (i5, 8 GB RAM, Windows 7).
 
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That might be where I am going wrong. I have always just bought basic £300-350 laptops for work. I only really need to run firefox and a back office system/excel/word so never needed anything with 8gb ram or a fast processor.

To be honest, the only thing I miss is outlook calendar. The gmail one is horrible, but I can live with it. It links up well to my phone - it is actually better on my phone than it is on my laptop.
 
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japancool said:
I had the same issue with Thunderbird as the OP, and gave up with it in the end. Last time I looked, it was no longer being developed. Maybe that's changed.
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That's always an issue with open source software. Development is sporadic.
 
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One of my colleagues works on Government projects and his contract makes gmail unacceptable - either using a gmail account yourself or sending any attachment to a gmail account. It also applies to the Yahoo system. No idea why these two are singled out as being somehow insecure - but these are big contracts and the restriction enforced with contractors in a hard manner!
 
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paulears said:
No idea why these two are singled out as being somehow insecure
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Often they are not. NDAs can and do forbid the use of any third party services for data including Dropbox etc.

As regards Thunderbird and IMAP, it should work very well indeed. If there is an issue it is as likely to be with the IMAP service provider as with Thunderbird.

It is also worth turning off the 'Global Search and Indexer' unless you really need it, and especially if you have a large mail spool. IMHO it was a brain dead decision by the developers to enable this by default. What it actually does is download in full every email to local storage and index it in order to facilitate search. If you have a decent service provider that provides server side search and indexing you simply do not need it, or the bandwidth usage and processor use that it entails.

Also if you have issues with Thunderbird the 'Folder repair' built into TBird can often help. Tbird maintains local databases of folder content to avoid having to query the server every time. These databases can become corrupted, particularly if you do something like a delete or move of hundreds or even thousands of emails. The corruption can cause TBird to hang or at least get very slow. Folder repair deletes the database for the folder and rebuilds it from scratch.
 
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paulears said:
One of my colleagues works on Government projects and his contract makes gmail unacceptable - either using a gmail account yourself or sending any attachment to a gmail account.
Click to expand...

IT Governance policies in most central and local government organisations are structured to prevent use of personal email and file transfer services. Even full time employees are restricted from sending work out from the LAN to any place where they can get at it to work away from the office. Mostly this is due to measures against Data Loss Prevention. If an employee of a local authority emails him/her self a spreadsheet contain a couple of thousand ratepayers names, addresses and case notes, the authority IT department has lost control of that data. It could end up anywhere.
In order to work away from the office such employees have to use work computers and two entry authentication across the Internet back to the LAN.
 
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paulears said:
No idea why these two are singled out as being somehow insecure ....
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Yikes! (that this question is even being asked)

I don't know which of those is the better choice - the <ahem> Gorg who don't want any of your data to profile you and show you ads (and do whatever else) or the <ahem> secure and uncrackable Yahoo where only one billion accounts got hacked.

But if you mean they should also ban Microsoft and other freemail addresses, then I completely agree.
 
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Clinton said:
Yikes! (that this question is even being asked)

I don't know which of those is the better choice - the <ahem> Gorg who don't want any of your data to profile you and show you ads (and do whatever else) or the <ahem> secure and uncrackable Yahoo where only one billion accounts got hacked.

But if you mean they should also ban Microsoft and other freemail addresses, then I completely agree.
Click to expand...

Hello Clinton.:)
But, Local and Central Government are rapidly moving to Cloud. It's not Cloud that is the issue, it's lack of governance of Cloud services by user IT departments. That's why Office 365 and Google are favoured and 'free' services are not.
 
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Changed today from Outlook 2003 to Thunderbird on MS Windows 10. All working fine using IMAP.
Thanks for the suggestion. msp-nick & clinton
 
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