On Thursday 12th January, we looked at e-mail. Some of the terminology is a bit confusing and confused. On the one hand we have an email service provider ESP, on the other an Email client – are they the same? – well, no.
An ESP: is a company which provides e-mail services to you (such as Google or Yahoo) while an “Email client is a desktop application that enables configuring one or more email addresses to receive, read, compose and send emails from that email address(s) through the desktop interface. It provides a central interface for receiving, composing and sending emails of configured email address(s). An Email client is also known as email reader or mail user agent (MUA). https://www.techopedia.com/definition/1656/email-client
The key thing about e-mail clients is that they are desktop apps used to manage several e-mail addresses which can be from different companies.
In the old days, we all used e-mail client programs like Outlook Express, Outlook (mainly for businesses) and Thunderbird. We composed emails offline, went online to send and receive them, and stored all our mail on our computers.
These days we tend to use WebMail working on our mail which is stored “in the cloud” through a browser like Chrome when on-line. This article explains the difference, advantages and disadvantages: https://www.getmailbird.com/what-is-an-email-client/
Most members seem to use Google’s Gmail in the cloud through a browser https://www.google.com/gmail/about/. One member uses Thunderbird https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/ for his e-mails. The privacy-conscious use Proton Mail https://proton.me , Apple uses use iCloud mail https://www.icloud.com/mail and people who have a Microsoft account sometimes use Microsoft’s Outlook https://outlook.live.com/– which is not the same as the old desktop e-mail client of the same name! “To make it abundantly clear: Outlook Mail is the web email client, while Outlook.live.com is the actual email service that Microsoft provides. You use the former to view the latter with a Microsoft email account. You should choose which is better for you out of Microsoft Outlook’s web vs. desktop app.”
Google’s Gmail interface on the web has a huge range of features, and most of us are connected to the Internet most of the time so offline e-mail management is no longer so important.
We found out that with Gmail Webmail you can:
- Use it for multiple e-mail addresses including those from other companies (e.g. Yahoo mail, Live Mail)
- Use Gmail offline (so it mimics an e-mail client) https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-simple-steps-gmail-desktop-email-client/
- Use Labels to Replace Folders
- Use, or choose not to use tabbed inbox categories
- Use Search to find e-mails you thought you had lost
- Use an add-on to find out if the recipient has opened your e-mail e.g. Mailtrack: https://mailtrack.io/hc/en-us
- Have more than one Gmail address to increase your 15GB storage
- Get rid of large attachments while keeping the text of an e-mail by forwarding the e-mail to yourself.
- Not to bother to back up your e-mails, or, if you want to you can download ALL the information which Google holds about you as a massive backup.
- Use Google One to find out about your storage and which e-mails are clogging up your storage.