I have been using Outlook as my email for some time now, and still don't like it. Is there another option/program that I could use? My email host uses POP3 for incoming mail server and my outgoing mail server (adelphia.net) uses SMTP.
I would, of course, LIKE to keep my old email, however I am to the point of being willing just to print off and save off my current email structure and blow it away, just to get away from Outlook. I am running XP Pro right now and have about 9 or 10 email accounts (family, work, spam, and so forth), so I would need multiple account ablity. In the past before my broadband days, I used Eudora and Pegasus. I really like Pegasus, but was told it would not handle whatever MSN email was doing. I have since dumped MSN, but would like to now dump Outlook....
Thanks

Thunderbird would be the obvious suggestion. I believe it can import your Outlook email. Maybe even its configuration.

Yup, I would recommend Thunderbird. I imported everything from Outlook Express at version 0.6 or so and it was fine. Looking at the "Import" function it appears to be able to import mail and settings from Outlook.

All your mail and settings will still be as they were so you can uninstall it if it doesn't meet your requirements. The multi-account functionality in Thunderbird is very good though, it should do everything you want.

Gareth

Since you've used Eudora earlier, you probably know if you would like that program... It can handle multiple accounts and I think it can also import both addressbook and mails from Outlook. I have packed away the laptop so I can't check.

Stig

Another plug for Thunderbird. Now that version 1 is out, there is nothing I would caution users to consider before installing it. When I first installed it (version .7, I believe), I had all sorts of gripes with it, the biggest being the way it handles multiple accounts. It would only let you completely seperate each account so that you had a different inbox, sent items, deleted items, and other folders. It's hard to explain now that they changed it. Regardless, they've now given you the option to combine any or all accounts (I prefer this, so I can apply rules to sort the mail and there's less clutter on my folder list).

The second major problem I had had with the program was that the spam filter simply did not work. It's that simple, it didn't do anything, except for always marking emails from a listserve I had specifically told it not to. Very frustrating. Well, since version 1 I've had no problems, and it works like a charm. I don't even check for false positives anymore.

Lastly, importing is a breeze. I had 6 years of emails that converted just fine. I actually went from Outlook Express to Outlook to Thunderbird in only a few months, and all the transitions were fine. Like I've said before, the single feature I used in Outlook Express that isn't in any other email program I've seen, is a mail filter that will check the messages before taking them from the servers, and leave them based on whatever criteria I choose. Still, I really like Thunderbird and highly recommend the switch.

i use Thunderbird exclusively. my only gripe is that you can not have 'forward this email to recipient' as part of the filtering rules.

I've been using Netscape and later Mozilla to read my e-mail since 1996. It works very well, especially the new spam filtering. I tried switching from Mozilla to Thunderbird and, for reasons that I never really understood, it had a much higher false negative rate on spam detection. More spam got through, even though it imported my old spam training data.

So, I'm now back to Mozilla. Maybe I'll switch to Thunderbird later on.

I use Thunderbird too, love it.

Why not switch to Gmail by Google ?

There is support for POP and much, much more. Also, a user has created/collected a slew of useful links including SMTP/POP3 Gmail interface, migration tools to move your existing post office into Gmail, file stores on the 1GB space and more. From Outlook migration is a bit rough, but possible.

Accounts are out there if you need them. Otherwise let me know.

-Tim
<edit> Oh yeah, spam is gone thanks to amazing filtering. Also, there are an extensive array of manual filters you can setup. Addressing is particularly sweet too (suggest-type inference matching). And, of course, web-based (access anywhere) secure login (https:\\), . . .

Just an FYI, since Google gave every account 50 invites, the spooler has had plenty for anyone who wants one.

But wait! There's more!

Now how much would you pay?

I love my GMail account, really I do, but I still keep copies of stuff locally. My IMAP spool is well over 5GB and still growing. GMail can't do that. Yet. Also, every once in a while, our Internet connection gets slow. Local e-mail is more predictable.

(Now, if Google offered a "GMail Appliance" that we could buy, and presumably give out whatever quotas we wanted, then I'd be twisting every arm I know in our IT department.)

Sorry to bring this back up. I wanted to ask where was the link to the site that tells you how to use GMail with POP3 accounts. That link tells you how to import your old email, but not how to read your new email.