Email client
An email client (alternatively spelled e-mail client; commonly known as mail client; more formally known as mail user agent or MUA; hereinafter, the Client) is any digital construct that an end-user utilizes to compose, access, and/or manage his or her emails.
The Client can also refer to mail client software. More broadly, email software may refer to all the software utilized for the Clients, mail servers, or mail exchangers.
Contents
Functions
Communication
- With regard to:
- Outgoing messages, the Clients may be designed to:
- Accept requests from end-users to compose new messages.
- Analyze requests looking for their inconsistencies and/or missing data.
- Offer end-users to correct inconsistencies and/or add the missing data.
- Transfer messages to mail servers.
- Stored messages, the Clients may be designed to:
- Accept requests from end-users to manage -- delete, arrange, label, classify -- stored messages.
- Offer end-users to confirm those changes that are setup as critical.
- Execute the requests -- delete, arrange, label, classify -- stored messages.
- Incoming messages, the Clients may be designed to:
- Accept messages from mail servers.
- Analyze messages looking for their inconsistencies and/or missing data.
- Add information about the found inconsistencies and/or missing data to the messages. This information may further be used by mail clients to combat spam.
- Display messages to end-users.
- Outgoing messages, the Clients may be designed to:
- On the one side, the Clients receive requests from and display the data to end-users. On the other side, the Clients communicate with mail servers in order to receive emails from and/or send emails to.
Mailbox management
Message composition
Encryption
Hosting
There are two major models of locating the Clients:
- On-premises: end-users may install the Clients on their devices; a common example would be an app running on one's cell phone. The POP3 protocol is commonly used for sending one's emails to and/or receiving from mail servers.
- Online: end-users may access the Clients that are hosted online, often, next to a mail server. The IMAP protocol is commonly used for accessing and/or managing one's emails online.
Software
Overview
Comparison
| Category | Features | Evolution | Outlook | RoundCube | Thunderbird | Zimbra |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trivia | Developer | Community | Microsoft | Community | Foundation | Corporation |
| OS | Unix-like | Windows, macOS | Cross | Cross | Cross | |
| License | GPL | Proprietary | GPL | MPL | Own (open-source) | |
| UI | GUI (GTK+) | GUI | Webmail | GUI (XUL) | GUI | |
| Date | Introduction | |||||
| Latest release | ||||||
| OS support | Windows | |||||
| macOS | ||||||
| Linux | ||||||
| BSD | ||||||
| Unix | ||||||
| POP3 | Fetch all messages | |||||
| Selected by filter | ||||||
| Selected by user | ||||||
| Non-POP3 communication protocols | IMAP4 | |||||
| SMTP | ||||||
| NNTP | ||||||
| EWS | ||||||
| IPv6 | ||||||
| MAPI | ||||||
| RSS | 0.91 Feeds | |||||
| 1.0 Feeds | ||||||
| 2.0 Feeds | ||||||
| LDAP | v2 | |||||
| v3 | ||||||
| Non-RSS integration protocols | IMSP | |||||
| ACAP | ||||||
| ATOM Feeds | ||||||
| iCalendar | ||||||
| MAPI/RPC | ||||||
| CalDAV | ||||||
| CardDAV | ||||||
| Regular authentication | Login | |||||
| Plain | ||||||
| CRAM-HMAC | MD5 | |||||
| SHA1 | ||||||
| RIPEMD | ||||||
| MD5 APOP | ||||||
| DIGEST-MD5 | ||||||
| Other authentication | MSN (NTLM) browser login | |||||
| Compuserve (RPA) | ||||||
| Hardware token PKCS#11 | ||||||
| Biometric | ||||||
| SMTP Auth | ||||||
| X.509 client certificate | ||||||
| OAuth | ||||||
| SSL/TLS support | Secure POP3 | |||||
| Secure IMAP4 | ||||||
| Secure SMTP | ||||||
| Secure NNTP | ||||||
| Secure LDAP | ||||||
| SNI | ||||||
| OCSP | ||||||
| CRL | ||||||
| Filtering | Local junk | |||||
| Server-side junk | ||||||
| Phishing | ||||||
| PGP support | inline | |||||
| PGP/MIME or OpenPGP | ||||||
| S/MIME support | protocol | |||||
| OCSP | ||||||
| CRL | ||||||
| Certificates on tokens, smartcards support | ||||||
| Appearance | HTML email | |||||
| UTF-8 support | ||||||
| Image blocking | ||||||
| Thread view | ||||||
| Conversation view | ||||||
| Message (general) | Bi-directional text support | |||||
| Postpone/scheduled message sending | ||||||
| Label messages | with colors | |||||
| with flag | ||||||
| antidelete | ||||||
| add note | ||||||
| Reformat received messages | edit headers (e.g., Subject) | |||||
| forced recode | ||||||
| Composing messages | Spell checking | |||||
| Signatures | ||||||
| Bottom-posts replies | ||||||
| Native images preview | jpeg | |||||
| gif | ||||||
| bmp | ||||||
| png | ||||||
| others | ||||||
| Native documents preview | txt | |||||
| doc | ||||||
| xls | ||||||
| odt | ||||||
| ods | ||||||
| others | ||||||
| Database | Message file format | |||||
| Encrypted database | ||||||
| Virtual folders | ||||||
| Scheduled backup | ||||||
| New mail notification | ticker | |||||
| tray icon | ||||||
| tooltip | ||||||
| sound | ||||||
| Folders | Customizable interface | |||||
| Customizable keybindings | ||||||
| Fragmented messages | ||||||
| Database search with regular expressions support | ||||||
| Indexed search | ||||||
| Search folders | ||||||
| IMAP | Search | |||||
| IDLE | ||||||
| Message templates | new | |||||
| reply | ||||||
| forward | ||||||
| read | ||||||
| confirmation | ||||||
| save | ||||||
| Individual for | ||||||
| Support in message templates scripts, programming languages | JavaScript | |||||
| VBScript | ||||||
| PHP Scripts | ||||||
| Python | ||||||
| Regular expressions | ||||||
| Java | ||||||
| Other (specify) |
