If you are looking for free Email clients for Linux and Windows – here are 5 of them we list which you can try and consider for casual or professional uses.
Web based email is popular today which can be accessed via browser or mobile apps. However, big and medium enterprises, generic users still prefers native desktop email clients for heavy and office uses. Microsoft Outlook is the most popular desktop email client which is of course not free and you have to pay huge licence fee to use.
There are multiple options for free desktop email clients available. Here are the best 5 free and open source email clients which you can go ahead and try then deploy for your needs.
Quick Snapshot
Here is a quick glimpse of 5 email desktop clients before you read the features and choose yourself.
| Best Email Client Programs | Price | Platforms | Snap | Flatpak |
| Thunderbird | FREE | Linux, Mac and Windows | Yes | No |
| Evolution | FREE | Linux | No | Yes |
| Geary | FREE | Linux | No | Yes |
| Claws Mail | FREE | Linux, Mac and Windows | Yes | No |
| SeaMonkey | FREE | Linux, Mac and Windows | No | No |
5 Best Free Email Clients – Features
Thunderbird
Developed my Mozilla Foundation, Thunderbird is the best free open-source cross platform email client available today. It comes with email, chat support, RSS reader and other features.
A quick summary of Thunderbird’s features:
Features
- Email with POP, IMAP, LDAP support
- Quick Search, Saved Search
- Spam filtering
- Security support via TLS/SSL connection to mail servers
- Secure email support via S/MIME
- Calendar Support via Lightning extension – Can integrate Google Calendar
- Microsoft Exchange Server integration with Paid extensions exquilla Owl
- HTML support in emails
- Desktop Notification
- Feature addition via Extensions
- Theme Support
- Multiple Language support
How to Download
You can download Thunderbird from the official page.
Evolution
Evolution, the GNOME project is a combination of email, address book, calendar, task manager features. Evolution is free and open source software available for Linux systems at the moment.
Here are some of its features:
Features
- POP, IMAP and SMTP Support
- Secure network connection with SSL, TLS
- Automatic spam filtering
- Advanced email search
- Exchange server support using plug-ins
- Calendar support using Google Calendar and iCalendar
- Contact management with local address books and Google address books
How to Download and install
In Ubuntu based Linux systems, you can install Evolution using from below commands from terminal. Or, from Software. Run below commands from terminal to install Evolution in Ubuntu based systems:
sudo apt install evolution evolution-ews
Note: evolution-ews is to connect to Microsoft Exchange.
Geary
Geary email client is a free and open source software available only in Linux systems. Written in Vala with WebKitGtk, Geary is different than other desktop email
Features
- Conversation View for emails
- Supports IMAP servers – GMAIL, Yahoo! Mail, Outlook.com
- Send as another identity
- HTML Support in email
- Search with options
- Desktop notifications
How to Download
Geary is available for Linux only. For Ubuntu based systems, search ‘geary’ in Software and click install. You can also install via command line using below commands in Ubuntu based systems.
sudo apt install geary
Claws Mail
Claws Mail is a free and open source GTK+ based email client with easy configuration and lots of features. It supports and stores email in MH mailbox format. Claws email is available for Windows, Linux.
Features
- Secured email client with SSL and GPG support
- Search and filtering
- Customizable toolbar and themes support
- Templates and plugin
- Support for PDF viewer, HTML, Calendar, Anti-spam filtering using plugins
How to Download
For Windows, Linux all download options available in below link via official website.
SeaMonkey
SeaMonkey is a free and open source internet suite and SeaMonkey mail is a component of the same. SeaMonkey mail shares code from Mozilla Thunderbird. SeaMonkey keeps traditional looks of an email client and it is available in Windows, Linux and Mac.
Here are some of its features.
Features
- Multiple email account support
- Junk email detection
- HTML support in email messages
- Message filters
- Address books
How to download
Download SeaMonkey via below link via official website.
Summary
I would recommend Thunderbird for serious work and enterprise wise deployment if needed along with casual users. However, you can still try other four as per your need and choice.
I purposefully did not include several below email clients in this article due to ‘not-so-good’ user feedback and some of them are ‘not free’.
- Sylpheed : Error prone
- Zimbra
- Mutt
- Mailspring : Error prone, need to create separate ID to access
- Hiri : Only work with MS Exchange and users may need to pay.
Let us know what is your favorite email client via comments below.
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