This Week’s Word: Mail Client

What’s a mail client, you ask? A mail client is an application used to manage your email messages. If you currently check your email and compose email through your web browser, by visiting a certain URL, http://www.gmail.com, for email, you do not use a mail client. Apple Mail and Microsoft Entourage are both examples of mail clients.

If you don’t already use a mail client you may be wondering why you should consider it. There are a lot of nice features of using a mail client. I use Apple Mail. It downloads all my messages as they are received. When I have a new message, I get a little “ding” sound and a little red circle will appear on the icon for the Mail application on my Dock. This is very convenient when I am on my computer, but not actively engaged in check my email. By using a mail client, you can also view and compose messages as drafts when you are offline.

As a fair warning, before you continue considering the advantages of using a mail client, not all email providers offer this service and some may make you pay extra for it. Yahoo! is an example of this. While their standard mail is free, if you want to access it through a mail client, you will need to purchase Yahoo! Mail Plus.

Because Mail comes standard with Mac OS X, this is a great place to start if you want to play around with a mail client and see how you like it. It can either be a very simple task to set it up the first time or a very painstaking one. If you have an MobileMe or Gmail address, among a few others, it should automatically detect the necessary settings after you enter your username and password. If you do use a less-common mail service, such as an individual one for your internet service provider or for your company, you may have to manually enter these settings. If you need to do this, a great place to start looking for the necessary information is finding the “help” tab when you check your mail through your web browser. You may need to also contact your internet service provider if that does not yield results. Here is a link which can help you formulate the right questions when calling your ISP. Of course, we can also help you set it up, if you would like; just give us a call!

Another question that may come up in your set up is the difference between POP and IMAP. These are two different settings that you can use with your mail client. POP is the more commonly available option. It downloads all messages to your computer. The messages are moved from the server where your mail had been stored to your computer. Obviously, there are lots of disadvantages to this, such as if you want to access from a different computer, or need to access via webmail, but the messages have already been moved to your computer. IMAP is your second option. If you use IMAP, messages will appear on your computer, but they are still stored on the server, meaning that you can have IMAP set up on multiple computers or devices and it will show up on all of them and show up as read on all of them even if you only view it on one of the devices. You can still store messages on your computer and work on them offline if you desire it.

There is the short on mail clients. That is a very abbreviated version, so please feel free to leave comments and ask questions!

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