Email clients, like Outlook Express, can be helpful, quick, and easy, but they can also cause problems or be unsuitable for your needs. Here are a few reasons why you may prefer using an email client:

The Pros

Email clients limits your online time. An email client is beneficial to get what you need and disconnect from the Internet more quickly. You can quickly download new messages and send composed messages, usually in a few minutes. The messages are then available offline to read at your leisure, compose replies to them, organize in folders, or delete. This is especially appealing to dial-up users who don't want to tie up the phone line.

Email clients avoid disconnect issues. If you check messages on your server's website, you have to be online to open, read, compose, delete, and organize emails. On a dial-up connection, you could get disconnected for reaching a session or idle time limit. Furthermore, your modem could suddenly drop the connection from line noise or other problems. This would cause the email you just composed to be lost. On an email client, everything is saved on your computer, so you won't lose anything by getting disconnected.

Email clients save your contacts. Your email client saves your contacts to your computer instead of the server who provides your email. If you use your provider's website for email, you will immediately lose emails and contacts if you switch providers or your account is otherwise lost or terminated.

Email clients are especially helpful if you don't have a constant connection, or if you work on only one computer. Here are a few reasons why people prefer mail websites or can't use email clients:

The Cons

Email clients have problems downloading large emails. A picture or attachment greatly increases an email's size. Downloading these messages takes much longer, and could result in a timeout error. This means that one large email can prevent all the other emails from loading. Checking messages directly from a website allows you to view emails without downloading all of them first. You can view all your messages, then download the attachments at any time.

Email clients are restricted to one computer. If you use a more than one computer to check and compose messages, email clients are a hassle. For example, if you want to access your email from work, you will not have access to everything saved on the email client at home—contacts, folders, drafts, or previously downloaded messages. If you download new messages to an email client at work, they will be completely inaccessible to your home computer. Suppose to avoid this, you specify to download only a copy of your new messages, so you can download them to both computers. Then you have to access the website anyway to delete the messages to avoid filling your server inbox with read messages.

Email clients can have connection and security issues. A simple set up error could prevent downloads. You will get a connection error if use the wrong server addresses, connection settings, and port settings. If you switch connections, you would have to change your settings again. Your antivirus program may block your email client from receiving messages for no apparent reason. Also, all messages flagged as spam by your email provider will not download to your client, so you could be missing an email because it was mistakenly labeled as spam by your email server. These issues would all be avoided by directly accessing your email online.

If you prefer to use email clients and you get an error sending or recieving messages, be sure you are connected and able to view webpages. You may need to contact your ISP to make sure you have the correct settings and check for large incoming messages.

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Written by Hannah Miller, Online Marketing Representative and Customer Service, Copper.net.

Copper.net is a nationwide Internet services provider that is all-American owned and operated. Call today, 1-800-336-3318 or sign up online at www.copper.net! Check out my blog for more articles! 

An email client is a program on your computer that aides you in handling your email. The email client connects to the Internet, logs into your email provider's site, and downloads your email for you to read, reply to, store, or delete. You also have options to save contacts, and set up folders of saved emails to keep them organized. Email clients have multiple preferences and settings, like the following:

• Specify how often you want to check for new messages

• Set up multiple email accounts, the download from one or all of them

• Adjust how long to keep trying to download before a timeout message appears

Email clients typically download emails using two types of incoming servers. POP3 is the most typical server type. POP stands for Post Office Protocol, and 3 is the latest version used. Typically a POP server will connect, download all your messages one at a time, delete all the messages from the server, and disconnect. If you set up folders and organize messages and contacts using a POP3 server, these changes do not affect your mail server settings.

The other incoming server type is IMAP, Internet Message Access Protocol. IMAP downloads a copy of the messages from your server, and changes you make to them and your folders will be applied to the server settings. Essentially, you are interacting directly with your server, but also have the option of reading and composing emails offline. This protocol is usually available on most email clients, but not very many mail servers support it.

Outlook Express is the most popular email client, because it is automatically included in Windows computers. To set up your email account in Outlook Express:

1. Click Tools at the top of the page.

2. Click Accounts.

3. On the right side of the window, select Add > Mail...

4. The first field asks you to enter your name or whatever you want others to see when they receive an email from you. Typically, you would enter your name or your email address, but a nickname or other title would work as well, e.g., “Grandma Betty” or “Mr. Ransom”.

5. Click Next.

6. Type your email address.

7. Click Next.

8. Choose your incoming server type (usually POP3) and enter the incoming and outgoing mail server addresses. You can usually find these online or by calling your mail provider. They must be correct or you will not receive mail.

9. Click Next.

10. Your account name should already be filled in automatically. Type your password if you want it to be saved on your computer.

11. Click Next.

12. Click Finish.

Your ISP or mail provider should have step by step instructions similar to these on their website. There may be additional settings that you have to change from your mail account properties in order to send and receive messages. If you have Window's Vista, the Outlook Express program is called Window's Mail, and the setup process is very similar.

There are other email clients that you can use. Microsoft Outlook very similar to Outlook Express. It has a more professional layout and has options like a calendar and task list, which makes it ideal for business and professional use.

Other popular mail clients, most of which are free to download, include Mozilla Thunderbird. Thunderbird 2 allows you to tag messages with different colors for easy organization and features a find bar to search for keywords in old messages quickly.

IncrediMail is a fun multimedia favorite with emoticons, 3D effects, and sound effects to accompany your email handling and sending. Starfish Family Mail features multiple ways to keep emailing safe for kids and is easy to use. Eudora is popular for its handling of spam. Pegasus Mail is a stable and secure email client. You can search online for many more popular email clients and comparisons of them to find one that meets your needs.

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Written by Hannah Miller, Online Marketing Representative and Customer Service, Copper.net.

Copper.net is a nationwide Internet services provider that is all-American owned and operated. Call today, 1-800-336-3318 or sign up online at www.copper.net! Check out my blog for more articles!