Postbox Email Client review

Paying for an email program may seem pointless, as Mozilla's Thunderbird, one of the most popular email applications, and most webmail services are free. With Postbox, you've got a reason to spend your money.

Although it is based on Thunderbird, Postbox is heavily modified. In addition to all the features we'd expect from a modern email program, such as inline spell check, powerful filters and Bayesian spam protection, it also has other distinctive features which will tempt you to part with your money.

What immediately sets Postbox apart from the competition is its extensive search capabilities. Once all your email has been indexed, searching for a specific message, image, link or attachment from a specific person, by date, by keyword or a combination of all three is very fast. When viewing an email, a slide out panel allows you to quickly find all other messages, links, images and attachments from the sender of that message. A similar panel is also available when writing an email.

Like Google Mail, Postbox supports threaded conversations, so all emails sharing the same Subject can be grouped together making it easy to follow a lengthy conversation. Updates can be posted to Facebook and Twitter from within Postbox by simply selecting and right-clicking on the text you want to post and selecting the relevant menu command.

Since Postbox is based on Thunderbird, it shares some features with Mozilla's program. Configuration is very simple. The program automatically asks you for your email address when first launched, which is all it needs to configure itself automatically for most popular email services, such as Google Mail. If automatic configuration fails, entering your email server details is simple enough using the setup wizard.

Postbox also supports tabs, like those found in Firefox and Thunderbird, which helps reduces window clutter. Double clicking a message will, by default, open it in a new tab although you can still open messages as separate windows instead if you prefer. There's also support for plug-ins, so you can add extra features such as encryption or a calendar but Thunderbird add-ons aren't compatible.

Postbox is a great email program and its useful features, especially its fast and powerful search capability, will benefit users who need to sift through huge amounts of email. Less demanding users can get by with cheaper alternatives such as Thunderbird, but for everyone else Postbox is a great buy.