Outlook is one of the most popular desktop email clients among users across the globe, despite being a paid application. It has a broad range of users, from professionals to students. Almost all are familiar with this particular application from Microsoft. Until today, none of the other email clients has been able to attract as many users as Outlook. Probably, because it offers some of the best-known features to make your work simpler and faster.
While one may assume that this may be the only application of its kind, yet the truth is that other applications are running along similar lines, and that too, for free!
Listed below are the four best free alternatives to MS Outlook that necessitates users to export PST to MBOX format!
1. Thunderbird
Mozilla’s Thunderbird is one free desktop email client that has almost all the features of Outlook and even more. It is also a news feed, newsgroup, and chat client which can be used on Windows, OS X as well as Linux.
Email message management, junk filtering, extensions and themes, standard supports for POP and IMAP, large file linking are some of the salient features that it offers to its users. In case you require additional benefits, you can avail the same via add-ons (extensions) and customization options.
Moreover, its security and privacy options are comparatively advanced and hence is well-suited for businesses as they handle critical and confidential data. It is also ideal for individuals who are concerned about the security of the information they share via emails. All that you need to do is convert Outlook PST to Thunderbird.
Know its pros and cons:
| Pros | Cons |
| Offers Extensions for users to avail more benefits | Offers many features making average users confused |
| Supports import of emails from other clients | Storage limit of 4GB for POP3 email storage |
| Safe and Secure | Not an impressive interface |
2. SeaMonkey
It is not only a desktop email client but an all-in-one Internet application suite available free of cost. It consists of three main components – a web browser, an email, and a news client. Available in 26 languages, it can be used on all popular operating systems such as Windows, Linux, and OSX.
It provides you with a multiple of benefits as it is quite an enhanced application with advanced functions which are found missing even in the popular Outlook does not support. With its first official release of version 1.0 on Jan 30, 2006, it has had a number of releases with each new version having an advancement of some or the other kind. Its latest official version 2.40 was released on March 14, 2016, and provides a number of features and benefits for you.
Know its pros and cons:
| Pros | Cons |
| A complete Internet suite with browsing, email and chat competences | Startup speed is a bit slow as compared to other email clients |
| WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor that assists in building websites | The GUI(graphical user interface) is bulky and outdated |
| Easy to install, and its features can be easily accessed | It’s web browser has the almost the same interface as that of Netscape |
3. Netscape Mail and Newsgroups
Developed by Netscape Communications Corporation, it is a desktop-based email and news client, popularly known as Netscape Mail. It supports cross-platform, i.e. it is available for all three chief operating systems – Linux, Windows, and OS X.
Additionally, it supports all the relevant protocols ranging from Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), Post Office Protocol (POP) version 3 to Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP).
Moreover, multiple accounts can be synchronised with it with the help of which you can view all the emails in one place. It has a built-in Bayesian spam filter to filter out spam email messages so that you do not have to deal with unwanted messages.
Know its pros and cons:
| Pros | Cons |
| Gives more control over formatting | Available only in English version |
| It treats each configured account separately, thus making management of multiple accounts simple | If a message has to be sent later, you will have to select ‘Send Later’ from the File menu of the email |
| Available for OS X, Windows, and Linux platforms | After going online, Selection of ‘Send unsent messages’ is required to send saved emails |
4. Apple Mail
It is a built-in desktop email client that is also known as Mail and Mail.app. However, it can be used only on machines running OS X, and not others such as Windows and Mac.
It’s latest stable release, i.e. 9.3 uses SMTP protocol to send emails, IMAP to receive them, and S/MIME for providing end-to-end message encryption. It has been preconfigured by the manufacturer to work with popular email clients such as Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, AOL Mail, Outlook, as well as iCloud. Therefore, you need not configure it, later on, to use this email client with the popular email clients.
Know its pros and cons:
| Pros | Cons |
| Powerful and simple email program. Permits managing of emails effectively and comfortably | It is available for OS X only |
|
Allows sending emails of up to 5GB via Mail Drop that is an iCloud service
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OS X Mail does not offer rules or smart folders that you can learn through example and action |
| It provides features such as fast search, smart folders, and appealing notepad | Flexible message templates and truly free-form labelling are missing from OS X Mail |
Conclusion
Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, Netscape Mail, and Apple Mail are the four best free alternatives to MS Outlook. The reason being, these desktop email clients are at par with MS Outlook and offers you even more and better benefits.
Plus, they are available with a single click of the mouse. All you need to do is to search for them on the main search engines and download them from the download link; next, export PST to MBOX file format when migrating from Outlook to the email clients mentioned above. To do so, you can leverage PST to MBOX Converter tool like Stellar Converter for PST. Once converted, you can import the MBOX files into the email client of your choice.
