Developer(s) | Microsoft |
---|---|
Initial release | November 30, 2006 |
Operating system |
|
Predecessor | Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail |
Type | Email client |
Website | www |
Mail (formerly Windows Mail) is an email client developed by Microsoft and included in Windows Vista and later versions of Windows. [1] [2] It is available as the successor to Outlook Express, which was either included with, or released for Internet Explorer 3.0 and later versions of Internet Explorer. It is set to be replaced by Outlook for Windows.
Windows Mail can be traced to a pre-release version of Outlook Express 7 included in early builds of Windows Vista (then known by its codename, "Longhorn"). Outlook Express 7 introduced various changes to the user interface [3] and relied on WinFS for the management and storage of contacts, email, and other data. [4] It supported Post Office Protocol (POP) and Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) email protocols, but no longer supported Microsoft's proprietary mail-over-HTTP scheme, [5] an omission inherited by Windows Mail. [6] IPv6 is fully supported. [7]
Windows Mail was formally announced on September 16, 2005 at Channel 9 and positioned as the successor to Outlook Express. [8] Windows Mail is a fundamentally new application with significant feature additions (many which were previously exclusive to Internet Explorer or Microsoft Outlook) and fundamental revisions to the storage architecture and security mechanisms. Identities in Outlook Express are replaced with Windows user profiles. The storage of items is managed by a Extensible Storage Engine database — the same engine used by Active Directory and Microsoft Exchange — with messages and newsgroups stored as separate eml
and nws
files instead of in a single dbx
file; the database is transactional and periodically creates backups of items to protect against data loss, which eliminates the single point of failure design of Outlook Express. Account configuration information is also no longer stored in the Windows Registry or in a single dbx
file—instead, Windows Mail relies on XML files stored within a user profile alongside email, making it possible to simply copy an entire email store to another machine. Windows Mail supports the Windows Search platform, allowing communications to be searched directly from within the Windows Shell. [9]
Windows Mail is also intended to be a significantly more secure offering than Outlook Express by including Bayesian spam filtering, email attachment blocking, junk email filtering functionality of Microsoft Exchange, the Phishing Filter of Internet Explorer 7, and top-level domain blocking. [9] All of these features, excluding Internet Explorer Phishing Filter integration were included in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 as part of Microsoft Office 2003. [10]
Windows Mail has a documented application programming interface (API) based on Component Object Model (COM). [11] Except for Simple MAPI messaging functionality, the API of Outlook Express was undocumented. [12]
Windows Mail is excluded from Windows 7 in favor of Windows Live Mail, part of Windows Essentials. Some files of Windows Mail still exist and there is a way to enable it.
Mail in Windows 8 and 8.1 is a completely new application based on the Windows Runtime, designed in accordance with Microsoft's Metro design language philosophy, as a Windows Store app that runs in either full-screen or split-screen viewing modes; many of its features are hidden in the charms or in the app bar (an initially hidden toolbar) at the bottom of the screen that is revealed by right-clicking or by swiping upward. Mail is updated independently from the operating system and is bundled with Calendar and People—it cannot be installed or uninstalled individually.
Preset server configurations for Outlook.com, Gmail, AOL Mail, and Yahoo! Mail are available; Exchange Server or IMAP accounts can be configured, [13] but Mail does not directly support POP3.
Mail in Windows 10 and 11 has preset server configurations for Outlook.com, Office 365, Gmail, iCloud, and Yahoo! Mail. [14] [15] [16] AOL Mail, as well as other Exchange Server and IMAP accounts, can still be added, and POP3 support has returned. [14] [16] [17] Newsgroup/Usenet support remains absent. [18] Mail and Calendar are still Universal Windows apps and are in the same app container, but their third sibling, People, is moved out of this container and is a standalone app by itself.
Users can set Mail to use the system theme or choose a custom accent color, background image, and light/dark preference. It has multi-window support and can open email messages in a new window. [19] Emails are listed in Mail's jumplist. Mail uses a settings panel, email sorting tools in the second pane, and a toolbar in the viewing pane. Like the Vista version of Mail, this version's important controls are readily visible. Accounts can be grouped and relabeled, and custom folders can be created, edited, or deleted within the app. [20] It is possible to use Outlook.com aliases and @mentions with Mail.
Like Microsoft Outlook, Mail allows users to set up Quick Actions, such as Delete, Set Flag, and Archive, to respond to messages from system notifications and swipe gestures. [21]
In December 2019, Mail added non-removable advertisements for the Microsoft Outlook mobile app. [22]
In 2023, Microsoft announced that beginning in 2024, new Windows 11 devices would be shipped with the new Outlook for Windows, and that the default Windows Mail and Calendar applications would be replaced by the end of 2024. [23]
As with Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express, Mail uses Ctrl+E to invoke the search. All other Microsoft products use Ctrl+F.
In computing, the Post Office Protocol (POP) is an application-layer Internet standard protocol used by e-mail clients to retrieve e-mail from a mail server. Today, POP version 3 (POP3) is the most commonly used version. Together with IMAP, it is one of the most common protocols for email retrieval.
An email client, email reader or, more formally, message user agent (MUA) or mail user agent is a computer program used to access and manage a user's email.
Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager software system from Microsoft, available as a part of the Microsoft 365 software suites. Though primarily being popular as an email client for businesses, Outlook also includes functions such as calendaring, task managing, contact managing, note-taking, journal logging and web browsing.
Outlook Express, formerly known as Microsoft Internet Mail and News, is a discontinued email and news client included with Internet Explorer versions 3.0 through 6.0. As such, it was bundled with several versions of Microsoft Windows, from Windows 98 to Windows Server 2003, and was available for Windows 3.x, Windows NT 3.51, Windows 95, Mac System 7, Mac OS 8, and Mac OS 9. In Windows Vista, Outlook Express was superseded by Windows Mail.
Apple Mail is an email client included by Apple Inc. with its operating systems macOS, iOS, iPadOS and watchOS. Apple Mail grew out of NeXTMail, which was originally developed by NeXT as part of its NeXTSTEP operating system, after Apple's acquisition of NeXT in 1997.
The Bat! is an email client for the Microsoft Windows operating system, developed by Ritlabs, SRL, a company based in Chişinău, Moldova. There are two versions: a Home version and a Professional version. The Professional version includes a portable module, The Bat Voyager.
Pegasus Mail is a proprietary email client developed by David Harris. It was originally released in 1990 for internal and external mail on NetWare networks with MS-DOS and later Apple Macintosh clients. It was subsequently ported to Microsoft Windows, which is now the only platform actively supported. Previously freeware, Pegasus Mail is now donationware.
The following tables compare general and technical features of notable email client programs.
Outlook on the web is a personal information manager web app from Microsoft. It includes a web-based email client, a calendar tool, a contact manager, and a task manager. It also includes add-in integration, Skype on the web, and alerts as well as unified themes that span across all the web apps. It is included in Exchange Server 2016, and Exchange Online
Mercury Mail Transport System is a standards-compliant mail server developed by David Harris, who also develops the Pegasus Mail client.
Push email is an email system that provides an always-on capability, in which when new email arrives at the mail delivery agent (MDA), it is immediately, actively transferred (pushed) by the MDA to the mail user agent (MUA), also called the email client, so that the end-user can see incoming email immediately. This is in contrast with systems that check for new incoming mail every so often, on a schedule. Email clients include smartphones and, less strictly, IMAP personal computer mail applications.
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of notable webmail providers who offer a web interface in English.
Windows Live Mail was a freeware email client from Microsoft. It is the successor to Windows Mail in Windows Vista, which was the successor to Outlook Express in Windows XP and Windows 98. Windows Live Mail is designed to run on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, but is also compatible with Windows 8 and Windows 10, even though Microsoft bundles a new email client, named Windows Mail, with the latter.
Outlook.com, formerly Hotmail, is a free personal email service offered by Microsoft. It includes a webmail interface featuring mail, calendaring, contacts, and tasks services. Outlook can also be accessed via email clients using the IMAP or POP protocols.
GMS (GMS) is a commercial mail and groupware server developed by Gordano Ltd. It runs on Windows, Linux, Solaris, and AIX. Originally called NTMail which was the first commercially available mail for the Windows platform, the products were rebranded to the Gordano Messaging Suite in August 2002 to reflect the support for additional hardware platforms and operating systems.
EmailTray is a lightweight email client for the Microsoft Windows operating system. EmailTray was developed by Internet Promotion Agency S.A., a software development d.
Mailbird is a desktop email client for Windows 7, 8, 10, and 11 for sending and receiving emails, managing calendar events and contacts from different email providers, including Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, etc. Social media, task management, file share, and video-conferencing integrations are also included.
Acompli is a discontinued mobile app that allowed for user interaction with email messages as well as management of multiple email accounts in one programme. In addition, the tool also organized one's calendar and shared files. This application provided for integration with cloud storage platforms such as Dropbox, OneDrive, and iCloud; it also carried support for Microsoft Exchange and Gmail. Acompli launched on 24 April 2014. The startup company, which had $7.3 million in funding, was led by CEO Javier Soltero, J.J. Zhuang (CTO) and Kevin Henrikson.
Calendar is a personal calendar application made by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows. It offers synchronization of calendars using Microsoft Exchange Server, Outlook.com Apple's iCloud calendar service, and Google Calendar. It supports the popular iCalendar 2.0 format.
People is a contact management app and address book included in Microsoft's Windows 8 and 10. It allows a user to organize and link contacts from different email accounts. People has a unique graphical interface, unlike Windows Contacts' File Explorer-based interface, based on the Metro design language that had already been used for Outlook.com and the integrated online People service. In addition to being an address book, it provides a list of recent mail conversations with a selected contact. It used to also be a social media hub, in which users could integrate their social networking accounts, but API changes in both Windows and social media services caused this functionality to break.