I have a number of email accounts with different hosts. Most of the time, it gets very difficult to manage all these accounts and as a result, some of them get neglected. To solve this issue, I decided to go for an email client that can handle multiple accounts for me simultaneously and that can make some sound when a new email arrives (basic stuff I guess).
I have heard lot about outlook but I wanted something lighter and simpler. So I went for windows live mail. The program looked good in the beginning. It had good features and setting up accounts was simple too. I was quite happy with it but after using it for a few days, I began to note some flaws. Some of them were really annoying. For example, in the "unread emails" the messages from some of my email accounts appeared twice. While the same message when seen under the specific email, appeared only once. This was quite annoying. Another thing was that the software didn't download messages. It did download the titles and subject but I had to wait for a few seconds before I could see the entire message after clicking on the message. This was also quite annoying for me. Third thing which I didn't like was it showed lot of errors. And the errors would interrupt anything I was doing at that time.

As a result, I have now decided to look for some other program. I have installed inbox2. The interface is quite nice and the setting up accounts is very simple too. In fact it is much simpler than than what windows live mail had to offer. The other problem, that is downloading entire message also seems to be solved in this application. The start is very good but I will be able to tell more about this program only after I use it for a few days. Hope it provides what I need from it.

The portable version of Thunderbird is also a nice client. It manages a lot of different mail accounts, and you decide if you leave the mails on the server or downloads everything - you can choose to leave everything on the server, then you simply read the mails without any download time. This leaves you free to do nothing, or read a given mail, or delete it, or move quite a lot of mails to your local backup folder.

I also liked Thunderbird (both non-portable and portable versions) years ago, but since then I have found no need for a software client for emails. I suppose it is useful for people who have inconsistent Internet connections that need to read their emails offline, but soon there will be better offline GMail.

For managing multiple accounts yes I agree Thunderbird is the way to go. However, if you have a choice to create multiple accounts of the same provider, I'd recommend Windows Live Hotmail to do this because linking and switching accounts within the web-based interface is quite easy. Google also has "delegated" accounts but it just isn't quite the same.

Another interesting point is that there are no ads on your Thunderbird client screen. hotmail hat a lot of ads at the right-hand part of the mail screen, I hate that.

As all of you were talking about thunderbird, I thought to give it a try. I downloaded the setup and installed it without any issue. First impression was great. My primary email was set flawlessly and there wasn't any trouble. But where is the option to add other email accounts. I can't find it. Can thunderbird manage multiple email accounts. If yes, then please tell me how to do this. And if no, then this great looking software is of no use for me.

Look at your account settings menu, you will see that the same menu allows creating other accounts.
Each new acccount is created the same way (account username, POP server, etc...), and all the accounts will be visible in the same screen.

I am finding it quite hard to manage. I think I would stick to inbox2. Its quite awesome. At least for me.

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