The best email clients make it simple and easy for you to manage your emails from work or home, on your desktop or mobile device.
Email is still central to most business applications, regardless of which type of office software suite you use. For some, that means using Outlook with Microsoft Office, but for those using alternative office software there are also alternative email clients.
Email remains the primary method of communication between businesses, but these days email is no longer just about sending and managing messages and more about integrating additional software and apps.
Even still, there are a number of different ways in which emails can be used and stored. The first main way is by using an email client, which will often use POP3, SMTP, or IMAP protocols to collect mail directly from a server to your PC or other computing devices. This usually means downloading and installing software for an email client to receive your emails and a server on which to store and collect your email from.
The second main way is using cloud services through a web application, which means that you don't need to download any software - Gmail and Yahoo mail are popular examples of this. Even better is that as online communications widen, some email providers include additional collaboration tools such as video conferencing as part of the service.
Cloud-based email web apps have become much more popular, especially due to the fact you can seamlessly switch between your desktop and phone to access your emails, making them especially accessible and easy to use.
Email clients still have their place, however, if they do generally tie you down to one device. While email clients may require a little more work to run, they also allow for more control over user data. In other words, only you control your emails, and third parties have no access to them unless you purposefully - or accidentally - allow it.
This can be an important consideration for business purposes, as allowing your email to run through web apps means that although it will be safely backed up, it also means the provider has control over your data. Just remember to ensure you have a backup solution in place so you don't lose your email data.
Therefore while consumers have tended toward the ease of use that web app emails allow, many businesses still prefer to control their own emails through an email server and email clients, in order to protect sensitive business data.
There are a number of email providers on the market, so below we list what we think are the best email clients currently available, before taking a look at additional options, not least email web apps.
Or jump to: Best free email clients.
We've also featured the best email providers and best email hosting providers.
Get in touch
- Want to find out about commercial or marketing opportunities? Click here
- Out of date info, errors, complaints or broken links? Give us a nudge
- Got a suggestion for a product or service provider? Message us directly
The best email clients of 2023 in full:
Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.
Microsoft’s Outlook is the de facto email client for most businesses and enterprises and has been around for decades, with its origins dating back to Windows 95 and NT. Obviously, it has tight integration with other Microsoft services, and that takes email beyond the simple exchange of messages.
Outlook has the advantage of being fully integrated with the Outlook Calendar, making it a snap to share calendars to coordinate meetings. This integration also extends to Outlook Contacts. Outlook is supported for the Windows platform, but also across the mobile platforms of iOS and Android as well.
Microsoft Outlook is available in a stand-alone form as a part of Microsoft Office 2021, where a one-off $249.99 also gets you offline versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Alternatively, signing up for the subscription-based Microsoft 365 also gives you access to Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint, along with at least 1TB of cloud storage and a bunch of other Microsoft apps (Teams, OneNote, Access, Publisher, Skype, Microsoft Forms and more.)
Prices start at at $5.83 a month for the one-year Microsoft 365 Personal Plan.
Read our full Microsoft Outlook review.
eM Client has been around for 15 years now, and throughout that long development, it's evolved into the best alternative email client for Windows.
It offers a wide array of features, including a calendar, contacts, and chat. Support is provided for all the major email services including Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud, and Outlook.com. The latest version also offers PGP encryption, live backup, basic image editing capabilities, and auto-replies for Gmail.
There is a free tier, but you need the Pro version for commercial use, and that also gives you VIP support and unlimited accounts (the free product is limited to two email accounts). The Pro version has a one-time license fee and costs around $60. After a year your VIP support will run out, but you can pay for another year of support at just under $10.
eM Client makes it easy to migrate your messages from Gmail, Exchange, iCloud, and Outlook.com – just enter your email address and the client will adjust the appropriate settings for you. eM Client can also import your contacts and calendar, and it's easy to deselect these options if you'd prefer to manage them separately.
There's an integrated chat app too, with support for common platforms including Jabber and Google Chat, and the search function is far superior to those you'll find in webmail interfaces.
Read our full eM Client review.
Mailbird is an email client that promises to “save time managing multiple accounts,” and to make email easier (perhaps, in part, thanks to its integrated ChatGPT email writer.) It comes in two main versions: Personal and Business.
While beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, as they say, it’s undeniable that Mailbird Business offers many free themes to make email a more enjoyable and customizable experience.
Unlike some more Microsoft-centric email clients, Mailbird Business supports a diverse range of integrated apps, including WhatsApp, Google Docs, Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, and Slack (amongst others), all making for a more streamlined workflow. However, one downside to bear in mind here is that there’s no support for filters or rules to organize your inbox.
Mailbird Personal is available for free, with Mailbird Business available as a subscription or a one-time lifetime license.
Read our full Mailbird review.
Inky is an email client that focuses on security, using AI and machine learning algorithms to block all manner of phishing attacks that might otherwise get through.
This client uses an ‘Inky Phish Fence’ that scans both internal and external emails to flag phishing attempts. The proprietary machine learning technology can literally read an email to determine if it has phishing content, and then is able to quarantine the email or deliver it with the malicious links disabled.
Inky also employs a technology called Social Graphing to identify sophisticated attacks on businesses, where hacker impersonates your CEO, manager, a supplier, or any other identity they can use to gain an advantage.
The Inky email client does offer a free trial, but sadly, pricing details aren’t made available on the Inky website. However, the site does note that pricing is per mailbox per month on a subscription, with volume discounts available.
Read our full Inky review.
Hiri is a paid-for premium email client that is designed primarily with business users in mind (it currently only supports Microsoft email services including Hotmail, Outlook, and Exchange), but home users will also appreciate its productivity-boosting features.
If you find yourself spending too long managing, reading, and replying to emails, Hiri is the email client for you. It includes a smart dashboard that lets you see how many unread messages you have at a glance and how long you should wait before checking them (after all, how many really need an instant reply?)
The Compose window is designed to save you time too, offering only the essential options (no fancy formatting) and including the subject line at the bottom so you don't have to write it until you know how to summarize the message.
These little touches make Hiri a truly exceptional client. If Microsoft is your email provider of choice, it should be well up your list. Hiri is available to buy annually or via a lifetime license for a one-time fee. Both options offer a 7-day free trial.
Read our full Hiri review.
Best free email clients:
First released back in 2004, Google's Gmail has become the market leader in free email services with more than a billion users across the globe.
Gmail's stripped-back web interface is a highlight. Most of the screen is devoted to your inbox, with a minimum of the toolbar and other clutter. Messages are neatly organized via conversations for easier viewing, and you can read and reply to emails with ease, even as a first-time user.
There's plenty of power here. Dynamic mail makes Gmail more interactive, with the ability to take action directly from within the email, like filling out a questionnaire or responding to a Google Docs comment. Messages can be automatically filtered into tabbed categories like Primary, Social, and Promotions, helping you to focus on the content you need. Leading-edge spam blocking keeps your inbox free of junk, you can manage other accounts from the same interface (Outlook, Yahoo, any other IMAP or POP email), and there's 15GB storage for your inbox, Drive, and photos.
You can also access Gmail offline, although you'll need Google Chrome for that to work. Furthermore, there is a neat snooze feature that allows you to, well, snooze an email for a specified amount of time (it also automatically labels that email as important).
Other features are more questionable. Instead of organizing messages into folders, for instance – a simple metaphor that just about every user understands – you must filter them using a custom labeling system. This works, and has some advantages, but isn't popular with all users. Still, Gmail is an excellent service overall, and a good first choice for your email provider.
Google also offers a paid business version of Gmail available in the shape of its Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) product.
This more professional product drops the ads and allows using a custom email address on your domain (yourname@yourcompany.tld). Business-oriented migration tools can import mail from Outlook, Exchange, Lotus, and more. Storage space doubles to 30GB on the Basic plan, and you get unlimited group email addresses, 99.9% guaranteed uptime, and 24/7 support.
Google Workspace is Google's answer to Microsoft 365, so of course, you also get apps for working with documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Shared calendars keep you better organized, there's video and voice conferencing for online meetings, and again, there’s 24/7 support to keep your system running smoothly.
Read our full Gmail review.
Mozilla's Thunderbird is an email client worth considering as an alternative to Outlook and paid-for programs. As you'd expect from the people who brought you the Firebox browser, Thunderbird is a well-developed piece of software.
It's free to download and installation is easy. Once running, you'll find it contains all the features you'd expect from an email client. However, what makes Thunderbird different is that there are additional customization options. You can install addons to provide additional features and functionality, and there are some especially neat ones for privacy and security.
Additionally, there are different themes available to download so you can personalize your email experience in a way that you usually can't with Outlook and others.
So if you'd prefer a free but capable email client you can tweak to give what you need, and change the look from the standard vanilla, Thunderbird from Mozilla could be well worth a look.
However, for those used to a cloud-based email system they can use on the go from any device, Thunderbird can seem a little limited.
Read our full Thunderbird review.
Spike is a versatile email client, available for iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac, with a handy web app for those occasions when you don't have time to spend installing software.
It's billed as the first 'conversational' email app, which essentially means it presents messages and replies in bubbles in real-time, in a style that looks very much like WhatsApp. This works particularly well for the type of short emails that you're likely to send to friends and family, making it refreshingly simple to keep track of long email chains that would usually be a mess of nested messages.
Spike is free for personal use, with support for an unlimited number of email accounts and up to 10 'group chat rooms'. If you're sick of trawling through messy lists of replies, it's a breath of fresh air.
For business users, there's a nominal fee per email account, and enables both voice and video meetings.
Slack isn't an email client as much as online communication and collaboration tool that aims to replace the need for email.
It’s an incredibly smart platform, and you can get it on mobile and desktop devices. It allows for the sending of direct messages (DMs) and files to a single person or a group of employees, and there’s the ability to organize conversations into different channels (perhaps for specific projects, one for technical support, general chat, and so forth).
The app also supports video calling. You can use the feature to talk to your colleagues about projects and work in-depth, without having to type everything into a DM. While this isn’t a replacement for cloud storage services, you are able to drag, drop and share files with your colleagues directly within Slack. It’s also compatible with services such as Google Drive, Dropbox, and Box.
To round things off, Slack even has a free version, although unsurprisingly it has limitations (in terms of the number of messages stored, overall storage space, and so forth).
Read our full Slack review.
Also check out these secure email providers
We've recently been testing out the leading secure email providers. Check out reviews below to find out more about each service provider: