Postbox

The current version of Postbox is version 3.0 (August 2013).  You can download it and try it free for a month and then you have to pay, but the current price – to buy outright – is US$9.95 (approximately £6.50 – £7.00 depending on the exchange rate). Postbox is really pretty good, particularly if you are a webmail user that wants local email and doesn’t want to have to pay for Outlook!  It is designed to work very well with Gmail, and some of its origins are from Thunderbird, the Mozilla email software. As the whole email software development cycle matures, rather like cars, there is some sense in which they are all starting to look more-and-more similar.  Take a look at the screenshots below and you’ll see what we mean.

The current version of Postbox is version 3.0 (August 2013).  You can download it and try it free for a month and then you have to pay, but the current price – to buy outright – is US$9.95 (approximately £6.50 – £7.00 depending on the exchange rate). Postbox is really pretty good, particularly if you are a webmail user that wants local email and doesn’t want to have to pay for Outlook!  It is designed to work very well with Gmail, and some of its origins are from Thunderbird, the Mozilla email software. As the whole email software development cycle matures, rather like cars, there is some sense in which they are all starting to look more-and-more similar.  Take a look at the screenshots below and you’ll see what we mean.

The Postbox website claims the software has several innovative features. They are mostly new and innovative and some are great. Whether you will end up using them all or not remains to be seen, but we think they’ll creep into the competitors software at least and copying is the best form of flattery! Here’s a very brief summary:

  • Group folders and Account Groups – you can combine email from multiple accounts into one Inbox and email accounts can also be put into Account Groups, so you can separate work and personal email.
  • The Focus Pane – this is a window that allows you to filter things in any way you want to – by subject, by date or by sender.
  • Automatic Tagging – this allows you to organise emails by keyword.
  • Summarised Replies – this lets you switch into ‘Conversation Mode’ and the software shortens emails intelligently.
  • Gmail Support – there’s native support for Gmail Labels, dedicated support for ‘Important’ labels and ability to convert dates into Google Calendar events.
  • Document & Image Views – fast search function for attachments, whether attached or embedded, and one-click sending.
  • To Do Tagging – A new form of To Do list which cuts across all folders

There’s plenty more so perhaps the easiest way to get your head round it is to take a look at their website.  It is a bit different though so be prepared to have to adapt a bit, and if, after a month you think you like it, be prepared to fork out your £7.50. The version for Mac looks like this:

See also our web page on Postbox Express which is the free (light) version of the same software.  It is no longer being developed and so there will be some limit to its life, but it is included on our website for completeness.

Postbox Settings for Net2Air

Coming soon…