There are a number of email clients to choose from depending on your operating system. At the outset we declare our preference for Mozilla-Thunderbird which runs on Windows, Mac OSX and Linux and is very good at handling both POP3 and IMAP accounts. We also use Mutt in Debian which is a text based email client.

Before setting up your email, you may want to consider whether you will download your mail, using POP3, on to your PC and store your mail 'locally' OR store messages on your Internet Service Provider's (ISP's) IMAP server and be able to process them from any machine set up to access the IMAP server.

If you read mail from more than one location or use a laptop, we recommend using IMAP mail; wherever you read your mail you will be looking at the same inbox and mail folders. It should also mean that your mail is backed up regularly; the loss of a laptop with all your email stored on it, could be a serious problem.

Most ISP's provide IMAP accounts. Be aware however, that there may be limitations on the amount of mail you can store on their servers. If you have access to a local IMAP mail server, that may be even better - you would need to discuss this with your systems administrator.

If you collect mail using POP3, we recommend leaving copies of messages on the server for a few days; this is particularly important if you collect mail from the same server on more than one PC (eg. at home and in the office).

If you use IMAP, it is important to set your email client to save copies of 'Sent' messages on the server

* Remember to configure anti-virus software before setting up your email or web-browser

Mozilla-Thunderbird

Our recommendation! You can download Mozilla-Thunderbird for Windows and MacOSX from: http://www.mozilla.org

It is one of the many email client packages available on Debian and if you have Debian installed, just do:

• $ sudo aptitude install mozilla-thunderbird

A step by step tutorial for installing on Windows and configuring Thunderbird is provided at: http://www.nidelven-it.no/articles/introduction_to_thunderbird

Outlook Express

Outlook Express comes bundled with Windows and is consequently the most widely used email client. We recommend switching to Mozilla-Thunderbird.

Setup instructions are at: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/using/howto/oe/setup.mspx

Mac OSX Mail

For Mac people, it is probably the email client of choice, however, it is not for everyone and we prefer Mozilla-Thunderbird. It comes bundled with OSX.

Configuration help is available at: http://help.earthlink.net

Integrated Email Clients

Evolution

Evolution is a free, integrated mail, calendar, task and address book distributed suite from Novell, Inc. similar to MS Outlook. It comes as the default client on Beatrix (http://www.watsky.net) and is also available on Debian:

• $ sudo aptitude install evolution

The User Guide is at: http://www.novell.com

MS Outlook

Outlook is the integrated mail, calendar, task and address book distributed suite from Microsoft, similar to Evolution. It comes bundled with MSOffice. Outlook is a very complex program and behaves oddly on occasions. There is no free alternative for Windows and so you may need to stick with it. However, if you only use it for email, you should certainly consider switching to Mozilla-Thunderbird.

Different versions of Outlook have very different menus to access settings. Be aware that various settings may be located in different places within each version.

Configuration help:

• 2003 - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HP030760001033.aspx
• 2002 (XP) http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb;en-us;287532&spid=2559&sid=1195
• 2000 http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb;en-us;195787&spid=2557&sid=139