Thunderbird Email Client for Windows

I am not a purist...I run a few different operating systems and a variety of Email clients and web browsers...depending on the OS and my attitude.

At home, my main websurfing/email computer is running Ubuntu with Evolution for email/calendar and Firefox for browsing.

My home 'work' computer (ok gaming and video editing) doesn't have email and I have Chrome and Firefox primarily for browsing.

My travel netbook triple boots OSX, WinXP, and Ubuntu...and mostly I run OSX on it and browse with Firefox or Safari.

I have a work/gaming laptop that I have if I will be at a location for a few days (like NY this week). I run Win7 on it, Chrome, Firefox, and until now standard Windows Live Mail.

Of the different email clients I have used, I actually like OSX's the best. Simple, keeps accounts in different folders, easy to see if an account has new messages etc. I wish I could get that client on windows.

Today I had it up to here (hand above head) with Windows Live Mail bloatware...I mentioned before how I liked Win7 but hate the email client...well today I did something about it.

I searched the internets...

I found the top choice from a somewhat unscientific study in a popular website (I lost the link) was Mozilla's Thunderbird.

I had tried it on Ubuntu and didn't like it...but I thought I would try it on Win7.

I will have to say that it is now my favorite Windows email client...still not as nice as OSX's but close enough. Speedy, lightweight, and not too hard to import from Windows Live Mail.

A couple of things. I couldn't get it to import emails (and I tried a couple of plugins) but it ended up that I didn't need to jump through those hoops...a number of years ago I started leaving ALL emails on the server (gmail and my own) for a backup.

Thunderbird WOULD import the settings from Windows Live Mail...all my various email accounts were imported with one click.

I actually don't have any address books on my notebooks (just my phone) so I don't know how that works.

So it ended up that I didn't need to import my email...using IMAP settings, it quickly downloaded all the headers etc.

The only thing I needed to change was the order of the accounts...I needed a plug-in for that...so I used Folderpane Tools.