Software : Round up: The best free email client 2016

---

• Round up: The best free email client 2016
• Round up: The best free file recovery software 2016
• Round-up: The best free photo-editing software 2016

Round up: The best free email client 2016 Posted: Download the best free email clients Why use an email client? With webmail services like Gmail and Outlook offering easy email access and mobile apps for all your devices, does the humble email client still warrant a place on you desktop? If you use more than one email account, we say yes - particularly if they're with different providers, which would otherwise require you to have several browser tabs open at once. As well as aggregating all your messages in one convenient place, a good email client can add features like encryption and integration with calendars, RSS feeds and VoIP apps. Desktop clients can also store your mail locally, giving you access to archived messages when you're offline and providing a valuable backup. Here are our nominations for the best email clients of 2016. Have we missed your favorite? What makes it stand out? Let us know in the comments below. 1. eM Client Support for a wide range of email providers, plus integrated chat eM Client has been kicking around for nearly 10 years now, and its long development has made it one of the best email apps for Windows. The free version is limited to non-commercial use and two email accounts, but otherwise it's identical to the paid-for edition. eM Client includes support for Gmail, Exchange, iCloud and Outlook.com, touch controls, fast searching and integrated calendaring and contacts. There's an integrated chat app too, with support for common standards such as Jabber and Google Chat, and it's a good alternative to heavyweight apps like Outlook. 2. Mailbird Lite A great-looking client packed with features to supplement your emails Mailbird Lite isn't just an email app - it's a whole communication platform to which you can add apps for scheduling, chatting, file syncing and teamworking. After downloading Mailbird you'll be treated to a 30-day trial of the Pro version, which is downgraded to the more limited Lite edition if you choose not to upgrade at the end of the month. There are no time restrictions on the free client. Free users miss out on features such as speed reading, email snoozing and quick previews of attachments, but Mailbird Lite is still an excellent choice. It supports up to three email accounts, is optimized for speed, and looks great to boot. Setup is simple; enter your email details and Mailbird Lite will find the necessary POP or IMAP settings automatically, then get to work importing your messages. It offers to connect with your Facebook account, so it can liven up your inbox with your contacts' profile photos, and can also link with Whatsapp, Google Calendar, free task manager Moo.do, and teamworking app Asana. 3. Claws Mail A basic interface belies a powerful email tool for confident users Claws isn't hard to use, but is best suited to more experienced users who want to get stuck into its custom mail filtering and support for an unlimited number of email accounts. Unlike the other clients here, Claws requires users to set up their POP3/IMAP settings manually. If you use Gmail, you may also need to adjust your Google account settings and grant access for potentially less safe applications - something you might well prefer to avoid. Unusually for a modern email client there's no option to send HTML messages - Claws is plaintext-only - but by omitting potentially unnecessary features, Claws can run at lightning speeds. Its search function is particularly good, and it's expandable via plugins too. It isn't the prettiest email app, but Claws is a great free choice if you value substance over style. It's also updated regularly, so bugs are stamped out quickly. 4. Inky A free email client with one-time setup for all your devices Inky's free edition is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Android, and its one-time setup makes it the perfect email client for use across all three platforms. After downloading and installing the client, you'll be asked to create an Inky account. This links all your email addresses together, enabling you to access them from any device with Inky installed without the hassle of setting up POP and IMAP settings. Once you've registered, setup is simple; enter the username and password for each account, and Inky takes care of the rest. In everyday use, Inky is excellent, with a clever auto-tagging feature, intelligent filtering of message types (personal, subscriptions, social, notes and so on), very fast searching and cloud syncing between devices. If you're running Windows 7 or later and spend lots of time trying to find particular messages or threads, Inky could save you an enormous amount of time. 5. Opera Mail A flexible open source email client from the makers of the Opera browser The developers of Opera have always considered email to be a key feature of any good browser, and have poured a great deal of effort into developing Opera Mail. Its features include message templates - particularly handy for business use - message filtering and sorting, message sorting by type and a wide range of customisation options. The client also imports RSS feeds, making it a good alternative to web apps like Feedly and the much-missed Google Reader. 6. Thunderbird Plenty of features, and even more available with free extensions Like Firefox, Thunderbird was created by the Mozilla Foundation (though development of the two has since been uncoupled). Like the web browser, its features can be extended and enhanced with a huge range of third-party add-ons. Some of its excellent built-in features include the ability to link files that are too big to email and the ability to read RSS news feeds alongside your email. Setup is straightforward; as with most modern email clients, all you need are your usernames and passwords, and Thunderbird takes care of the rest. 7. Windows Live Mail A venerable email client that's stood the test of time Windows Live Mail was last updated in 2012, having been superseded by the Mail app in Windows 8 and 10. However, despite Live Mail's comparatively old-fashioned appearance, the two programs are largely the same. Windows Live Mail delivers the three-pane layout that many email users, including us, prefer to more modern but more minimal designs. It supports RSS and cloud-based email as well as POP3, and makes it easy to send attachments and work with multiple accounts. If you like Microsoft's way of doing things but find ultra-streamlined Windows 10 apps too limiting, the classic Windows Live Mail remains a sensible choice.

Round up: The best free file recovery software 2016 Posted: Download the best free recovery software Restore lost or deleted files Data recovery can be an expensive business, which is why it's no substitute for backing up your key documents, photos and other data on a regular basis. But that's of little comfort to anyone – even those with good backup regimens – who suddenly find themselves confronted by the stomach-churning feeling of data loss. As soon as you've become aware of data loss, it's critical you stop using the drive affected immediately. Whether the drive itself is failing or you've simply deleted a file accidentally, this is the golden moment when you may be able to get your data back without an expensive purchase or trip to a data recovery specialist. We've cherry-picked five of the best free data recovery tools in the business. Just pick the one closest to your requirements and with a bit of luck (and no small measure of help from the app involved), you could yet save your files. 1. DMDE Free Edition The most effective way to recover files from a dead hard drive Our favourite free data recovery tool is often overlooked. DMDE Free Edition scores major points because it's capable of recovering data from a wide array of drives, including 2TB+ drives rescued from a fried external drive enclosure with proprietary formatting (it's a long story). DMDE may not be the simplest tool to use, but it's one of the most effective, and our step-by-step file recovery guide will help you with the basics. DMDE works by letting you select a drive and then identifies all mountable partitions, with the most obvious choices highlighted. If successful, you're then shown a File Explorer-like view to browse the drive and recover what data you need from it. There are restrictions on the way you can recover data from the free version, but there's no limit to how much you recover. If you want a simpler and faster recovery process, just upgrade to the Express or Standard edition. Read on to discover four more of our favourite tools for recovering lost data in an emergency. Have we missed a program that's saved your skin in a near-disaster? Let us know in the comments below! 2. Recuva Recover files accidentally deleted from your Recycle Bin, quickly and easily Recuva is purely concerned with helping you get accidentally deleted files back, but to this end it makes things as easy and stress-free as possible. It opens by default to a wizard, which advanced users can subsequently skip: from here, choose the type of file you're trying to recover (picture, documents, compressed, emails and all files are among those on offer) and it'll focus its search accordingly. You can target your search to a specific location or search all your drives, and you can opt to choose a quick or deep scan. The latter takes much longer, but flushes out more results. Then click 'Start' and wait for the scan to complete. Once done, your results are presented, with each recovered file given a rating depending on its condition. You can recover files direct from here or switch to Advanced Mode for a frankly better view, offering file preview, information and a peek at the file's header. Recuva is also available as a portable app - essential for any emergency toolkit. 3. PhotoRec Recover lost files from any media, with support for hundreds of file formats Don't be fooled by the name, PhotoRec recovers far more than just photos. It works with a wide range of file systems and media, from hard drives to CD/DVD, USB flash drives and memory cards, and there are builds for Mac and Linux, giving you flexibility to recover data from a different computer if necessary. It also has deep knowledge of over 200 file formats, which helps with reconstructing lost files, and comes packaged with TestDisk, which can be used to recover partitions. The main complication is the user interface – it's a command line affair, with no mouse support. At first glance this appears complicated, but the program steps you through the process via a series of menu screens, and because it mounts the target drive in read-only mode, there's no danger of data being lost if you take a wrong turn – you can't write data to the drive you're recovering from, for example. 4. MiniTool Partition Recovery Free Lost a whole partition? MiniTool's excellent recovery software can help One of the most frightening data loss experiences is when an entire drive or partition goes missing. Often this can be traced to an accidentally deleted partition or one where the partition header has corrupted. If the issue is this simple, getting the partition back can be done quickly and easily without leaving Windows using MiniTool Partition Recovery Free. Just fire it up, select the drive containing your lost partition, then choose whether to scan the entire disk or just a portion of it (say the part where your missing partition should be). Choose between full and quick scans, then sit back and let the program do its work. Don't panic if it appears to become non-responsive, just be patient and eventually it'll list all detected partitions on the drive. Select all of them – including your missing partition – and click 'Finish' to restore it. You can also double-click a partition to view its file contents – perfect for verifying it's the one you're after. 5. Paragon Rescue Kit 14 Free Edition Can't boot into Windows? All is not lost with Paragon Rescue Kit All of the recovery tools we've covered so far assume you're able to boot into Windows to use them. But what happens if Windows won't boot at all? This is where Paragon Rescue Kit comes into play. The best time to install it is now while your PC is running, otherwise you'll need to do so on a working Windows PC. Once done, you'll need a blank CD/DVD or flash drive (512MB or larger – if you're planning to recover data to this drive, go for the biggest drive you can) – the setup wizard does the hard work. Now insert the disc or flash media into your non-booting PC and restart, selecting said media from the boot menu. You'll find yourself at a menu offering a multitude of options from recovering lost partitions, fixing boot issues and – crucially – a file-transfer wizard for getting data off a target drive. If all else fails, this could be a lifesaver.

Round-up: The best free photo-editing software 2016 Posted: Best free photo editing software The best free photo editors With phone cameras now ubiquitous, we're taking and sharing more photos than ever. But even the best phone camera is likely to produce a dud or two, and even the best shot could stand to be better. Photo editing, then, shouldn't be the sole reserve of those who can afford to stump up the cash for a subscription to Adobe's Creative Cloud. And no, Microsoft Paint or Apple Preview won't cut it: you deserve more than mere cropping or a few sliders to tweak. So we've overhauled our list for 2016, and selected our current top 10 tools for free photo editing, ranging from fully-featured Photoshop clones to simple, easy to use ways to add filters and effects to your favourite snaps. These are by no means the only free options, though: if we've missed one of your favourites, let us know in the comments below. 1. GIMP Silly name, exceptional photo-editing software The elder statesperson of free photo editing, GIMP is possibly the most full-featured cross-platform Photoshop competitor going, though it's not without its crashes and glitches – that's the too-many-cooks open source development philosophy in action – and it lacks the polish of its commercial rivals. Some of the filters, in particular, seem as if they haven't been touched since it was first released 20 years ago. That said, if you're looking for a desktop photo editor ready for just about any task, GIMP is it. Its interface will be immediately familiar to Photoshop users, particularly if you switch on the highly recommended single window mode, and it's still in active development, so new features and filters are regularly added. There's also a plug-in repository to extend Gimp's range (although it's not been updated for a while). We'd recommend grabbing the stable version, but don't overlook the development build if you want to try some new features. 2. Paint.NET Basic photo editing with layers, filters and plug-ins Sometimes it pays not to be overloaded with bells and whistles. Paint.NET's simplicity is one of its key features; it leaves it a fast, easy to operate editor that's perfect for those little tasks that don't need a full-blown advanced tool. Don't be fooled by the name, though. This isn't just a clone of Microsoft's ultra-basic Paint – though it was originally intended to replace it. It's a proper photo editor, just one that lands on the basic side of the curve. Interface-wise it's reminiscent of its namesake, but as it's grown Paint.NET has added essential editing tools like layers, an undo history, a raft of filters, numerous community-created plugins, and a 3D rotate/zoom function that's useful for recompositing images. Yes, it's lacking in certain areas, but if your machine is lacking in power or RAM we can't think of a better choice. 3. PhotoScape A simple, unusual editor that can handle more than just photos PhotoScape is, ostensibly, a rather simple photo editor. But one glance at its main menu reveals a wealth of features: RAW conversion, photo splitting and merging, animated GIF creation, and even a rather odd (but useful) function with which you can print lined, graph or sheet music paper. The meat, of course, is in the photo editing. PhotoScape's interface is among the most esoteric of all the apps we've looked at here, with tools grouped into pages in odd configurations. It certainly doesn't attempt to ape Photoshop, and includes fewer features. We'd definitely point this towards the beginner, but that doesn't mean you can't get some solid results. PhotoScape's filters are functional and not at all beginner-like, so it's if good choice if you need to quickly level, sharpen or add mild filtering to pictures in a snap. Steer clear of the rest of the tools, though: you'll find better elsewhere. 4. Google Nik Collection A professional-level filter selection, now made free Google's unending determination to corner just about every market sometimes pays dividends for the pincher of pennies. Take its purchase of German developer Nik in 2012, for example - its Nik Collection photo manipulation plugin range retailed for $500 at the time, and in early 2016 Google decided to do away with the price tag and release the powerful collection for free. We suspect support and updates might be somewhat limited going forward, but this does enable you to bag seven quality tools as-is: lens and film emulator Analog Efex; colour corrector Color Efex; monochrome converter Silver Efex; noise reducer Dfine; selective colour tweaker Viveza; and Sharpener and HDR Efex, which speak for themselves. These are perfect free plugins if you're already using Photoshop, and you can add them to compatible host applications when you install them, but they can also be run as standalone applications if you hunt down their executable files. 5. Pixlr High-end photo editing – and quick filtering – in your browser An ad-supported online editor, Pixlr comes in two flavours: Editor, the more equipped package; and Express, perfect for applying quick fixes without the bloat of the bigger package. It's actually the online editor we tend to gravitate towards, both because of its clean, modern dark interface and because of its efficiency even on systems without much processor muscle. Some of Pixlr Editor's tools, particularly the filters, can be a bit tricky to use because you're not given a proper preview, but the results – when you do eventually get the sliders right – are almost always satisfactory. With support for layers, masks, and a fullscreen mode which means it might as well be a full-on desktop app, Editor (pictured) is a consistently pleasant tool to use. And don't discount Express; a bit of low-effort clicking can really make a huge difference to your photos. 6. Fotor Overall photo enhancement in an easy-to-use package Fotor is a photo enhancer first and foremost, more than it is a photo editor; if there's specific area of retouching you need doing with, say, the clone brush or healing tool, you're out of luck. But it includes a stack of high-end filters that really do shine. There's a foolproof tilt-shift tool, for example, and a raft of vintage and vibrant colour tweaks, all easily accessed through Fotor's clever menu system. You can manually alter your own curves and levels, too, but without the complexity of high-end tools. Fotor's most brilliant function, and one that's sorely lacking in many photo editing packages, is its batch processing tool – feed it a pile of pics and it'll filter the lot of them in one go, perfect if you have a memory card full of holiday snaps and need to cover up the results of a dodgy camera or shaky hand. 7. Vintager Give your photos a quick, classic film look Instagram, eh? Not only has it been an inexplicable social media hit, it's created a love of fancy photo filters the world over. For that classic vintage look on Windows you can't do much better than Vintager, a haven of filters, borders, layers and lens-glint bokehs to make your hastily-fired shots seem like they were meant to look that way. It looks simple on the surface, with a straightforward interface which gives you quick access to filters and overlays, but there's a bit more muscle in here. You can adjust highlights and shadows, muck about with the colour balance of your shots, and even dive into curves and levels. There's also a very handy photo collage mode in which you can compile up to five individually tweaked shots into a single whole. Vintager is probably not going to be your primary photo-processing tool – there are others which do all this and more besides – but for a dead simple way to add flair to photos before uploading them there's not much better. 8. Sumo Paint Powerful in-browser editing, but fewer tools than we'd like Sumo Paint is powerful, no doubt about it. It's a full-featured image editor that sits in your browser, with various artistic tools and paintbrushes thrown in for good measure. Perhaps its range of polygonal shapes and symmetry tools won't suit being plastered over your photographs, but it's high on the list of options if you're looking more on the creative end of things. There are sacrifices to be made, though. Notably the appropriately sumo wrestler-sized ads that eat up your screen space, and the slight performance hit you'll get from running it in-browser. If you want to get rid of the ads or run it on your desktop, stump up for a US$4 (about £3, $AU5.30) subscription. We struggle to recommend it too highly on this basis – while Sumo Paint does have a few tricks up its sleeve, the real magic can be found in plenty of other free apps. 9. IrfanView An image-viewer with added batch editing and conversion Tiny, speedy and relatively unique, IrfanView does things that others don't. Utterly free in the classic, non-laden-with-adverts sense, it's predominantly an image viewer. Given its compact size it's perfect in that role, launching quickly and unfussily and making it easy to flick through a stack of snaps quickly. But it's not limited just to showing you your pictures. IrfanView does batch processing and format conversion very well – we keep it around for that reason alone. It's also useful for screen capturing, and includes support for Adobe Photoshop filters. That means you can use it as a host for, for example, Google's Nik Collection, or any other free filters you might find. Its direct editing tools are reasonably limited and the internal filters aren't particularly stellar or exciting, but give it a try and we're sure you'll find your own reason to keep IrfanView installed. 10. On1 Effects 10 Free Selective filtering for advanced photo effects The 'free' suffix offers some indication of what you're getting here: On1 Effects 10 Free is a cut-down version of On1 Effects 10 proper, pulling out just a limited selection of its filters. But we're still happy to recommend it, mainly because of its methodology. Instead of being forced to apply an effect to a full image, you can use On1's Perfect Brush tool to smear that effect on the areas you're interested in enhancing, which is a great way to create a unique look. Its quick mask and refine brush tools also make masking off areas of your image particularly easy, so you can make elements pop. Essentially this is an taster for the full version, but its diminished filter range – HDR, vignette, vintage, glow etc – is still useful and worth trying if you're after vibrant effects; you'll have to try another program for sharpening, blurring and noise reduction, so On1 Effects Free isn't great if you want to preserve the honesty of your photos.

You are subscribed to email updates from TechRadar: All latest Applications news feeds. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States