Understanding and using Microsoft Outlook Express - Download and Install
What is Outlook Express? - Free email client
Outlook Express is an
email client. In non-technical terms, it is a program that lets you send and receive emails from your computer. It is one of the most popular email clients in the world simply because it comes free with Internet Explorer (and the Windows operating system). Now Internet Explorer comes bundled with Windows which is the most popular operating system and it soon became the
browser of choice on most desktops since it had some great features when compared to its nearest competition, Netscape Navigator (at that time). So as Internet Explorer became popular the usage of Outlook Express as the default email client increased to make it the leading email program on the Internet.
From where do I get Outlook Express? - It's a free download
If you don't have Outlook Express, you can simply download the latest version of Internet Explorer. Outlook Express email client will be installed on your system once you install the browser.
Outlook Express Homepage -
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/oe/.
What does Outlook Express actually do?
Outlook Express allows you send and receive emails from your computer. The good thing about Outlook Express (or any decent email client from that matter), is that it lets you store the
sent and
received emails on your system. Thus, Outlook Express acts like a
emailing center via which you send, receive, store and collate emails.
What is the difference between Outlook Express and Outlook?
Outlook Express, as I mentioned, comes free with Internet Explorer or Windows operating system. It's a lean and mean email client.
Microsoft Outlook on the other hand is an email client but comes at a price. To justify the cost of the software, Microsoft Outlook has tons of features and functionalities which are not present in Outlook Express.
How is Outlook Express different from an online email service?
The difference between Outlook Express and an online email service such as GMail, Hotmail, Yahoo! etc. is that it lets you browse, read and compose emails from your computer
even when you are not connected to the net. To download emails, you do need to connect to the Internet. Email messages are actually stored
on your system, so, you can still read the emails you have received and sent in the past. An online email service works ONLY when you are connected to the net.
Another great feature of Outlook Express (and any other email client worth its salt), is that it lets you read and write emails at your leisure. Let us say you are traveling from Philadelphia to Chicago. You download all your emails via Outlook Express in Philadelphia and then board the flight to Chicago. Now when you open your laptop on the plane and start Outlook Express, you can not only read emails but also write replies and compose new emails. Outlook Express will store all these replies and new emails on your system. Now when you arrive at Chicago, connect to the Internet and open Outlook Express, the program will send the stored email messages.
Outlook Express also lets you segregate email messages into folders. For example, all new emails are stored in the
Inbox folder, the emails which you have sent to people will be stored in the
Sent Items folder and any emails that have yet to be sent are stored in the
Outbox folder. In addition to these three folders, Outlook Express has two more folders. These are the
Drafts and
Deleted Items folders. The
Drafts folder stores email messages that you have composed and
saved while the
Deleted Items folder contains all the deleted emails. [Note: in order to completely delete the emails from your system you need to empty the
Deleted Items folder.]
You can also create folders
inside the Inbox folder to further segregate email messages.
FYI, you can configure Outlook Express to segregate incoming email into different folders using
rules and
filters. For example, potential spam can be junked directly into the
Deleted Items folder.
What kind of email accounts can I use in Outlook Express?
Outlook Express can be used for any POP3 or IMAP email account. POP3, which stands for
Post Office Protocol 3, is a set of rules with which one accesses and downloads emails.
IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) is a set of rules with which emails are assessed.
If you have a web site hosted on a server, most likely the hosting package would come with a few POP3 email accounts. Thus,
[email protected] would most likely be a POP3 email.
Can I receive emails from online email services in Outlook Express?
Online email services such as Gmail provide free POP3 access to the email account; you should read configure Gmail account on Outlook Express if you want step-by-step instructions on how to do that. Hotmail used to have this feature but it has since discontinued it. Other popular online emails services might charge a small fee for POP3 access.
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