[Note: this review was co-written by Freewaregenius contributor Pcfreakske2000 from Belgium]
Dreammail is an E-mail client that can handle SMTP, eSMTP, POP3, and web mail (Hotmail and Yahoo).
Offers a wide range of advanced functions including multi-user and multi email account support, advanced email search, RSS feed aggregation, viewing email directly from the server, spam filtering, and others.
If you’re looking for a solid email client that is an excellent alternative to Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird, then you’ve found it. Dreammail covers a lot of ground and what it does not do very well it nonetheless does quite adequately. Here are some notes on this program:
- The user interface: The user interface is clean, easy to use, and looks good. Employs a navigation pane on the left of the screen reminiscent of MS Outlook that’s used to access the different parts of the program (mail folder, contacts, search, webmail, and RSS feeds).You can customize the columns to view in your email view.
- Multi-accounts and Multi-user feature: You can set up different e-mail accounts in the program for multiple POP3 and webmail accounts. You can also check for new emails for all accounts simultaneously.
- Multi protocol management: POP3, SMTP, and eSMTP supported, as well as Yahoo and Hotmail web mail (yes Gmail is supported as POP3). However, it does not support IMAP email accounts.
- Anti-spam filter & blacklist and whitelist: DreamMail has a built-in spam filter and also allows you to create blacklists and whitelists in order to automatically flag down spam and/or allow trusted email sources. However, although these lists work well the automatic spam detection that Dreammail offers leaves a lot to be desired, and I recommend using a third party Spam filtering program such as K9 Antispam which works very well with Dreammail (although it takes a little bit of initial seting up).
- Send to multiple recipients: you can send a mail to as many people as you would like (unlike other clients that restrict recipients to batches of 50 or so).
- Built in Templates: one of the most notable features about this program is that it includes dozens of pre-existing templates that can be used to create custom-looking emails. There is a wide range or themes to choose from (from business to a ’cartoony’ look to technology, etc). If this feature appeals to you you will likely love Dreammail (not my cup of tea, personally).
- Preview online or offline: a very nice feature where you can preview mails before downloading them, with the option to delete them off the server. Actually comes in quite handy.
- Email search: this is one of the features I like the most. Dreammail can perform searches within an email account (or across accounts) that can be filtered by multiple parameters (e.g. from/to/subject/content of email/comments/type/dates/attachment). Tithis is a feature that I really missed when I used to use Thunderbird a while back, and Dreammail does it without requiring the installation of a top heavy desktop search program (as is the case with Outlook).
- Finding emails: Dreammail is interesting in that it can find messages related to any specific contact easily.
- Encryption: it is possible to encrypt your email folders such that a password is required for access.
Wish list: (or how this program can be even better)
- Dreammail currently only supports language encoding in US-English and Chinese; other characters turn into gibberish. It would be great if more language encoding options were provided.
- Support for tagging and/or virtual folders would be a very welcome addition.
- Sending/receiving faxes is supported for Chinese only. We want English support as well!
The bottom line: If you are looking for a free e-mail client (and, like me, are not satisfied with Thunderbird) then Dreammail just might be the program for you. It is light on resources and has a wide range of features, including interesting ones such as advanced email search, remote viewing of email on the server, and webmail support (amongst others). Check it out for sure.
Version tested: 4.4.1.0
Compatibility: Windows 98, 2000, XP, Vista.
Go to the program page to get the latest version (approx 5 megs).
