PC users typically use Microsoft Outlook or Windows Mail as their e-mail client. Maybe some people use Thunderbird by Mozilla as well. But there’s another option if none of those work for you. Called Mailbird Pro, it was pitched to me as an email client that unifies all online communication for Windows. That pitch got my attention, so I installed it into my Windows 10 VM to find out.
The first thing about Mailbird Pro that got my attention is the setup. It’s insanely simple. If you have the e-mail address and password, it figures everything out for you. I tested this with POP/IMAP email servers, as well as Microsoft Exchange servers. Both worked perfectly. For the record, it also supports Outook.com, Yahoo Mail, Google Mail among others. Once you get past that, you’re asked if you want to add your social media accounts as well as productivity accounts. It supports Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Asana, Dropbox, Todoist, moo.do among others.
Once you have your e-mail account(s) set up, you get to see a simple and clean interface. That’s something that I really liked and you can customize it to make it work for you. But the key thing is that Mailbird Pro is more than just an email client:
- You can use Google or Sunrise calendar apps to easily schedule meetings and combine multiple calendars.
- You can use the WhatsApp instant messaging app inside Mailbird Pro so you don’t need to reach for your phone or tablet to communicate via WhatsApp.
- If you need to meet online, you can use the Veeting Rooms app to create virtual meeting rooms and use them from WhatsApp.
- You can have a unified inbox where you can deal with all your e-mail in one place.
- You can “snooze” email. What does that mean? If there’s a task/email that you don’t want to dealt with right now you snooze them. The email will then leave your inbox, and return to it at a time that you’ve specify. This way you can concentrate on the important email an increase your productivity.
All of this is meant to make Mailbird Pro your single pane of glass for communicating to the world. In the few days that I used it, I found that it helped me to be very productive because I felt that I was in control of any communications that I used via Mailbird Pro. Which means that if you’re like me and you get a ton of e-mail and other communications during the day, this is one tool that can help you to get some sanity back in your life. If there’s a downside, it’s Windows only. Thus I hope that this client makes an appearance on the Mac platform as I’d dump Apple Mail for this in a heartbeat.
Mailbird Pro is available for $6 (currently down from $12) per user per year, or $22.50 (currently down from $45) for a lifetime. If you want to try before you buy, there’s a free lite version of Mailbird that limits some of the feature set. My advice, download the lite version, try it out and buy it. I really think it will make a huge difference in the way you interact with e-mail, and everything else in your digital life.
Re-Review: Mailbird Pro
Posted in Commentary with tags Mailbird Pro on September 9, 2016 by itnerdNot so long ago, I posted a review of Mailbird Pro and in short I loved it. My only gripe was that I wished for a Mac version. Fast forward a few months and I am looking at a brand new version of Mailbird Pro. No it doesn’t have a Mac version (Hint: Can you make a Mac version of your app please? I’d buy it tomorrow if you did), but there’s quite a lot here that is new. So I will start with that.
One of the more interesting features is that you can browse the net from Mailbird Pro as they have integrated Google Chrome into the product. Thus Mailbird Pro takes a further step to becoming as close to a “single pane of glass” for all of your Internet activities as you can possibly get to. Now I was dubious of this feature at first. But after using it for a day or so, I can see how it would be very useful for novice users or users who aren’t comfortable with using different apps for different tasks on the Internet. Added to this is Google Search which allows you to search right from MailBird Pro using a right click. That isn’t exactly new as OS X has done this for a while, but it is a very handy feature to have. I have to say that these two features alone have taken a product that was already quite good and made it better. Customizing Mailbird Pro is a focus as well as you can now add your own background, font, colors and sounds too. Plus the company is promising addtional features in the next few weeks that will really add value to Mailbird Pro.
What hasn’t changed is the ease of installation, and how customizable it is, and the amount of functions that it will do. Everything that I said in my original review is still true with this version, which is great as sometimes companies lose sight of their core feature set when they add new features.
Mailbird Pro pricing has changed since I reviewed it a few months ago. It is available for $22.50 for a lifetime, or $1 a month billed annually. If you want to try before you buy, there’s a free lite version of Mailbird that does give you a limited trial of the full Mailbird Pro feature set. My advice is the same as a few months ago. Try it, and I think you’ll be buying it.
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