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What it does
Web based email services are great but they don't work well from inside Windows.
So for example, if you click an email link on a web page Windows will most likely start your desktop email client. You will get a similar response from Windows if you try to email a document from Word or right click a file on your desktop and select "Send to mail recipient." Windows simply does not recognise web mail services.
Affixa is a free desktop program that solves this problem very effectively. Once installed and configured, Affixa allows you to use you web mail service from within Windows just as if it were a desktop email client.
You can set your web mail program up so that it automatically selected as your default email client or alternatively, you can select which email account you want to use for the action you initiated.
So for example if you want to send a link to web site to someone from your browser you could set it up to automatically use your Gmail account or you could configure Affixa so that you were offered a choice of Gmail or Microsoft Office.
That's quite handy for situations where for example you want to send your private email via Gmail and your business email via Outlook.
But Affixa does more. One of its best features is the way it allows you to send attachments via your web mail service.
If you right click on any file and select "Send to mail recipient" then Affixa automatically creates an email in your webmail account drafts folder with the file attached. You can then open that mail and send it whoever you want.
If the attachment contained photographs Affixa offers to shrink them to a smaller size.
If you have several attachments you can create a "collection" to be emailed. If the attachment is too large for your web mail service Affixa offers to deliver the attachments via the free Drop.io web service.
Limitations:
Affixa works with Gmail, Gmail Apps Mail and Yahoo!. If you use Hotmail or other web mail service, you are out of luck.
The program is only free for personal use. Commercial licences cost around $4 per person per year.
The free version is limited to a single web mail account. However you can upgrade for approximately US$4 per year to a subscription account that supports multiple web mail accounts as well some other features such as zip compression of attachments.
Affixa requires the Microsoft .NET 2.0 to be installed on the host PC.
Affixa uses quite a lot of memory. On an Windows XP Pro system this averaged around 32MB with peak of 52MB. With a modern PC with 1GB or more of memory this should not be a problem but it could be an issue on older machines.
Gizmo's View:
If you use Gmail or Yahoo Mail you are going to find much to like here with few negatives and should definitely give this product a try.
Windows XP, Vista, 2003 or 2008, 2.5MB
Many thanks to Andrew Seward for suggesting this product
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Affixa cannot set MS Word to send to email - like the picture at the top, that's what I am trying to do, but never found a way.
To set firefox to send mailto addresses to gmail use this tip: A simple javascript query to add it to firefox: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/power-tip-set-gmail-as-your-defaul...
Thunderbird will very easily allow you to set up Gmail accounts without any addons or plugins. Also if you get the "webmail" plugin then it will also allow you to check your Hotmail and Yahoo accounts too (just make sure you have it set up to only retrieve new mail and to mark as read once downloaded otherwise you end up with duplicates).
You can also check all these accounts using Outlook if you get the right addins.
Gmail also offers a very handy free Calendar sync tool that works with Outlook to sync you Google calendar to your desktop. This makes Outlook the best option hands down for Gmail accounts (obviously not free though but most Windows users have MSOffice). Otherwise choose Thunderbird which is free and has a portable version too so you can take it with you if you wish) and also has decent Google Calendar integration (not quite as good as Outlook's tho).
Both TB and MSO have full Windows integration.
Both Google and AOL offer free, *secure*, IMAP service (yes, and POP service, too). Secure, as no one can read your mail but you and your email provider. There is no good reason to be using webmail instead of a mail client like Outlook or Thunderbird on your own computer if either of these is your email providers. Of course, if you're using a mail client then the right things will happen automatically when you click a "mailto:" link.
Details, from the horse's mouth as it were:
"Other ways to access Gmail"
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=12769
"Read and Send AOL or AIM E-mail With Other E-mail Applications"
http://help.aol.com/help/microsites/microsite.do?cmd=displayKCPopup&docT...
"How to Use Mozilla Thunderbird to Read and Send AOL or AIM E-mail"
http://help.aol.com/help/microsites/microsite.do?cmd=displayKCPopup&docT...
[Pictures! Just make your T'bird look like their T'bird.]
I'm a Yahoo! from way back, so I too am a big fan of the Thunderbird WebMail extension. WebMail "reads" the webmail interface of Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail/Windows Live, and others and passes the messages on to Thunderbird. Again, the right thing happens when you click a "mailto:" link.
"Thunderbird"
http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/
"Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition"
http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/thunderbird_portable
[N.B.: As useful as this is, if you don't install the app then your browser won't know to use it to send email, which is *really* what we're doing today, isn't it?]
"WebMail" [Thunderbird extension]
http://webmail.mozdev.org/
Finally, if you use GMail and still prefer to use the webmail interface, at least use it securely by starting from here:
https://mail.google.com/
instead of here:
http://mail.google.com/
See the "s"? It makes all the difference. Instead of being returned to an unsecure "http:" connection after you log in, the secure "https:" connection will persist for as long as you're logged in. (Aren't those Google people nice?)
I have my Gmail set-up to send messages using my Yahoo address. Gmail also allows POP, which integrate with Outlook, so when I send a message and my desktop client opens, it's as if I'm using Gmail, albeit with a Yahoo address.
Another alternative would be to use Opera browser with it's built in email client - works with Gmail and Hotmail, choose to send messages via any of your email addresses direct from within your browser.
http://www.opera.com/mail/start/
I too much prefer Opera. I have mail coming in all the time and it's so easy to just click the side tab rather than switching between apps. It also saves on resources especially compared to Thunderbird.
I've been using ePrompter ( http://www.eprompter.com ) for years. It's not quite as good as it used to be (I have to run Stunnel alongside it to access SSL accounts), but it's small and does what it's supposed to.
Still, I'll check out this Pop Peeper.
ePrompter also does not do what Affixa does. Affixa is being recommended here because it can capture browser email activity that would normally be sent to a desktop client, and redirect it to a webmail account.
Zimbra desktop is much better option. Not only does it allow itself to be set as default email program in Windows but also allows offline access to all Yahoo, GMail, Rocketmail, Ymail etc. It also synchronizes your offline mail and mail on the above web servers (which is the best part of it as you can send, delete, move mails across folders for above web mail accounts quickly using desktop and Zimbra will ensure that it synchronizes with the web server soon after) using IMAP.
It is a free product from Yahoo but works independently with many mail servers.
I've tried Zimbra, and I particularly like its ability to access YahooMail via IMAP, something thunderbird can't do. So all my Ymail folders show up in zimbra.
Unfortunately, it's really a memory hog. It installs services and a background program that keeps running at all times, using above 130 MB on my machine while idle. I can't understand why it eats up so much memory.
I tried Zimbra a few days ago and so far it's a Beta release.
I think it has the potential to be a good tool, but until they work out the bugs I experienced, such as the program quitting every other time I sent or received mail, I'll use something else.
I have the mentioned scenario where I use Outlook for work email and also use Gmail via Thunderbird for personal stuff, so I can't wait to try Affixa. I'll let you know how it goes.
I set up Affixa for my Outlook but due to the limitations of the freeware I could not test it with a second account, which would have been the Gmail account, so it did me no good at all.
I appreciate that they only want less than $4 USD for the paid version, but I can't even tell if it'll work for me without paying for it.
Next...!
I would suggest Pop Peeper. http://www.poppeeper.com/
It is meant to be an email notifier, but you can use it as a front end to all your webmail accounts. You can Read, delete, print and reply to Email without opening your email client.
It works with POP3, IMAP (with IDLE support), Hotmail\MSN\LiveMail, Yahoo, GMail, Mail.com, MyWay, Excite, iWon, Lycos.com, RediffMail, Juno and NetZero accounts.
It supports multiple accounts, and work smoothly on 2000/XP and Vista.
The user interface is basic, but it does its job perfectly well.
Best regards.
-bu
The whole point of this article is that Affixa can capture email links or browser email commands in webpages and redirect them to a webmail account. Pop Peeper does not do this. Being compatible with POP webmail is not what the article is talking about.
Ahhhh...
...wisdom.
Agreed!
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