For months been getting popups telling me that Windows Mail is going away and I need to upgrade to Outlook. This morning I decided to make the switch. The first thing I notice is ads. What the hell. I find out I have to pay $20 a year to get Outlook without ads. Looked into a couple third party email programs, they also have ads. Seems like everyone wants to nickel and dime me to death. I finally decide I don’t need an all in one email program. I have a couple Gmail accounts I can access through Google and I can access my Comcast email through their website.
I don’t know if this will work for you, but check out this thread on Thunderbird, a free email client:
Is Thunderbird (email app) still good? - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board
I was using MS Office Outlook for years until some security changes made by my email ISP made it stop working. I had some complaints about Thunderbird at first (and I would still prefer Office Outlook) but after making some configuration changes (described in that thread) I’m OK with it now. It looks like the security stuff may have been rolled back so I may be able to use Office Outlook again, but I’m not sure if it’s even worth going back at this point. But I have to have an email client – I hate the idea of being at the mercy of some email provider’s horrible web interface, and it doesn’t allow you to integrate different email services in one interface.
And here I was all geared up to join a likely well-deserved pitting of multiple sclerosis.
I endorse this OP.
Personally I prefer Outlook but I used Thunderbird for years and it was a perfectly fine email client. I don’t think you’re going to get a better one for free.
The bane of the acronym. ISTM that Americans in particular are fond of these, often to the dismay of people not in the know (of whatever branch), wading through the c. 234 parallel meanings per acronym.
I’m actually not even sure what “Outlook” even means any more. Microsoft’s email service formerly called Hotmail was renamed to Outlook, there are Outlook “apps” you can buy for mobile devices, and there’s undoubtedly stuff you can buy for Windows that are either subscription based (Office 365) or one-off products. I’ve long since lost track.
But the “Outlook” that I’m referring to when I said I used it for a great many years (in fact, ever since Office XP, which was nearly a goddam quarter-century ago!) is the one that simply came bundled with Microsoft Office, which included Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and in the business edition, Outlook and a bunch of other stuff. Office 2003, including Outlook, still works fine for me in every respect, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to give Bill Gates my hard-earned money just because my ISP are being assholes about their new email security protocols.
That’s the version I use, except it also includes OneDrive cloud storage to back up my more important files from multiple devices.
Its part of the Microsoft 365 service that I’m fortunate to get at a discount through my employer.
Yeah, me too. An old friend had multiple sclerosis, and I well remember her saying, “Screw you, MS!” among other things that don’t belong in a family newspaper. She was the sort who could eat nails and shit rust, and she fought it, until it finally brought her down. It’s been years, but I miss her.
Rest well, old friend.
Yeah, the Outlook you are talking about is the one that now comes with Windows 11, and is free. Microsoft has doubled down on ad supported apps.
The real Outlook, the premium program that comes with Microsoft Office, I hope doesn’t have ads, but it’s also $160 standalone (though there are keys that are significantly cheaper of dubious provenance).
Yeah, if you want an free email app, Thunderbird is the way I would go. Though, if you actually use Gmail, you can also set it up to check all your emails and put ones from different addresses in different folders. That’s what I do.
Are we, though? I am American but between 1986 and 2018 lived outside the US with occasional extended stays in the US. Just an anecdote, but in my experience some non-Americans (Australians and Indonesians in particular) love acronyms as much as and possibly more than Americans. Didn’t you just use one yourself?
That was the joke. But being here in SDMB from about Feb. 2000, I have been stymied by acronyms used here by Americans something like a thousand times. I’m also a longtime member in about dozen other online forums, all U.S.-based, and the acronym soup being served is equally dense there.
I have little experience with Australian use of the written language, and zero with Indonesian. No doubt there are many places where acronyms rule. Writing on the phone becoming the default must’ve been a huge boon for the damned things.
BTW, acronyms are just fine if the user explains what they stand for in this particular niche, before before getting technical, but that very rarely happens. All it would take is to Spell It Out, once.
So, Screw you, Multiple Sclerosis / Master of Surgery / Memoriae Sacrum / Member of the Senedd / Mauritius.
What about Maurice Sendak?
Me too. But I suspect it’s just those who are or know someone who is struggling with this disease.
Everyone struggles with Microsoft.
I Shuck The Molluscs?!
I use Microsoft Calendar, which is also being faded out in favor of the new Outlook. So I thought I would give it a try, and maybe use the Mail app too, if it was any good (it wasn’t). After downloading it and starting it up, I discover there is no way to import my old MS Calendar. Then it appears that there is now no way for me to open said MS Calendar, maybe it is gone forever. This is not only unacceptable it is majorly stupid (so just about what I generally expect from Microsoft).
Fortunately, after I uninstalled Outlook, apparently the Calendar app was still there, operating in the background, and the next time I had a scheduled event I got my popup reminder, and was able to open the app and re-establish it on my task bar, and now I’m back where I want to be. I’m hoping that, as long as I don’t try to use Outlook again and don’t “upgrade” to Windows 11, I can keep using Calendar.
I found these instructions to export your calendar to a .ics file you can then import into other calendar programs later:
- Open the Calendar app and click on the gear icon at the bottom left corner.
- Click on Manage Accounts and select the account that you want to export.
- Click on Settings and sharing and then click on Export calendar.
- Save the zip file to your computer and extract it. You should see an .ics file inside.
The .ics format is a widely-recognized file format that should import into almost any other calendar program.
In addition, if you do choose to upgrade to Windows 11, you can continue to use Microsoft Calendar. And you can download and install Microsoft Calendar from the Microsoft Store through the end of this year.
They will officially end support for the app at the end of this year as well but that doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t use it, it will just mean you won’t be able to download it again (through official channels) and they will no longer be putting out updates such as bug fixes and security patches, so it will be risky to do so.
I completely trashed my Outlook 2010 by trying to set up a new Hotmail address. I have no idea why this happened (too old?) and I’ve been completely unsuccessful rescuing the program.
I had to switch to Thunderbird. It works well, but I really wish I had Outlook back.
Really? I sure couldn’t find it once I had installed and uninstalled Outlook, but I was so frustrated I probably was doing something wrong.
Thanks for the instructions. Foolishly, I thought Microsoft might have had an easier, more intuitive method for importing data from one of their own products. But nooooo. Anyway, I don’t like Outlook’s mail well enough to want to use it, so if MS Calendar goes under, I probably won’t be switching to Outlook. I’ll keep these instructions for whatever other program I do end up with.
Hahahahaha… No. Fucking Microsoft.
And you’re welcome. 