SPAMfighter is a plugin for Mozilla Thunderbird, MS Outlook, Outlook Express and Windows Live Mail, that removes spam and phishing emails from the inbox of your mail client. Normally, anti-spam applications and plugins rely on filters and other rule based methods; however, spammers often find a way around these filters. This often results in plugins and applications becoming redundant after a short period of stability. SPAMfighter uses community-based filters and acknowledges the reports by large communities of people who report spam or phishing messages, when they receive them. This makes SPAMfighter more efficient in detecting spam, as it is reported by multiple users. Such emails are  automatically filtered for the rest of the SPAMfighter community. Furthermore, many of the spam and phishing emails are filtered out by this add-in, before they even reach the inbox of many users. This means that you can get instant spam protection, and even if you end up receiving spam, you can report it to help the SPAMfighter community and avoid receiving mails from the sender in future.

SPAMfighter asks for an email address to monitor during it’s installation, and you can specify your default mail client email address to proceed further.

Once SPAMfighter is installed, launch it from the system tray menu by clicking Settings.

The Overview tab provides information about the spam shield, such as processed emails, blocked emails, emails blocked by you, time saved and the spam ratio. Some quick tips are also provided on the top right side for avoiding spam. You can specify your spam filtering preferences for a specific mail client from Clients section. From here, you can select your mail client by clicking its name and choosing the spam filtering mechanism (read mail, unread mails). Other than mail clients, you can also configure settings for a local Exchange server (mail server).

You can manually add/remove recipients to a block list from the Filters section. From here, you can add email addresses to block list, select a whitelist (by default all contacts are imported from the mail client and added to your whitelist), select language acceptance/rejection filters and select a sensitivity filter level, (Very Soft, Soft, Default, Hard or Very Hard).

In case you are wondering how your mail client is protected by SPAMfighter, it adds as an add-on to your mail client. You might have to do this manually after a prompt in Mozilla Thunderbird, whereas, it may install itself in other clients, such as MS Outlook (as determined during testing). It is worth mentioning here that SPAMfighter displays some ads for other products, and clicking the name of these products takes you to the developer’s website. SPAMfighter works in Trail mode for 30 days and converts to a free version if you don’t buy a license. In case you have problems uninstalling this add-on, head over to “C:\Program Files (x86)\Fighters” and click Uninstall.

Download SPAMfighter

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• Cloudmark DesktopOne: Filter Spam Messages In Multiple Email Clients
• Outlook 2010 Anti-Spam Plugin [Spam Filter]
• Identify Spam Emails And Remove Them With Spam Reader [Outlook Add-In]

Cloudmark DesktopOne is an anti-spam application which protects your emails from spam and phishing. It can either be integrated as a toolbar in email clients, such as, MS Outlook, Thunderbird or tied to a specific mail account (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo mail, Lycos mail account, etc). It works independent of your e-mail client to block spam even when your e-mail program is closed or when you are not logged into your webmail account using your favorite browser. It supports all major email clients; Outlook 2002/2003/2007/2010, Windows Mail, Outlook Express, Thunderbird 3.0 or higher, as well as other IMAP and POP supported email accounts.

DesktopOne has both a free and paid version. The Pro version costs $19.95 and provides some additional features such as the utility to filter unlimited number of folders, manual scan of emails, auto deletion of spam mails, and technical support. Whereas, the free version provides filtering for only one folder (e.g. Inbox), is usable with IMAP, POP, Exchange server, and Webmail accounts. DesktopOne simplifies the mechanism of filtering spam from not just your mail clients but also your web mail accounts and for this reason it is an all in one package for getting rid of spam mails from online accounts and mail client on your local PC. During installation Clodmark DesktopOne prompts you to enter an activation code which is only applicable for Pro users. If you are using the basic free mode, select the basic Mode option and click Next to continue.

In the next step, select a mail client or configure an email address to monitor and click Next. DesktopOne automatically finds the email accounts that are configured for Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail, or Mozilla Thunderbird, etc. Select the account you want to filter, or add other account manually. As a Cloudmark subscriber, you can add as many accounts or folders as you like, including exchange accounts, accounts that you access on other computers and accounts you access via web mail.

You will be asked to install the toolbar when you start your mail client. This toolbar will be used to help you manage spam mail filtering options. Once installed, a confirmation window will pop-up to inform you that the toolbar was installed successfully. In case you select a webmail account, it will be automatically monitored for spam mails online.

The Block button on your mail client appears once the DesktopOne toolbar is installed. It allows you to send spam and phishing messages from your mailbox to your spam folder. The accounts from the blocked mails will be automatically monitored and filtered for future incoming mails. Normally, all emails are filtered automatically, however, this option can be used for emails which might have been missed by DesktopOne (if any) or when you add a sender to the filter list manually. The free version supports filtering only a single folder such as the Inbox.

The blocked emails are sent to the Spam folder from where you can Unblock them before deletion in case you accidentally mark a legitimate sender as “Blocked”. This can be done by selecting the mail from the Spam folder and selecting Unblock.

To configure a web mail address, launch DesktopOne and add an email address. You can enter account credentials to monitor a webmail address, test mail connection, select spam folder scanning time (e.g. every 1 hour) and set spam folder email duration. You can also create an email white list from Approved (Senders) tab.

Cloudmark DesktopOne works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download Cloudmark DesktopOne

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• Outlook 2010 Anti-Spam Plugin [Spam Filter]
• Outlook 2010 Junk/Spam Filter
• Identify Spam Emails And Remove Them With Spam Reader [Outlook Add-In]

Tired of getting plethora of spam messages in your mailbox everyday? Sadly, Outlook intrinsic Spam filtering system is not efficient enough to identify junk mails nor does it offer a convenient way to move spam mails to user-defined special folders. This compels heavy Outlook users to consider third party options to properly identify, filter, and move spam mails to special folder with facilities to manage and delete superfluous mails with a single click.

Spam Reader is an add-in for Outlook, offering multi-level spam filtering solution to detect spam mails. Supporting widely used mail protocols – POP, IMAP, Exchange, HTTP, it can filter junk mails from all types of mailboxes that you’ve configured in Outlook. Spam filtering system is based on Bayesian algorithm which looks for particular phrases, words, links, and other characters which are commonly used by spammers and are present in system auto-generated emails. You can further apply a customized spam filter layer by defining a white and black spam list of sender email addresses.

After the installation, it will add a new tab called Spam Reader on Ribbon. When you launch Outlook, it will automatically start inspecting default inbox folder for spam messages and show notification of total number of spam it found during first scan.

Once preliminary scanning process is finished, move to Spam Reader tab and open newly created Spam folder to mark ‘normal emails’ as ‘good emails’ by clicking respective button in Marking messages section. Adjacent to it, Junk E-mail option is present to mark mails present in your inbox as spam. Apart from checking default Inbox folder, it also allows you to check other Outlook mail folders for spam messages.

The Test Message option will show the reasons why a message got marked as spam. It lists down all the phrases, word, links, and other content contained in selected email which were filtered according to Bayesian filtering technique.

To remove all the spam messages off the Spam folder, click Delete Spam Folder and rescan the mail folders. From Options, you can change the default spam folder location and change other spam mails related options, such as, automatically mark all spam messages as Read and enable or disable desktop notifications. The spam filter options are present in Phrase Filter, where you can change the filtering settings. Next to it, you can create white and black list for specific senders email addresses.

It works on all versions of Outlook. We tested it successfully on Outlook 2010. Both 32-bit and 64-bit editions are supported.

Download Spam Reader

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• Outlook 2010 Anti-Spam Plugin [Spam Filter]
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• Protect Your Mail Client Against Spam Emails With Spamihilator

Outlook Notify is a minuscule application to notify user about new emails and unread emails for mail accounts configured in Outlook. It doesn’t require you to launch the Outlook nor does it use any Outlook instance to notify you about new emails, the only requirement is for the server to be properly configured to look for new emails. The application works only in presence of Exchange web services running on MS Exchange 2007 or 2010 with Outlook client configured already. Moreover, it offers support for Web Access, you can also enable the Web Access option to keep itself updated with new messages.

After the application is installed, you will find it in system tray. Running it for the first time prompts you to configure some basic server settings. According to the developer, the server address must be properly entered in order to use the application. Afterwards, specify mail check time Interval and username & password. If you’re intending to use Web Access then you will need to enter its URL address otherwise specify the path of Outlook folder. Once all settings are in place, click Save and check the connectivity status.

As long as status is connected, you will be notified about the latest emails. For the first time it will notify you about the unread mails in your mailbox and for every new email received it will show the sender name as well.

The application runs on Windows Server 2003/2008, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. It requires Exchange Services on MS Exchange 2007/2010 along with pre-configured Outlook client/Web Access.

Download Outlook Notify

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SenderOK is Windows only intelligent plug-in for Outlook 2007/2003 & Webmail(GMail, Yahoo Mail, and Windows Live Mail/Hotmail) that works on Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome. Outlook 2010 is not supported at the moment so we will only review the webmail feature in this post.

Update: SenderOK has been renamed to EmailTray, read our latest review here.

It has a build-in intelligent program that will detect all spam and your activity with each user. It can also recover important emails from Spam folder and out them back to the main Inbox folder. Yellow means the email is ranked as VIP and green means the email is Important. You can also mark the routine emails as grey, the colors can always be customized.

Instead of having to run separate notification tools for GMail, Hotmail, and Yahoo Mail, SenderOK will monitor all 3 and alert you of new important emails. Apart from it, you can also be notified of all important emails in your Outlook inbox.

All mails are categorized into three groups, VIP, Important, and Routine. If you have subscribed to a newsletter and receive regular emails frequently, it will marked as Routine. If the conversation with a person(email recipient) is regular, it will be ranked as Important or VIP, depending on the sort of activity between the two.

It is a perfect app for users who receive hundreds of emails daily since it will only alert of Important and VIP emails and exclude the Routine emails, thus, decreasing the distraction and increasing productivity at the workplace.

There is no limit on the number of email accounts you want SenderOK to monitor, you can manage the accounts from Webmail accounts tab in Settings. You can also choose the browsers for which the extensions should be installed, by default, all three browsers are checked.

Everything in SenderOK is customizable, including but not limited to notifications, tray icon, and webmail labels. SenderOK lets you create a business card which is visible to other SenderOK users.

All-in-all, it is a perfect plugin for users who use Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, or/and Windows Live Mail extensively at workplace. The best part is that is free and has no feature restrictions of any kind.

Download SenderOK

It works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

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We have been covering Outlook 2010’s features in much detail, but since it won’t be released before June 2010, it is time to look at Thunderbird 3. There are 14 new noticeable features in Thunderbird 3 which are enough to make you ditch Outlook.

Editor’s Note: Thunderbird 3 has been released, grab it now. The folks over at Mozilla have finished working on the features, they are now fixing the bugs, tweaking the client, and performing some testing before releasing the final version.

It is important to know what’s new in Thunderbird 3 before giving it a try. You launch it up and proclaim, “Huh! There seems to be nothing new”. This is exactly what this post is about, showing you 14 new features in Thunderbird 3 that you can’t seem to find otherwise.

Tabbed Interface

It is one feature Mozilla knows how to implement. They were the first to implement it in Firefox(alright Opera was the first one, but what I meant here was that tabbed browsing of Firefox is better than Opera’s, atleast IMO) and the rest is history. Now the tabbed interface has arrived in Thunderbird 3 as well, allowing users to open multiple folders, emails, and search results with ease. When you quit Thunderbird, all tabs are saved and then restored the next time you open Thunderbird. The quickest way to open messages or folders in a new tab is to Middle-click them.

New Global Search With Advanced Filtering Tools

Thunderbird 3 has dramatically improved the Global Search(with autocomplete feature), making it one of the best search feature I have ever seen in an email client. The improved Global Search is both quick, and simple. Once you enter a keyword and hit Enter, it will open the search result in a new tab.

You can filter out the emails from the left sidebar, they can be filtered by emails send by you, send to you, starred, or those which include attachments. Click any person and you will be able to filter out the emails send/received by/from that person.

You can also filter the emails by timeline, it is located on top and can be enabled by clicking the small timeline button on the upper-right corner. It also gives a better visualization on the emails send/received over time.

New Mail Account Setup Wizard

This is the first thing you are going to observe when setting up an account in Thunderbird 3. Instead of having to manually enter the settings, it will match against the database of email settings from popular email providers, thus, you only need to provide the name, email, and password. If IMAP support is enabled in Gmail settings, Thunderbird will automatically set it up for you.

Redesigned Mail Toolbar

The mail toolbar on top has been redesigned, it now includes the Global search bar while the buttons such as Reply, Forward, Archive, Junk, and Delete are now part of each email. You can always add them back by customizing the toolbar.

Smart Folders

The folder pane on the left sidebar now offers Smart Folders which is enabled by default. So what is Smart Folders? This mode allows users to combine special mailboxes, such as, Inbox, from multiple accounts.

Messages Summary View

This feature is a dream come true for many users. Now when you select multiple email messages, Thunderbird 3 will show you the summary in the Preview pane along with the amount of space these messages are taking up. If you selected 2 email messages from the same person, they will be merged into one and the number of messages will be shown in the brackets next to it. Beat that, Outlook?

Message Archiving

With improved IMAP support comes improved Synchronization. Thunderbird 3 now supports email message archiving, meaning that you can now file any message in Inbox into the new Archive folder system. If you archive an email message from Inbox, it will be added to the All Mail folder just like it happens in Gmail.

Improved Gmail Integration

Thunderbird now recognizes and integrates Gmail’s special folders, such as, Sent and Trash, including non-English versions of Gmail. As I mentioned above(in Message Archive), Thunderbird now uses All Mail as Archives folder for Gmail.

Activity Manager

Every interaction that happens between Thunderbird and the email server is logged in one place, Activity Manager. It can be accessed by going to Tools > Activity Manager.

Improved Address Book

The address book has been improved dramatically. If someone is in your address book, it is indicated by a new star icon which upon clicking will allow you to edit the contact details inline. And if they are not in your address book, one click on the icon and you can add them. There is now a new option to enter the birthday and photo of the contact.

New Add-on Manager

The new add-on manager is very different from the point of functionality. Now you can find, download, and install add-ons(extensions, themes, and plugins) without having to use the web browser. It can be launched from Tools > Add-ons.

Message Threads

I am not sure about this feature(perhaps it is included in Thunderbird 2.x too), but it was discovered accidentally. You can display message threads which allow better visibility of the email messages, also it can be a great way to quickly check for a specific message in the email conversation. First select an email message, then hit the small Message Threads icon on the upper-left corner. You can also sort Emails by Star or Attachments.

Integration With Windows Search (Windows 7/Vista)

On first start, Thunderbird will prompt you to install the indexing system in Windows 7/Vista. This will help index all emails in Windows Search and allow users to see emails and new messages in Windows search results.

Improvements For Mac

Some improvements have been made to the Mac version of Thunderbird client. It is now integrated with Spotlight, can import Mail.app, read Mac OS X address book, and can use Growl for new email alerts.

Conclusion

There has been quite some buzz about Thunderbird 3’s new features but it has died down quickly, this is due to the lack of information on the new functionalities. Now you know what really is new, it is time to get excited about Thunderbird 3’s debut.

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Foxtract is an opensource command line tool that can recover all emails from Microsoft Outlook Express instantly. Unlike other recovery tools that read the tree structure, it takes a different approach when extracting the emails from the Outlook Express data files.

According to the developer:

It will scan the whole data file to find all message segments, which it will use to determine the head segment of a message. A single mail can be composed of several segments – every segment takes up to 512 bytes, so for instance a 3 Mb message will be composed of 6144 segments. Once the head segment is found, there is a good chance that the message can be retrieved.

Once downloaded, place it somewhere safe and run it from the Windows Command Prompt. Now type the full path and the file name of the Outlook Express Message Store File(in .dbx format).

Please note that this tool can recover emails from Outlook Express data files (.dbx format), but cannot recover the emails from Microsoft Outlook 2003/2007/2010 since they use .pst file. The names are similar and sometimes confusing for the users, but the fact is that both email clients don’t use the same data format.

Download Foxtract

It works on all versions of Windows including the latest Windows 7. Enjoy!

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Here I am going to review the step by step guide which will allow facebook users to sync contacts, events, and birthdays. For the latter two, we will be using fbCal, since there doesn’t appear to be any better solution out there at the moment.

First lets begin with Contacts. There are two apps which can help to sync contacts from Facebook to Outlook, they are OutSync & Fonebook. Both have almost similar usage and restrictions. These apps can only import the names, photos, and birthdays, but cannot import the contact numbers or website URLs, this is because Facebook does not allow it’s collection.

Get OutSync

Get Fonebook

Now for importing events and calendars, follow the review here for fbCal. Hit the Microsoft Outlook buttons under both Events and Birthdays to add them respectively.

That’s it. If you know about any other tool which can help sync Facebook with other services or apps, feel free to share it with us. Enjoy!

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I have a feeling that Microsoft Outlook might not survive longer than expected, while Thunderbird has finally gotten a serious competitor today.

eM Client was first launched last year to the public, the development started back in 2006. It was aimed to be a light-weight alternative to Outlook, or in developers’ own words an “Outlook killer”. After a total of 1300 revisions, earlier today a newer version 2.0 beta was released to the masses.

eM Client 2.0 has a slightly different UI when compared with the original client and has hundreds of newly added features. Some remarkable features include Multi-Calendar with reminders, Google Calendar and Contacts sync, build-in Facebook and IM integration, ActiveSync support, integrated Anti-virus, newer sidebar, new search toolbar, drag & drop support, and more.

Even though most functionalities mentioned above are possible in Thunderbird by using plugins, eM Client has everything build-in. This saves the headache of having to search, install, and manage various different plugins.

Setting up a new account is similar to setting it up in Outlook, just enter your name and email address, make sure Automatically discover server settings checkbox is checked and hit Next. If you are using the widely popular GMail, it will grab the default incoming and outgoing server settings. For few services you will have to manually enter the Incoming and Outgoing address, which is not a big deal.

What I like specifically is that to add Google Account and import & sync Calendar and Contacts, you don’t need to manually configure anything. They can be added through a simple Account Wizard, just select Google from the list and hit Next.

Once the account is up, you can import messages and contacts from Outlook, Windows Address Book, Facebook, Google, and other email clients and services.

You can quickly access Mail, Calendar, Tasks, and Contacts from the left sidebar. There is also a small sidebar on the right side of the window where Contacts, Contacts details, Communication history and Attachment history are displayed.

To send a new message, hit New button. You can also create new task, calendar, and contact by selecting them from New drop-down context menu.

There are so many features that we have not mentioned them all in this post. To view the complete list of features along with the list of changes, go here. Below I have posted few extra screenshots of this client for your viewing pleasure.

Can’t wait to get your hands on this client? Grab it from the link below.

Download eM Client

It works on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003/2008, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. Enjoy!

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OLK Finder is a free tool that can help you recover accidentally deleted attachments. MS Outlook creates a temporary folder and saves the attachment over there as an extra precaution. This tool can be used to recover any temporary attachments that are stored inside this temp folder.

Since it is a portable tool, all you need to do is extract the zip archive, run the executable file, and select the Outlook version. It will display all attachment files in a simple list view. You can then copy them to a safe location. There are two buttons give on the right side, Explorer will take you to the main temp folder where all attachments are stored, and Select All helps you in selecting all attachments.

If you don’t see any attachments, it means any one of the following:

• You have selected the wrong Outlook Version
• MS Office Outlook is not installed
• MS Office Outlook is not in use
• No secured attached file was open from MS Office Outlook yet
• A Cleaner utility was running and deleting the internet temp files

Download OLK Finder

It works with all Outlook versions upto 2007. Since Outlook 2010 is similar to 2007 in many ways, it might work with it as well(as long as Outlook 2007 version is selected from the app). Enjoy!

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If you use Outlook to manage all your incoming and outgoing emails, it is better to add some additional layer of security to it. There are various HTML messages that are actually spam, opening some of these HTML message can directly infect your computer. Wouldn’t it be nice if you can scan the email before opening it?

PocketKnife Peek is not an antivirus add-in for Outlook, rather it is a simple HTML to Plain text converter. With this COM add-in you will be able to see the message in plain text before opening it in it’s original format. It adds a Peek button when you select any email from the list. Click it and a new window will open with the message in plain text.

Note: You will have to disable Outlook Reading Pane so that the email doesn’t automatically open up in preview pane.

There are three other tabs that lets you view HTML Source(if any), Internet Header, and Attachments. HTML source will show the the source of the message, Internet Header will show you the date/time message was send and received along with other information, and the Attachment will show you any attached files.

You can also reply or forward the message directly in plain text. There are two benefits of such tool – One is that it prevents any malicious virus from entering your computer since you can open the email in plain text if you don’t know who the sender is and second is that you can save the bandwidth if you are on a very slow internet connection.

Download PocketKnife Peek Add-In For Outlook

It works on Outlook 2000 and later versions including both Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010. Enjoy!

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Microsoft Outlook is the most powerful and intuitive e-mail client software. Microsoft’s Outlook 2010 provides  a very rich set of e-mail management tools to help you better manage your emails with a cool user interface. If you have a GMail account, then configuring the account with Microsoft Outlook 2010 is a piece-of-cake.

First of all launch MS Outlook 2010 and click the office button which is located in the left most corner, now under the Info category you will be able to see the Account Settings option, click the drop down button and choose Add Account as shown in following screenshot.

In the next step, select Email Account, enter Your Name, Email Address, and Password and click Next.

Now sit back and relax, Outlook 2010 will do the rest for you, it will establish connection to the relevant network, search for GMail server settings and log you on to the server automatically.

It will take a couple of minutes to complete the required configuration.

Click Finish and thats all, it will take some time to download your emails.

Now use all the enhanced features of Outlook 2010 to manage your GMail inbox. Enjoy!

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If you have subscribed to a voicemail service that sends you email notifications of voicemail messages, then you will know how frustrating it can get to know the person behind the voicemail message. Most people survive on guessing the name of the person behind the voicemail, but you don’t have to do it anymore.

Visual Voicemail Outlook 2007 Add-In is a dead-simple extension for Outlook 2007 that scans the incoming voicemail messages with your Outlook contacts to determine the person behind the voicemail. It can process voicemails from various services such as, Vonage, Comcast Digital Voice, YouMail, and the likes. Here is how the voicemail message looks like after it is processed using this add-in.

The screenshot above is taken from the developer’s product page.

With this add-in you can better keep your inbox clutter-free by prioritizing calls based on who’s calling.

Download Visual Voicemail Outlook 2007 Add-In

I have tested it under Outlook 2007 only. I can’t confirm if it works with Outlook 2010 as well. Enjoy!

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If you use MS Outlook to mark your calendar or note some tasks then there is a good news for you. DeskTask is a free tool for Windows that displays all your Microsoft Outlook Calendar and Task items on your desktop. With this tool you can now now manage the Calendar and Tasks straight from the desktop instead of having to visit MS Outlook over and over again.

Since I don’t use MS Outlook for tasks and calendar, I have grabbed the following screenshot from the developer’s site.

Note that this software has some known issues such as during Refresh, the window from the desktop will hide automatically. To restore it back, select Restore Position from the system tray context menu.

You can always change the position and other settings by going to Options. You can also choose the time to refresh, assign refresh hotkey, select color/fonts, and set various options of Calendar and Tasks by going to their respective tabs.

Overall it is nifty little utility for those who use MS Outlook 2000/2003/2007 to organize their events via calendar and tasks. It works on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

Download DeskTask

Enjoy!

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Iconix is a free add-on for both Internet Explorer/Firefox browsers and Outlook Express/2003/2007 desktop clients. It solves a very unique problem. Suppose you get an email from PayPal asking for some information, how would you know if it is legit?

Once Iconix is installed, it will scan all your emails when you visit your account and add Truemark icons before the sender’s name that it finds to be legit. It scans by sending some details of every email to the Iconix server and then determines whether the email is original or fake. It scans all emails in real-time and the process is relatively fast. The scanning takes place in the background and does not disturb your activity.

Two versions are available from the download page, you can select the one that suits you best. Below are the examples of Iconix running in Gmail, Windows Live Mail, and Yahoo Mail. It is also compatible with other email providers, such as, AOL, Earthlink, Hotmail, etc.

Gmail

Windows Live Mail

Yahoo Mail

When Iconix installs on your computer, it will also install add-ons for both IE and Firefox. Note the ‘Iconix Scanning’ message in all 3 screenshots above, once the scan is complete, it will turn into ‘Iconix Enabled’ message. Below is the screenshot of Outlook 2007 with Iconix running in the background.

It’s a must have tool for those who wants to better protect their email inbox. The Outlook add-on works in both Windows XP and Vista, while the browser add-ons can be installed in IE 6.0, 7.0, 8.0, and Firefox 1.5, 2.0, and 3.0.

While you are scanning your emails with Iconix, here are two extra handy email tips for you. Receive emails without giving out your email address and Search photos, videos, and files in Gmail. Enjoy!

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One great thing about Microsoft Office 2007 is that it supports add-ins. Whether it be Word, Excel, Outlook, Access, or PowerPoint, you can install add-ins instantly. The add-ins can be enabled/disabled in each one of these programs, but what if you want to manage all add-ins from one simple tool?

I have collected two tools that will help you in managing the add-ins across all Office apps.

OfficeIns

OfficeIns is a free portable tool that allows you to manage all add-ins from one simple window. It is developed by the great folks at Nirsoft, who apps I have previously reviewed here, here, here, and here. All you have to do is run the app and it will automatically list the detected add-ins.

To disable an add-in, right-click it, select Change Start Mode and then select Disable.

Apart from Disabled, it gives three other options, Load at Startup(Enabled), Load on Demand, and Load at First Time. Next to every add-in you will find additional details such as, Description, Start Mode, Connection, Version, Date Added, Location, and much more.

Topalt EnableDisable

Topalt EnableDisable is a free tool that allows you manage the add-ins more easily. Unlike OfficeIns, this tool is not portable, but gives a more clear picture of all add-ins installed. Instead of showing all add-ins mixed up, you can access the add-ins by going to different tabs. This tool has been developed by Topalt, who’s previous app was covered yesterday.

To disable an add-in, simply uncheck the checkbox next to it. This tool has lesser options than OfficeIns, but has a more eye-candy look.

Conclusion

Both apps are great but appeal to different users. If you are looking for a more advanced add-ins manager, then OfficeIns is for you. If you don’t care about advanced features and only want a manager that allows you to enable/disable the add-ins, then TopAlt EnableDisable is for you. Keep in mind that OfficeIns is a stand-alone app, which means no installation in required. While on the other hand, you will have to install TopAlt EnableDisable in order to use it. Enjoy!

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You wake up every day and find your inbox cluttered, how would you know at which time most emails are arriving? Ofcourse, a time is written next to each email. But wouldn’t it be great if we could generate a report that can give us a more clear picture, telling us at which exact time most emails arrive?

If you use Outlook, then there is an add-in for it called Outlook Performance Reports Generator. It does exactly what the name says, you can generate a report by Message amount, Message bandwidth, Sender, and Recipient. To create a new report, first select a folder(you can select multiple folders), choose a report type, select the time(hour, day, or week), and finally click Generate Report.

You can also apply the date range, but it is not necessary to generate a report. Below is an example of how a simple report looks like.

You can also use this tool to measure the total bandwidth every hour, day, or week. Apart from it, you can also generate a report on the numbers of emails that you have send. This can be useful to keep track of your email habits. It works on all versions of Outlook. Now we can only wait for someone to come up with such feature in Gmail Labs.

While the report is being generated, you have have a look at Extracting Attachments from Outlook, Verifying Outlook Attachment, and Recovering Deleted Emails. Enjoy!

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Outlook Attachment Remover is a free add-in for Microsoft Outlook that lets you remove, save, and extract attachments from emails. If you are receive frequent attachments, you can extract them all to a folder and/or remove them from the emails. What makes this add-in unique is it’s ability to replace the attachment with a link to the file.

Before installing this add-in, make sure that Outlook is not running. Now install the add-in and launch Microsoft Outlook. A small Attachment Remover window will pop-up, you can position it wherever you like by dragging it around the screen.

Now go to any folder or email from where you would like to extract the attachments and click Attachment Remover button in this pop-up window. Note that if you select a folder and click Attachment Remover, all attachments inside the emails in this folder will be downloaded.

You will see some options before you can continue to actually download the attachments. You can choose to remove the attachments from the emails after saving them, only download attachments with a defined extension, choose destination folder where the attachments will be saved, overwrite/rename the attachment if duplicate is found in the target folder, etc.

One thing that makes it stand out from the rest is it’s ability to replace the attachment by link(if you choose to remove the attachment after saving). In this way you can click the link and it will open the attachment directly. Enjoy!

Editor’s Notes: If you don’t want to install any add-in and simply want to find, browse, and extract the attachments then have a look at this guide to download email attachments.

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Have you ever forgotten to attach a file while sending an important email? It happens sometimes when a person is in hurry. Sending an email but forgetting to attach a file can be pretty embarrassing sometimes, particularly when it is send to some important person.

Missing Attachment Powertoy(Download directly from here) is a free plug-in for Microsoft Outlook 2007 that reminds you to attach a file before an email is send. It scans for all words and phrases in your email that would indicate an attachment, if it detects any such word or phrase and does not find any attachment, it will bring up a dialog box for confirmation and also give you an option to revise the message before sending it forward.

You can select which words or phrases should indicate it to be an attachment depending on your personal email habits. To change any such words or to add more to the list, go to Tools > Options and select Missing Attachment tab.

It is simple, small, and an absolutely must-have plugin for Outlook. Enjoy!

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OutlookAttachView is a free portable tool for Windows that scans all attachments in your Outlook profile and displays them in a simple list view. This can be best used for searching a specific attachment or for deleting a huge attachment that is taking lot of space. Apart from the Search feature, you can also Download the attachments easily, just select the attachments you want to download and click Save.

Since it is portable tool, it needs no installation and has the ability to search multiple Outlook profiles at once. According to NirSoft,

If you have only one profile in your Outlook, and this profile doesn’t require any password, you can run OutlookAttachView even without starting Outlook, and it’ll automatically scan the mailbox of your current Outlook profile. Otherwise, it’s recommended to open Outlook in the right profile before starting OutlookAttachView.

You can also export the list of attachments into xml/html/text/csv file. It works on Windows 2000/XP/Vista/Server 2003/Server2008 and any version of Outlook. Enjoy!

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Do you have a .DAT file in your computer and don’t know  how to open it? Firstly .DAT file could be anything like a picture, video, data, email attachment, etc. To open .DAT file you will have to find out what kind of file it is, you can than convert the extension to open it easily. If you don’t know what kind of file it is, you can determine it too. More details after the jump.

.DAT file is never associated with any one program. You can try opening it with notepad and MS Document. If it is a chat session or some text document then it will display the content, otherwise it will show some rough data that only programmers can understand.

Your .DAT file could be anything like a video file or a document, the best way to determine would be to add different extension in place of .DAT extension and see if it works. To do this, follow the method below.

Go to Tools > Folder Options and click View tab. Now uncheck the Hide Extensions For Known File  Types checkbox and click OK.

Now you will see file extension at the end of every file on your computer. Now change the extension of your .DAT file to .JPG, .PNG, .DOC, .XLS, .AVI, one by one and check if it works. Opening it with IrfanView might solve the problem, as it opens most Picture and Video extensions.

If this method doesn’t work, then it means either you have a Email Attachment, or a Video file.

Winmail.Dat Email Attachment

If you have a file named  Winmail.dat, this means you have received this file as an attachment in the email and the sender has used Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express or MS Exchange Server to send you this mail.

To easiest way to open it is to use an online converter called WinMailDat.

VCD Video File

If you find a video file in .DAT extension. You can easily open it using VLC Media Player. But if you want to convert it so that it can be easily played on other video players than you can use VCD Gear to convert .DAT extension to .MPG easily.

That’s all. If it solves your problem, don’t forget to say thanks. If you are still in trouble, feel free to leave a comment.

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In the last post we covered 2 ways to turn Firefox into windows explorer file manager. But forgot to mention that you can actually convert Firefox into a complete email client too. Instead of using MS Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, or Gmail online client, you can now check all of your emails from Firefox by using it as an email client.

To being, download SimpleMail Firefox add-on. Once installation is complete, restart your Firefox browser. Now you will see a Mail icon on the status bar at the bottom far right as shown in the screenshot below.

Clicking this icon will open SimpleMail client in a new tab. Now go to Preferences by clicking the icon as shown in the screenshot below.

This will open up options where in Accounts tab you can set up your email account, it supports multiple email accounts(POP3/IMAP/SMTP). In General tab you can change when to receive an email, and many other options.

According to SimpleMail the  following features are included in this add-on,

* Accounts

• Multiple email accounts
• POP3/IMAP/SMTP protocols
• Automatic checking on specified timeout

* Address Book

• Autocomplete box suggests recipient names/addresses as you start typing them
• Groups of contacts
• Display Address book in main Simple Mail window

* Folders

• Create custom folders
• Drag-n-drop folders and messages into folders
• Use filters to automatically sort incoming messages into folders

* New message composition

• WYSIWYG editor. Customize font/color of your message
• Smiles. Use predefined smiles or easily add your own
• URLs are automatically converted to hyperlinks as you type them

* Appearance

• Right-click on toolbar to choose "icons/text/icons and text" mode
• Additional columns for folders can be turned on (unread/total/size)
• Switch window layout by clicking on an icon in the top-right corner

* Other

• Store your mailbox on a Flash drive
• Sort messages by clicking on column headers

It is a great add-on that turns your Firefox browser into a complete email client. Enjoy!

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Do you want to manage all your email accounts such as Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, etc from Gmail? Instead of checking different email accounts on their websites respectively,  you can now manage all your email accounts from Gmail. All you need is to enable POP3 from your Yahoo, Hotmail, or any other account, POP 3 is a protocol that enables your emails to be accessed through any email client like MS Outlook, Outlook Express, or Mozilla Thunderbird etc.

One big drawback of desktop email clients is that you cannot access your emails from public computers due to security concerns. This is where Gmail steps in, apart from it’s default feature(i.e sending and receiving emails from Gmail account), it can be used as an online email client for multiple accounts, which you can access from anywhere in the world.

To being, open your Gmail account and click Settings.

Now navigate to Account tab and click on Add Another Email Account as shown in the screenshot.

This will open a pop-up window and enter your email address there and click Next Step. The best thing about Gmail is that it will automatically detect the POP server and Port as you can see from the screenshot below.

If you want to leave a copy of an email that Gmail retrieves on your other email account, then select the Leave A Copy Of Retrieved Message On The Server checkbox. If you want all your incoming emails to skip Inbox and go straight to Archive then select the Archive Incoming Messages checkbox. After you are done click Add Account.

If you want to be able to send mail as the email you provided, then select Yes as shown in the screenshot below. You can always change the settings later.

In the next and final step enter the name that you want to use when sending mail and you are done.

One big drawback of the email accounts you add is that they will be checked by Google on periodic basis. Even if you don’t want to make Gmail your email-client-of-choice, it’s gigantic space can still be used for making permanent backups. Start adding your accounts now, and if you face any problem, do let me know.

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Do you want to move all your emails and contacts from MS Outlook, Outlook Express, or Mozilla Thunderbird to your Gmail account? You can move all your emails quickly to Google Apps Gmail account, but moving them to vanilla Gmail Account is tricky.

This tutorial is about moving emails and contacts from desktop email clients to your vanilla Gmail account.

Note: To clear the confusion, Google Apps Gmail Account is an email address that ends with a custom domain name(e.g nakodari@addictivetips.com) and vanilla Gmail Account is an email address that ends with Gmail domain(e.g testing@gmail.com)

Open your Google Apps Gmail account’s Settings.

Now go to Forwarding And POP/IMAP tab and forward your incoming emails to your vanilla Gmail account as shown in the screenshot below.

This will also save a copy of your incoming email in this account by archiving it. If you don’t want to keep a copy in this account, then you can simply select Delete Mail’s Copy as you can see from the screenshot below.

Now click Save Changes to save all your settings.

Finally upload all our emails from desktop client to Google Apps Gmail Account using Google Gmail Uploader, you can find the process in details here.

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