Day nine of the Ghacks Christmas Giveaway. We already handed out lots of useful popular software programs to the readers and will continue this until December 24th. Today’s product that you can win in the giveaway is the popular email client The Bat Professional. The commercial software market for email clients is particularly thin thanks to several popular free email clients such as Mozilla Thunderbird, the Outlook Express client that is integrated in Windows or the free online email services like Gmail or Yahoo Maik.
That’s a tough field to compete against and any email client would have to offer something unique to the user. It does not necessarily have to be a feature that no one else has, it can also be great support or great automatism or anything else that is seen by a user as something that makes the software invaluable.
The Bat is a professional email client. This becomes obvious for the first time during installation where you will be asked where you want to store the account data which should not be confused with the installation directory of the email client. Every account can be placed in a different location. Support are POP3, IMAP4 and MAPI protocols.
One of the most important aspects of email clients is the ability to import settings and emails from other clients. The Bat provides an extensive set of import and export options. It can import email messages from generic eml, msg or unix mailboxes but also from specific email clients such as Mozilla Thunderbird, Microsoft Office Outlook or Microsoft Outlook Express. Extensive import options are also available for the Address Book which can import contact information directly from Microsoft products and various other formats like LDIF (Thunderbird can export into this format), vCards or plain text.
You need to add the email accounts manually on the other hand. Most settings however are automatically filled by The Bat. It is for instance possible to add a new Gmail account in a few easy steps with minimal user interaction.
The Bat has been designed for power users and professionals. Yes, regular users can make use of the email client as well and they will be perfectly happy with it but its options to automate and configure excel most – if not all – other email clients.
Here is but one example. Each mail folder in The Bat can be configured with its own unique properties. This can be email templates but more importantly a unique identity. It is possible to set a From Name and From Address for every folder in the bat so this is always being used for mail in that folder. (no more having to remember to picking the right email account before sending the mail)
Email templates are another interesting feature. Unlike signatures email templates can be used to fill out parts of emails that are used regularly. The Bat comes with a few predesigned templates for replying, forwarding or reading confirmations but also with the means of creating sophisticated email templates for virtually any purpose.
What else do you get?
- Hardware Tokens: The Bat! Professional is an email client that offers secure authentication on POP3/SMTP servers using hardware tokens and transparent, on-the-fly encryption of the email message base, address books and configuration files.
- Built-In Backup and Restore: Automated email backups can be configured in the email client.
- Plugins: Plugins expand the functionality of the email client further.
- Internal PGP implementation based on OpenSSL.
- Anti-virus defense: The bat does not start scripts automatically and uses its own html rendering engine.
- Smart Sorting Office: A powerful filtering system.
- Message Parking: Protect messages so that they can not be deleted.
- Microsoft Exchange Connectivity
The Bat offers a wealth of features that you cannot find in other email clients. It is highly configurable and can automate many processes to aid the user in his daily routine.
You can download a free fully working trial version of The Bat (Home or Professional) from the company’s website. This is probably the best way to test the client to see if it suits your needs. My bet? It will.
You can win one of five licenses for The Bat Professional by writing a comment. Let us know which email client you are using currently.
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Hi, today’s software is really interesting. Let’s try to win :)
I’m a long time Thunderbird user but would love to give the Bat a try. I’m in…
I’m in. I mostly use, uh, pine. Then, when necessary, for attachments mostly, Thunderbird, and as a throwaway e-mail client for things I don’t really want coming to my main address, gmail online.
Worth Robin 4
I have The Bat! (no copy needed) and can vouch for its versatility – sometimes I think the only thing it can’t do is cartwheels.
Power users will love its extensive configuration options, though it can be used easily by anyone.
Its under active development, it handles IMAP pretty well………not perfect, but it handles it as well and often better than the others I’ve tried.
The Bat is probably the best email client out there.
I’m another Mozilla Thunderbird user, but this looks interesting, would like to give it a ride!
Count me n. I use Thunderbird
Hi Martin, today’s giveaway is so nice! I use outlook and i desperately want to get over it and go for the bat! Please consider me and give me a licence.. Thanks..
I,m a fly by night so please enter my name into the Bat draw!
I used the bat before a while back and I like it. Right now, my email is scattered all over the place and I could definitely use some AIO solution to help me organize things. As the owner and manager of several websites, I have too many email accounts, each however has their purpose. I’ve tried managing them individually, that didn’t work out. I’ve tried using gmail – but it groups things together that it shouldn’t group. I would love to win The Bat!
Thanks for your time, love your site!
used it long time ago, now i am using thunderbird. would be very nice to use it again, looks very nice nowadays….
I’m a long time Eudora user, but since they have stopped development I would love to convert over to The Bat Pro!
Checking in everyday for the new giveaway is kind of fun, good job guys and good luck to everyone :)
I’ve been using an old version of Outlook (pre-2003) at home and was not pleased with the HTML mail renderer change in the 2007 version (used at work). The Bat Pro may be a worthy upgrade.
I’m using Gmail for your domain premier for personal stuff, and outlook 2007 at work. The Bat looks very interesting now.
I need this soft!
I’m using Outlook but The Bat would be much nicer! :-)
I use Mozilla Thunderbird at the moment. I would like to use The Bat very much.
Outlook 07. Looked into lots of IMAP clients 2-3 years back but stuck with Outlook for integration needs at the time.
Thunderbird. It’s slow, but still, better than all other free alternatives
I’m using the opera mail client. Fine alternative solution even if there’re some small default. I’ve try The Bat few years ago, i can’t remember i’ve prefer it. I’ll try the new version soon.
I WON!!
Awesome!!
Thanks a lot ghacks!! u rule!!
I’m using Popcorn, which is completely free, and free of HTML :D
I am not using any client currently due to sheer laziness.