Web based email clients

You don't need a desktop client to access your mail. You can install one of the following web based clients, either on your local machine with a web server running or on your host if you have one. These clients run in your browser and are generally not as flexible and powerful as desktop clients, but can be useful if your email account doesn't come with a web mail interface or if you are in some way restricted in using a desktop client on your machine, e.g. if your firewall blocks POP, SMTP and IMAP protocols or if you are not allowed to install your favourite email client.

The best web based email clients are:



SquirrelMail is a standards-based webmail package written in PHP4. It includes built-in pure PHP support for the IMAP and SMTP protocols, and all pages render in pure HTML 4.0 (with no JavaScript required) for maximum compatibility across browsers. It has very few requirements and is very easy to configure and install. SquirrelMail has all the functionality you would want from an email client, including strong MIME support, address books, and folder manipulation.


RoundCube Webmail is a browser-based multilingual IMAP client with an application-like user interface (AJAX). It provides full functionality you expect from an e-mail client, including MIME support, address book, folder manipulation and message filters. RoundCube Webmail is written in PHP and requires the MySQL database. The user interface is fully skinnable using XHTML and CSS 2. The project is Open Source.


Horde IMP is a web-based mail user agent integrated within the Horde framework. IMP is a set of PHP scripts that implement an IMAP based webmail system. Assuming you have an account on a server that supports IMAP, you can use an installation of IMP to check your mail from anywhere that you have web access.


NeoMail is a friendly, attractive, icon-based webmail client. A handy feature is that users can import their address book from Outlook Express or Netscape Mail in CSV format.


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