Outlook is the product of Microsoft which is used as a suite that contains the tools for email, contacts address books, task book, and calendar. Outlook is mostly used to send emails. The key features of Outlook are; it has a collaboration with Microsoft Office (MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowePoint, etc) and also with Skype. The users of Outlook can schedule and track their appointments on the calendars and share them with others.
Microsoft Outlook is not available for Linux distributions but there are different alternatives of Microsoft Outlook which can be downloaded on Linux. In this write-up, we will discuss different alternatives that can be used instead of Outlook in Linux.
Top alternatives of Outlook for Linux
There are a variety of alternatives that are being used instead of Outlook, but the best five alternatives which are used and loved by the users of Linux are discussed here.
Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird is an open-source email server that is an alternative to Outlook and most widely used by the Linux community. It can be downloaded by visiting its official website and also be it can be used for chatting, saving dates of important events on the calendar, and staying updated with the newsfeed.
The important features of Thunderbird are:
Easily edit contacts: Contacts can easily be added to the address book with a single click.
Firefox tabbed options: Like the firefox tabbed options, it presents you an interface consisting of the different tabs, in which you can open multiple emails at the same time and edit them. You can also use the options of search and archive if needed.
Smart folder options: You can manage multiple accounts at the same place, this process is known as smart folder options.
Security: Security of the user is the main concern for Thunderbird, for this purpose, it blocks all types of remote images in the emails, protects users from scam emails, and it warns you when you click on some suspicious link.
Add-on: There is no chance to get rejection of the mail from the recipient’s server-side because the Thunderbird provides you the facility of uploading your large email data on the cloud before sending it to the recipient which not only increases the speed of sending data but also enhances the chance to less failure or rejection of sending mail.
Evolution
The other widely used email client in Linux is Evolution, which usually comes with the GNOME Desktop Environment in Linux. Evolution usually comes with GNOME in the installation of Ubuntu, and Debian-based distributions, if it’s not, it can be installed using their package manager and it can be downloaded from its official website.
The important features of Evolution are:
- It supports the Evolution Data Server (EDS) that contains the libraries which are used in managing the information of contacts, calendars, and addresses
- It also supports the connection to Microsoft Exchange Server
Kontact
It is a software suite that contains tools for email, calendar, to-do-list, and contacts that are KMail, KOrganizer, and Kontact. This suite provides all the tools that are used in daily life in one place, and this project is developed and maintained by KDE.
The notable features of Kontact are:
- It provides security to its users by supporting end-to-end encryption, looking after the spam checkers, and strong isolation of the external HTML weblinks
- It has a powerful integrated algorithm such that it can detect your booking details of hotels and airlines and automatically add them to the calendar to set reminders
- Supports Sieve server-side filtering, push email (IMAP IDLE), the standard mail protocols IMAP, POP3, and SMTP
Zimbra
Zimbra is another email server that can be used in the alternative of the outlook, like Kontact, the Zimbra is also a suite that includes the email and web server in it. The application of Zimbra can be downloaded from its official website.
The prominent features of the Zimbra are:
- It uses many open-source projects such as MariaDB, Aspell, and Nginx
- It provides the cloud to its users to upload and share the data
- Other than email, it provides the chat, calendar, and to-do list options
- Manage the Zimbra cloud and emails easily
Mailspring
The last best alternative of Outlook which we will discuss in this write-up is Mailspring. It is also one of the favorite choices of the Linux community and can be downloaded easily from its official website. The Mailspring was first designed using the JavaScript engine but now it has been replaced with C++ and it uses 50% less RAM because of which your battery health optimizes.
The Mailspring also supports the read receipts; when the recipient reads the email, the sender will get notified about it. The users of Mailspring can also manage the inbox by marking the important messages or setting reminders to important emails or dates.
Conclusion
Outlook is an email client-server which helps its users to communicate with their loved ones through emails and also it provides the calendar feature which helps to keep set the reminders of the important events or meetings. Microsoft Outlook is released for Windows as well as for macOS but not for the distributions of Linux, so we have discussed different alternatives used in Linux as Microsoft Outlook alternatives. In this write-up, we have discussed the top five best and most used email suites in Linux with their features.
