eM Client is a desktop workspace for reading mail and managing the information attached to it. It connects several accounts, keeps their folders together, and adds calendars, contacts, tasks, notes, and chat where the connected service supports them. Unlike a webmail tab, eM Client stores a local database and can search or organise material across accounts. It does not turn every provider into the same service: the server still decides which folders, calendars, rules, and synchronisation methods exist.
Bring accounts together
Account setup can detect the common server settings after the user enters an address. Import tools can bring messages and other data from another mail client. Once accounts appear in eM Client, the user can keep their folders separate or use combined views for mail that shares a status, such as unread or flagged messages.
The sidebar connects a selected message to its surrounding context. It can show the sender’s contact details, earlier conversations, exchanged attachments, calendar entries, and invitations. This is useful when the required document arrived several threads ago, but the result still depends on the material that eM Client has downloaded and indexed. Server-side search can sometimes omit an expected message; switching to local search checks the local database instead.
Know where rules run
Rules can move, tag, delete, or otherwise process incoming messages. A local rule belongs to eM Client and runs while it is open. Supported server rules belong to the mail service and can act before eM Client starts. Confusing the two can leave an inbox unprocessed whenever the computer is off.
Moving from Outlook adds another manual step because eM Client cannot import Outlook rules. Messages and accounts may transfer while the old sorting logic does not, so each required rule needs recreation and a test message. A broad rule placed above a narrow one can also consume the message first. The rule order therefore matters as much as the individual conditions.
Schedule and protect mail
Send Later places a prepared message in the Outbox until its scheduled time. The user can reopen, edit, or remove it before delivery. That queue is not the same as handing the message immediately to the mail server, so closing the computer or interrupting account access can affect a locally held schedule.
eM Client can create an OpenPGP key pair during account setup. The private key signs messages and decrypts mail addressed to its matching public key. Encryption does not become automatic merely because the key exists: contacts need the correct public keys, and a lost private key can make archived encrypted mail unreadable. The user should export and protect the key separately from an ordinary mailbox password.
Move the database safely
The local database contains account settings, cached mail, local folders, calendars, contacts, and other workspace data. eM Client can back up that database while it remains open and place the result in a ZIP archive. This backup matters most for POP accounts and local-only folders because a server cannot recreate material that never stayed on it.
Changing the database path in settings does not move the existing files. eM Client opens a database at the new location, which can look like a complete loss when the original database still sits in the old folder. The safe move requires a current backup, a closed application, and a deliberate file transfer before selecting the new path.
Account removal has the same distinction. IMAP and Exchange mail can usually synchronise again from the server, but POP mail and local folders may disappear with the database entry. Exporting the material first is safer than assuming every visible folder has a remote copy. Automatic archiving also needs explicit account and folder selections; enabling the feature alone does not choose what it should archive.
