The Bat! is a desktop email client for Windows that brings multiple mail accounts into one application. It combines local message storage with rules for processing correspondence, reusable writing templates, and tools for encrypting email. Its account and folder structure lets you keep different mailboxes separate while managing them through the same interface.
Mail accounts
The Bat! supports IMAP, POP3 and MAPI accounts. With IMAP, it can maintain multiple connections to an account, allowing one folder to synchronize while you work with messages elsewhere. You can customize the account tree, message list and toolbars around the mailboxes you use.
For POP3 accounts, Message Dispatcher shows mail on the server before you retrieve it. You can choose which messages to download and which to leave there; selective download filters can also delete or retain messages on the server. This gives you control over retrieval when a mailbox contains attachments you do not want to download immediately.
The desktop MailTicker displays unread-message information according to your chosen options. The Bat! also accepts RSS subscriptions, fetching headlines and summaries into lists where you can read and categorize them alongside your mail.
Sorting Office
Sorting Office applies rules to incoming, outgoing, read and replied messages. Folder placement is one possible action, but rules can also forward or redirect mail, send a reply using a template, print a message, export it, or start an external program.
Attachments can participate in that workflow. A filter can save incoming files into disk folders according to criteria such as the sender. For example, a sender-based rule could collect a regular correspondent’s attachments in a designated directory while retaining the associated messages in the mailbox.
Message templates
The Bat! separates templates for new messages, replies and forwards. Templates can contain ordinary text and macros that insert details such as the recipient’s first name, the sender’s address or quoted text from the original message. Both plain text and HTML templates are available, with HTML allowing elements such as tables and images.
Templates can belong to a contact, an address book group, a folder or an account. When more than one could apply, the contact template takes priority, followed by the group, folder and account. You can therefore give a particular correspondent a different greeting or signature without changing the default used for the rest of the account.
Quick Templates hold smaller reusable fragments that you insert while composing. They can be called through a shortcut or a short handle, shared between accounts, and included within other templates. Reusing one signature fragment in several templates means its text can be maintained in one place. The Bat! also lets you postpone sending until a chosen date and time or apply a delay before delivery.
Address book
The address book stores personal and business information, contact groups, photographs, individual templates and S/MIME certificates. Address History brings together correspondence associated with a contact, giving you a contact-based route through messages.
CardDAV synchronization connects the address book to compatible servers, including Google and iCloud. Contact additions, edits and deletions can be reflected on the server, while contacts created on another device become available after synchronization. Existing contacts can also be imported from formats including vCard, LDIF, comma-separated text and tab-delimited text.
Email encryption
The Bat! supports OpenPGP and S/MIME for encrypting messages and adding digital signatures. Encryption uses the recipient’s public key or certificate; the corresponding private key is used to read the encrypted content. Digital signatures provide a way to check the sender and detect changes to signed content. S/MIME can use the application’s own implementation or Microsoft CryptoAPI.
Autocrypt reduces the manual exchange of OpenPGP keys. When enabled for an account, it can collect public keys from other Autocrypt users and include your public key in outgoing correspondence. The Bat! can then encrypt replies automatically once the necessary keys are available. That automatic behavior applies to replies; encrypting new messages this way requires an encryption macro in the contact’s new-message template. Autocrypt works with both the internal OpenPGP implementation and GnuPG.
Safe viewing and attachment handling
The Bat! does not open incoming attachments automatically and warns about suspicious file extensions, including double extensions that can disguise an executable. Its HTML viewer ignores scripts and executable code, while image retrieval controls let you manage external images in messages. You can also choose plain text viewing and replies.
For files you want to keep, a batch-save command extracts attachments from several selected messages into one chosen folder. An account can instead store attachments as separate files on disk. The built-in image viewer provides rotation, resizing, zooming and printing. For PDF attachments, the context menu can verify a digital signature, sign and save a copy, or sign the document and attach it to a reply.
Imports, backups and Message Parking
The import tools bring messages from other email applications, including Thunderbird and Outlook, and support mbox archives. Backups can include messages, folders, address books and customized settings, so restoring a mail collection can also restore the way it was organized.
Message Parking gives selected mail additional protection against routine housekeeping. A parked message cannot be moved to another folder or automatically purged, and deleting it requires a warning.
The Bat! Home and Professional
The Bat! is paid software available as Home and Professional editions, with a trial offered for evaluation. Home is licensed for non-commercial use. Professional permits commercial use and adds on-the-fly encryption of the local message base, including messages, address books and configuration files. A master password controls access to that encrypted data; an ordinary account access password only restricts access through the program’s interface.
Professional also includes biometric authentication, hardware authentication with mail servers and a license for the separate The Bat! Voyager application. The local encryption feature is distinct from OpenPGP or S/MIME: it protects stored application data, whereas those email formats protect individual messages exchanged with correspondents.
