An Email Client, Email Rader, or Mail User Agent (MUA), is an application – a computer program – used to send, receive and view e-mail. Some common examples include Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, Firefox, GoldMine etc. This is different from an e-mail server.
In addition to the email clients that are installed on the user’s computers, there are also Web-based email applications called webmail. Webmail has several advantages, including an ability to send and receive email away from the user’s normal base using a web browser, thus eliminating the need for an email client.
Some public clouds are dedicated to providing email services, including Hotmail, Gmail, AOL, and Yahoo; but there are many internet service providers which provide webmail services as part of their internet service package.
With webmail, user interactions are subject to the website’s operating system and the inability to download email messages and compose or work on the messages offline. However, webmail provided by a regular mail server remains on the mail server until the user can return to the base computer, when they can be downloaded with option to keep the copy of the mail on the server for a defined period of time for a backup.
What does an Email Client mean to you?
In a nutshell, an email client is just a program you use to compose, send and receive your emails.