Frequently Asked Questions

The best way to ensure all your data and settings are brought over is through Backup and Restore.

Follow these steps:

In the old device:

1.        Create a backup through Menu > Backup (Menu > File > Backup in eM Client 7 and older)
2.        Deactivate your license if you are no longer going to use eM Client on this device in Menu > Help > License (not needed for one-seat licenses, but useful for making sure no licensing problems happen)
3.        Find the .ZIP backup file and move it to your new device
   (by default in ..\Documents\eM Client)

In your new device:

1.        Install eM Client (download it here)
2.        Skip initial setup
3.        Restore from your backup through Menu > File > Restore
4.        Activate your license in Menu > Help > License

If you put the backup file in the new device in the same folder structure as the default (..\Documents\eM Client) the restore will find it right away. Otherwise, you'll need to specify the path where the backup file can be found (in Menu > Settings > General > Backup).

You can also find these steps in our blog here: New device and eM Client? No problem!

After you download the installer from our website, run the downloaded ‘setup’ file and proceed with the installation steps.

During the installation, you can, for example, choose to make the application launch on the system startup or set it as the default mail app on your device.

eM Client can import your data directly from Microsoft Outlook, Thunderbird, other popular clients, previous eM Client database or relevant data files.

When you first run the application, an automatic import wizard will lead you through the process if it detects that you have other email client(s) installed.

Besides this, the import options can be accessed at any time in Menu > File > Import.
This option allows you to import your emails from .eml files, contacts from .vcf or .csv files, calendar and tasks from .ics files or even eM Client settings from .xml files.

Read more in our blog: Import Data from other email clients to eM Client and in the Documentation: Getting Started.

After you finish installing eM Client you will be automatically asked to set up your first account. You can use the Automatic setup or open the other tabs to explore manual setup options.

To set up additional email accounts go to Menu > Accounts section and create new accounts using the '+ Add account' button.

To explore the setup options in more detail please read the Create New Account page from our online Documentation or check out specific account types in the Compatibility section on our website.

eM Client supports all standard mailing services that synchronize items through the IMAP protocol or download messages through the POP3 protocol. The application also supports synchronization through the Exchange Web Services protocol for MS Exchange and Outlook.com accounts. Outlook.com accounts can also be set up with IMAP for mail and AirSync for calendar and contacts.

To include examples: we support Gmail, Apple iCloud, Office 365, Outlook.com (MSN, Live, Hotmail), IceWarp, Microsoft Exchange, Yahoo, AOL, GMX, Kerio, ... and many more - feel free to try out the Automatic setup and see.

An email program such as eM Client can retrieve your emails using different protocols. Two of the most common protocols are IMAP and POP3. So how do they work?

POP3 protocol downloads the emails from Inbox to a specific device from the server. Once the emails are downloaded, the originals are deleted from the server. This means that if you’re using POP3, the emails are tied to a specific device and can’t be viewed on other devices without forwarding them.

IMAP, on the other hand, is not tied to a specific device. Instead, you can view your emails on any device because the emails are stored on a remote server and not on an individual device. A good example of this would be when you check your Gmail account on your phone, through your email client on your desktop or through the web interface on your laptop and you see the same messages in each case.

Most of today’s mail servers support IMAP, even though there are still exceptions. If there’s only a small storage space available on the server, synchronizing messages through IMAP would quickly lead to hitting the limit so only POP3 might be available. Fortunately, eM Client supports both IMAP and POP3. You can therefore use whichever type you prefer, depending on your server.

The backup options are accessible in Menu > Settings > General > Backup.
You can choose the folder where the backups will be saved and once you check the ‘Enable Backup’ option, you can also select how often you’d like the backup to occur and how many backups you want to keep (you can store up to five different backups at a time).

To change the time of the backup:

1.        Open up the Windows “Task Scheduler” tool
2.        Click on the Task Scheduler Library
3.        You will see eM Client Database Backup in the middle window amongst the other tasks – double-click it to open the properties
4.        Go to the ‘Triggers’ tab
5.        Now you can edit the time and day when the backup takes place.

Read more in the Documentation: Backup

Right-click anywhere in the toolbar and select ‘Customize’. In the window that appears, remove and add items or change their order by using the ‘Add’, ‘Remove’ and Arrow buttons.

In versions newer than eM Client 7.1, you can also customize the Mail toolbars centrally in Menu > Settings > Appearance > Toolbars.

Read more in our blog: Customizing user interface in eM Client and in the Documentation: Toolbars 

You can send Mass mail from eM Client with a PRO license.
Mass mail is used for messages that are sent to multiple recipients but each one will get their own copy of the message (with no addresses in CC or BCC). You can read more in this article: Undisclosed recipients and how to send mass email in eM Client

It is also the correct way to send messages to numerous recipients if you do not want them to see each others' addresses.

To use this feature, add the recipients or use a distribution list from your Contacts folder in the To: field.

Instead of pressing ‘Send’ navigate to Menu > Message > Send as Mass Mail in the new message window.

The option is also available under the Send button drop-down menu (Send > Send as mass mail).

You can also use variables in Mass Mail emails that will replace information in your email with the recipient's details based on what you have saved to the contact's details in your Contacts data.

If you have several email addresses linked to eM Client, the first one that you have added will be automatically set as default. Default account will be selected as sender when you compose messages in a neutral place, such as the Favorites or Local Folders, for example. You can change which email account you’re sending messages from just by clicking on your email address in the New Message window.

If you want to change your default account so you don’t have to perform this step every time, go to Menu > Accounts, select the preferred account from the list on the left side and then click the ‘Set as default’ button. The account marked by a star is the one set as default.

Read more in the Documentation: Accounts

The automatic setup in eM Client uses the autodiscover settings on your email server. That helps the application detect the correct account settings and lets you access your data almost immediately. The most common setup is IMAP, this however depends on the mail server you’re using with eM Client.

Read more in the Documentation: Create New Account

You can set up your account manually in eM Client in a few simple steps.

1.        Go to Menu > Accounts and click the button ‘+Add Account’.
2.        Skip the Automatic Setup option, click on Mail and select ‘Other’ from the menu that appears.
3.        Click ‘Next’ to proceed with the manual configuration of your account and then simply follow the instructions.

Read more in the Documentation: Create New Account

eM Client can also synchronize all your calendars, contacts or tasks items if your server supports the CalDAV or CardDAV protocol. An example of a service that uses both of these protocols would be Fruux. You can also synchronize your Google calendar and Google contacts.

If your provider doesn’t support the synchronization of any of these items, you can always use the local calendar, contacts and tasks. Please keep in mind that items saved locally cannot be synchronized.

The default database location is in the eM Client folder under your user profile in hidden folders AppData\Roaming (the path is usually C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\eM Client).

To change it, please navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Storage where you can adjust the database folder location.

However, as the disclaimer in the settings warns: when you change the location, your original database will not be transferred. Instead, a new database will be created there on the next startup, unless you move your old database files into the new location.

Go to Menu > Rules and a window with various options will appear, from where you can create and edit the rules.

Click '+New rule' and follow the Rule Wizard, it will guide you through the process.

Read more in the Documentation: Rules

You can edit shortcuts to fit your needs by going to Menu > Settings > General > Shortcuts.
Click on any shortcut that you want to change. Then, press the combination of keys you would like to use instead and the new information will appear next to the option name.

Shortcuts for new actions cannot be created at this time.

Find out what the most useful shortcuts are or read more in the Documentation: Shortcuts

Even if you use features like rules and customizable folders to sort your mail, it can still be difficult to find a specific email. While you can manually go through your folders, there’s a much easier way to quickly find what you're looking for - all you have to do is use the search feature.

The search bar is located in the upper right corner. You can use this bar to search for keywords in the title of an email, the body or the sender’s address. Type in the keyword, hit ‘Enter’ and a list of emails with that phrase will pop up.

Advanced search

For a slightly more advanced search, you can type a “?” in the search bar and a drop-down menu will appear. This can help you narrow down your search by specifying things like the location of the keywords, if the email has an attachment, if it was sent before or after a certain date and so on.
You can also click the downward pointing triangle at the end of the search bar to get a list of advanced options to further narrow down your search.
Select ‘Advanced Search’ for even more options.

Search Bar tips & tricks

•          If you don’t remember a certain part of your keyword, you can use the wildcard “*” to represent any character(s). For example, searching for “*ance” will turn up both “finance” and “fiancé”.
•          eM Client always searches as though there was a wildcard at the end of your keyword, so even if you don’t insert a “*” at the end, it will effectively still search for “keyword*”.
•          If you search for an email address, eM Client will give you a list of suggestions for completing the address based on who's in your contact list. Please be aware that @ isn’t treated as a separator, the whole address is therefore one text string. If you’re searching for a text inside the domain name, you need to use the wildcard: e.g. searching for ‘*emclient.com’ will turn up [email protected].
•          Please be aware that to search through the body of an email, full messages need to be downloaded. For IMAP this is not a default setting. Go to Menu > Accounts and enable downloading of messages for offline use under the IMAP tab.

Read more in our blog: Search keywords

You probably already know that you can link several accounts to eM Client. But you might also decide that, for whatever reason, you don't want a specific account linked to eM Client after all. Luckily, you can remove an account from eM Client in just a few seconds.

Go to Menu > Accounts.
In the left-hand side of the dialogue box, you'll see the list of accounts you've linked to eM Client. Select the one you want to remove and click the Delete button in the toolbar at the top.

Read more in the Documentation: Accounts

To change the order of the accounts, go to Menu > Accounts. On the left side of the window that appears, you’ll see a list of the accounts that you have linked with eM Client.

If you want to change the order of these accounts, simply click on one of them. Then use the Up or Down buttons in the top toolbar to move the account in the desired direction. This changes the order of your accounts in the main Mail tab.
The location of the Local Folders and Archive cannot be changed.

IMPORTANT: Please note that changing the account order is not the same thing as setting an account as default. The default account is always the one marked by a star, not necessarily the first one on the list.

Default reminders for all calendars can be set in Menu > Settings > General > Reminders.

You can also change individual calendar’s Default reminder in the Calendar section of eM Client.

Just right-click the calendar, select ‘Properties’ and change the Default reminder under the General tab. You can also change the color and other properties here.

eM Client supports export to all standard file types for all your items.

You can export emails into an email message format (.eml), calendars and tasks into iCalendar files (.ics) or your contacts into VCards (.vcf).

You can also export your account settings, rules, signatures, and other settings into a .xml file and import it into another instance of eM Client.

The export feature is accessible in Menu > File > Export.

Read more in the Documentation: Export

There are two types of archiving: local archiving and server-side archiving.

For local archiving, eM Client contains an Automatic Archiving feature which allows you to download all messages older than a selected number of days from the server and keep them stored on your local drive. These emails can be found in the Archive folder in the program’s left pane, below the accounts folders and Local Folders.

You can find this option under Menu > Settings > Mail > Automatic Archiving. It is necessary to set Archiving Scope under the Account Preferences section for the archiving to be performed.

Server-side archiving is available for all IMAP and Exchange accounts. The Archive folder will show up under the account's own folders and you can use the ‘Move to Archive’ button or shortcut to move messages from these accounts' folders to their specific Archive folder with one step.

This feature was originally only supported for Google accounts where the 'Move to Archive' option only removes the Inbox label, the same way it works on webmail, keeping the message in the All Mail folder.

Read more on our blog: Archive your emails easily with eM Client 

To set up an alias to your account navigate to the account settings under Menu > Accounts, select your account, click on "Aliases" under the General setup of your account and add your email address to the list of Aliases.

Note: In order to send out on behalf of such account, eM Client may require an initial setup of the account with your mail server, for example connecting the two accounts in your online Account settings. In case of Google accounts you first need to go to gmail.com and link the two accounts in Settings there.

eM Client for Windows and macOS is currently localized in the following languages:

•          English
•          Catalan
•          Chinese (Simplified)
•          Croatian
•          Czech
•          Danish
•          Dutch
•          French
•          German
•          Greek
•          Hungarian
•          Italian
•          Japanese
•          Korean
•          Latvian
•          Norwegian
•          Polish
•          Portuguese
•          Portuguese (Brazil)
•          Russian
•          Slovak
•          Spanish
•          Swedish
•          Turkish
•          Ukrainian

eM Client for iOS and Android is currently available in:

•          English
•          Czech
•          Danish
•          Italian
•          German
•          Spanish
•          French
•          Hungarian
•          Japanese
•          Latvian
•          Norwegian
•          Dutch
•          Portuguese
•          Portuguese (Brazil)
•          Russian
•          Slovak
•          Turkish
•          Ukrainian
•          Chinese (Simplified)

Note that some of the translations were created with the help of our users and may contain some translation errors or be unfinished.

If you come across an error like that, please make sure to report it to us as we'll be more than happy to improve the localizations.

If you'd like to volunteer to create a localization for a language we're missing, please contact us at [email protected].

To enable Offline mode from within the application simply navigate to Menu > File > Work Offline.

If you want to run the application in the Offline mode when opening it, hold the CTRL button while the application is being initialized. This will be detected by the program and you will be given an option to enable the Offline mode.

To get back Online either click the Menu > File > Work Offline option again or click the Refresh button.

Search folders are virtual folders that perform a search on selected criteria once you open the folder, allowing you to collect your items from specific folders or multiple selected folders just by using the right keyword or criteria.

The Search folders can be seen in the Favorites section. If you don't see Favorite folders on the top of your Folder list you can enable them in Menu > Settings > General > General (Show Favorite folders).

Once you have Favorites shown, you can right-click any of the folders and select Display > Search folders. Right-click the search folders option and create a new search folder.

You can also create a Search folder using the Search function in the top right - open the drop-down menu and select the 'Create Search Folder' option.

Read more in our blog: Custom search folders

Update 6/10/2022: Since Google discontinued their Less secure apps setting, you might not be able to use the account as POP anymore. Please read more in this article: Google ‘less secure apps’ access and what it means for eM Client

While Gmail's default (and preferred) email protocol is IMAP, we definitely support a POP protocol option as well. However, since it's not the available setting from Autodiscover, you will need to set up the account manually.

Gmail has a special secure login called oAuth, which natively supports only IMAP. However, a secure POP setup can still be created thanks to App-specific passwords.

You will just need to Allow access for Less secure apps (as POP connection is seen as less secure than IMAP with oAuth login), enable POP protocol in your Gmail settings and then enable 2-factor authentication to create an App password (a special password which will be used only for eM Client - so your actual Google password is safe).

Manual setup in eM Client is then available in the New Account window under Mail > Other.
There you can select the POP protocol, input your server settings and create your desired POP setup. Make sure to use the created App password instead of your main Google password.

If you want to set up just a separate calendar account or your available calendar account could not be found using the Automatic setup, you can definitely set it up manually.

•          First, go to Menu > Accounts, and click on the + Add account button.
•          Skip the Automatic setup and click the Calendar section instead.
•          Select the option that applies to your existing Calendar account and click Next to finish the setup.

Note: If you don't have an online calendar account but would want to have one to synchronize your calendar online to your other devices, you can register an account for free on platforms that provide an option to synchronize just your Calendars and Contacts (such as Fruux, for example).

Read more in the Documentation: About Calendar

If you want to set up just a separate account for Contacts or your available 'Contacts' account could not be found using the Automatic setup, you can definitely set it up manually.

•          First, go to Menu > Accounts, and click on the + Add account button.
•          Skip the Automatic setup and click the Contacts section instead.
•          Select the option that applies to your existing Calendar account and click Next to finish the setup.

Note: If you don't have an online contacts account but would want to have one to synchronize your contacts online to your other devices, you can register an account for free on platforms that provide an option to synchronize just your Calendars and Contacts (such as Fruux, for example).

You can easily subscribe to an internet calendar of your choice via Menu > Tools > Subscribe to Internet Calendar. Simply copy the URL address of the calendar into the address field and you are ready to browse the calendar in the Internet Calendars section of your Calendar.

Please be aware that you can only use valid iCalendar links.

Read more in our blog: iCal Subscriptions

After you set up your Gmail account you might encounter this error message:

'All Mail' folder disabled

For Gmail and Google Apps accounts, eM Client synchronizes the 'All Mail' folder. It appears that IMAP access for this folder on account '<your email address>' is currently disabled and synchronization will fail.

To fix this, you need to make sure the 'All Mail' folder has 'Show in IMAP' checked in their Gmail settings at https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#settings/labels.

Simply follow the directions from the error message and enable All Mail label to be shown in IMAP.

NOTE: The 'All Mail' folder is a vital part of your Gmail account - it stores all the messages in your account (with the exception of Trash and Spam folders - these are separate).
Synchronizing this folder will not create any duplicates of your messages, because eM Client supports this specific Gmail structure and each message is stored only once in the All Mail folder and all the other folders (Inbox, Sent, Drafts, ...) are just Labels - special search folders which will show the messages from All Mail folder with the matching Label. Kind of like Tags in eM Client.

This actually allows for the synchronization to be faster and the data to take up less space on your device than if the Labels were converted into real folders.

When your email account is going to be canceled soon or your space on the server is getting filled up, you might want to create a local backup of your messages or download them from your server.
This applies mainly to IMAP and EWS accounts.

Here are steps to follow to copy your messages and/or folders to Local folders:

Make sure to have the option to ‘Show local folders’ enabled in Menu > Settings > General > General.

To copy folders:

1.        Right-click the folder you want to copy
2.        Select the ‘Copy folder...’ option
3.        In a new window select the ‘Local folders’ as the destination where you want to make a copy
4.        Confirm
5.        Wait for eM Client to copy the folder with messages
6.        Continue with other folders from the top

You can select the 'Local folders' directly if you want the folder to be at the same level as the ‘Local Inbox’, ‘Sent’, etc. If you select any of the folders directly, the folder you are copying will be a subfolder of that folder.

To copy just messages:

1.        Open the folder with messages
2.        Click one of the messages to bring focus to it
3.        Press Ctrl+A to select ALL the messages in this folder (or select the ones you want specifically using the Shift or Ctrl button)
4.        Right-click one of the messages (with all messages still selected)
5.        Use the ‘Copy to Folder…’ option in the drop-down menu
6.        Select the exact folder where you want to copy these messages to
7.        If you are copying from Inbox, select the Local Inbox, etc.
8.        Confirm
9.        Wait for eM Client to finish copying these messages
10.        Continue with other folders from the top

If you have a large number of messages that have not been previously downloaded for offline use, the copying can take some time. In that case, eM Client is downloading the messages fully for the first time so it takes longer than copying a message that is already downloaded in eM Client.

After the messages are safely copied, you can remove the originals from your account folders, in case you need to free up space on your email server.
The copies in eM Client's Local folders are safe from any external force.

Note: We do suggest enabling automatic database backups if you keep local copies of important messages, in case the files in your computer got corrupted or if your computer crashed.
You can backup manually using the Menu > Backup option or enable Automatic backup in Menu > Settings > General > Backup.

No, email synchronization cannot be limited just to a selected time period (for example from only the past few months or years) at this time.

For IMAP accounts, we by default only synchronize the email headers instead - this way you have an overview of all your messages but the synchronization is more efficient and the downloaded data doesn’t take up too much space.

A full message is downloaded into the eM Client database only after you open it.

For EWS accounts we automatically leave out the attachments and images - those are then downloaded only once requested. Unfortunately, the bodies of the messages are downloaded automatically, by the nature of the Exchange protocol.

Automatic replies (also called "Out of office") can be enabled in Menu > Tools >Automatic Replies.

In the new window that pops up, you can select the email account to apply the Automatic reply to, set the First and Last day when the reply is to be sent and then input the Subject and Body of the reply itself.

The Automatic reply feature is currently available for Gmail accounts, Icewarp accounts and accounts using Exchange protocol.

Read more in our blog: Automatic Replies in eM Client for tutorial and Out of office messages with eM Client for examples.

Unfortunately, we do not provide a direct import option from Eudora.

The best way to get your data from Eudora to eM Client safely is to first use Thunderbird to import the data into it (detailed instructions can be found in this MozillaZine article).

After all your data is safely imported in Thunderbird, go to eM Client and then use the Menu > File > Import.. > Application: Thunderbird option.

The default Export option for Contacts is VCF file, which is a standard file type for electronic contacts, but you can export your contacts into a CSV file as well. 

1. Go to the Contacts section and use the List - Custom view.
2. In this view, all information columns are available - you can either keep them all or use the Columns configuration to select which columns you want to keep in your final CSV file.
3. Then open the folder/s or make a search for the contacts you want to export. The data you see is the same the final CSV file will contain.
   Use Ctrl+A or Menu > Edit > Select All to select all the contacts.
4. Right-click the selection and use the Export List > Export to CSV.
5. Select the location for your file and finish the export - and you're done, your custom CSV contacts file is finished.

eM Client is able to show avatars for your contacts and can also download avatars from external sources like domain icons and gravatar. But how do you change your own avatar?

This cannot be done directly via eM Client yet, but there are ways to get your avatar updated and connect an image with your email account everywhere.

The easiest way to change your email avatar is via Gravatar - https://gravatar.com/
Just create an account with your email address and upload an image.
eM Client will be able to load this image for your email account.

If you own your domain/have a website on the domain you can set up a favicon.
You can read about favicon setup here - https://www.w3.org/2005/10/howto-favicon

Another tool that you might find useful is a favicon generator, to create different sizes of your image - https://www.websiteplanet.com/webtools/favicon-generator

IMPORTANT: Please note that since eM Client updates the downloaded avatars every 30 days, the avatar changes won’t be immediately visible.

However, you can force eM Client to re-download new images by disabling and re-enabling the download of images from external sources, which will clear the image cache:

1.        Go to Menu > Settings > Contacts > General
2.        Disable the option ‘Download avatars from external sources’ and click ‘Apply’
3.        Then enable the option ‘Download avatars from external sources’ again and click ‘Ok’
4.        Your new image will show up now

The easiest way of moving your database to another device is to make a backup of your current database in Menu > Backup.

eM Client will back up the whole application database into the folder selected in Menu > Settings > General > Backup. You can also enable the option of automatic backups in regular intervals here.

You can transfer this backup to a device of your choice and restore from it through Menu > File > Restore.

Read more in our blog: How to work with automatic backups in eM Client

Sharing in eM Client is done via Delegation for Exchange (EWS) accounts.

You can find the Delegation setting via the Menu>Accounts section in the Exchange Web Services tab of the given account or via right-click on the specific account in the folder list.

• In the Delegation window or section click the Show... button next to "Accounts you can access:"
• The "Delegated accounts" open will open.
• Click the Add button on the Delegated accounts window.
• The "Select users or groups" window will open.
• To add the delegated account you should have access to, enter it under "Enter the name of users or group:". E.g., [email protected]. Then click the Search button.
• That user will be displayed under "Group or user names". Click on the proper account name and click the Ok button.
• Click the Ok button on the Delegated accounts window as well and close/save the original Delegation window.

If the shared folders do not appear right away, try closing and re-opening the eM Client app.

You can find the Public folders setting via the Menu>Accounts section in the Exchange Web Services tab of the given account or via right-click on the specific account in the folder list.

• In the Public folders window or section click the Edit... button next to "Choose which public folders to show:"
• A list of domain shared calendars and/or folders should be displayed.
• Select the ones you want to add, then click the Ok button. 
• Then, click Save & Close on the Accounts window or close the Public folders window.

When a new official update is ready, eM Client will offer you an 'Automatic update' next time you run it. We recommend installing the update but if you don't have the time and would prefer to install it later, you can click the 'Later' button and choose to postpone the update for 1 Day, 2 Days, 3 Days, 1 Week or 1 Month. If you click the X button in the top right, the Update will not be installed and the window will pop up on the next startup.

You will never receive an update prompt that your activated license is not valid for, but if you'd rather just use an older version indefinitely and don't want to reject updates every month, there can be a manual update limit set on your license and activation.
Pro license users can set this limit (called "Set version") via the License Manager. Just open your Licenses or Activations tab and click Set version for your license. Select the version you want to use from the list and save this setting.
Free license users can send a request for an update limit to [email protected]

The best way to ensure all your data and settings are brought over is through Backup and Restore.

Follow these steps:

In the old device:

1.        Create a backup through Menu > Backup (Menu > File > Backup in eM Client 7 and older)
2.        Deactivate your license if you are no longer going to use eM Client on this device in Menu > Help > License (not needed for one-seat licenses, but useful for making sure no licensing problems happen)
3.        Find the .ZIP backup file and move it to your new device
   (by default in ..\Documents\eM Client)

In your new device:

1.        Install eM Client (download it here)
2.        Skip initial setup
3.        Restore from your backup through Menu > File > Restore
4.        Activate your license in Menu > Help > License

If you put the backup file in the new device in the same folder structure as the default (..\Documents\eM Client) the restore will find it right away. Otherwise, you'll need to specify the path where the backup file can be found (in Menu > Settings > General > Backup).

You can also find these steps in our blog here: New device and eM Client? No problem!

The backup options are accessible in Menu > Settings > General > Backup.
You can choose the folder where the backups will be saved and once you check the ‘Enable Backup’ option, you can also select how often you’d like the backup to occur and how many backups you want to keep (you can store up to five different backups at a time).

To change the time of the backup:

1.        Open up the Windows “Task Scheduler” tool
2.        Click on the Task Scheduler Library
3.        You will see eM Client Database Backup in the middle window amongst the other tasks – double-click it to open the properties
4.        Go to the ‘Triggers’ tab
5.        Now you can edit the time and day when the backup takes place.

Read more in the Documentation: Backup

Right-click anywhere in the toolbar and select ‘Customize’. In the window that appears, remove and add items or change their order by using the ‘Add’, ‘Remove’ and Arrow buttons.

In versions newer than eM Client 7.1, you can also customize the Mail toolbars centrally in Menu > Settings > Appearance > Toolbars.

Read more in our blog: Customizing user interface in eM Client and in the Documentation: Toolbars 

1. If you’re getting an error message, please enclose a screenshot of the error.

2. Send us the whole content of the ‘Log’ tab.
If an error appears, you can access the log by clicking on the third tab in the same window as the Error. If no error appears, go to Menu > Operations, click the 'Copy log' button and paste the log (Ctrl+V) in a message to us.

3. Send us the full number of the version that you’re using (you can find this information in Menu > Help > About).

4. Try to remember what changes you’ve made in eM Client or in your system before the problem started and describe them to us.

Submit the report via one of our Support options or send it to [email protected] (if you're still using the Trial version) and we’ll do our best to resolve the issue as soon as possible.

You can send Mass mail from eM Client with a PRO license.
Mass mail is used for messages that are sent to multiple recipients but each one will get their own copy of the message (with no addresses in CC or BCC). You can read more in this article: Undisclosed recipients and how to send mass email in eM Client

It is also the correct way to send messages to numerous recipients if you do not want them to see each others' addresses.

To use this feature, add the recipients or use a distribution list from your Contacts folder in the To: field.

Instead of pressing ‘Send’ navigate to Menu > Message > Send as Mass Mail in the new message window.

The option is also available under the Send button drop-down menu (Send > Send as mass mail).

You can also use variables in Mass Mail emails that will replace information in your email with the recipient's details based on what you have saved to the contact's details in your Contacts data.

Go to Menu > Rules and a window with various options will appear, from where you can create and edit the rules.

Click '+New rule' and follow the Rule Wizard, it will guide you through the process.

Read more in the Documentation: Rules

You can edit shortcuts to fit your needs by going to Menu > Settings > General > Shortcuts.
Click on any shortcut that you want to change. Then, press the combination of keys you would like to use instead and the new information will appear next to the option name.

Shortcuts for new actions cannot be created at this time.

Find out what the most useful shortcuts are or read more in the Documentation: Shortcuts

Even if you use features like rules and customizable folders to sort your mail, it can still be difficult to find a specific email. While you can manually go through your folders, there’s a much easier way to quickly find what you're looking for - all you have to do is use the search feature.

The search bar is located in the upper right corner. You can use this bar to search for keywords in the title of an email, the body or the sender’s address. Type in the keyword, hit ‘Enter’ and a list of emails with that phrase will pop up.

Advanced search

For a slightly more advanced search, you can type a “?” in the search bar and a drop-down menu will appear. This can help you narrow down your search by specifying things like the location of the keywords, if the email has an attachment, if it was sent before or after a certain date and so on.
You can also click the downward pointing triangle at the end of the search bar to get a list of advanced options to further narrow down your search.
Select ‘Advanced Search’ for even more options.

Search Bar tips & tricks

•          If you don’t remember a certain part of your keyword, you can use the wildcard “*” to represent any character(s). For example, searching for “*ance” will turn up both “finance” and “fiancé”.
•          eM Client always searches as though there was a wildcard at the end of your keyword, so even if you don’t insert a “*” at the end, it will effectively still search for “keyword*”.
•          If you search for an email address, eM Client will give you a list of suggestions for completing the address based on who's in your contact list. Please be aware that @ isn’t treated as a separator, the whole address is therefore one text string. If you’re searching for a text inside the domain name, you need to use the wildcard: e.g. searching for ‘*emclient.com’ will turn up [email protected].
•          Please be aware that to search through the body of an email, full messages need to be downloaded. For IMAP this is not a default setting. Go to Menu > Accounts and enable downloading of messages for offline use under the IMAP tab.

Read more in our blog: Search keywords

Default reminders for all calendars can be set in Menu > Settings > General > Reminders.

You can also change individual calendar’s Default reminder in the Calendar section of eM Client.

Just right-click the calendar, select ‘Properties’ and change the Default reminder under the General tab. You can also change the color and other properties here.

There are two types of archiving: local archiving and server-side archiving.

For local archiving, eM Client contains an Automatic Archiving feature which allows you to download all messages older than a selected number of days from the server and keep them stored on your local drive. These emails can be found in the Archive folder in the program’s left pane, below the accounts folders and Local Folders.

You can find this option under Menu > Settings > Mail > Automatic Archiving. It is necessary to set Archiving Scope under the Account Preferences section for the archiving to be performed.

Server-side archiving is available for all IMAP and Exchange accounts. The Archive folder will show up under the account's own folders and you can use the ‘Move to Archive’ button or shortcut to move messages from these accounts' folders to their specific Archive folder with one step.

This feature was originally only supported for Google accounts where the 'Move to Archive' option only removes the Inbox label, the same way it works on webmail, keeping the message in the All Mail folder.

Read more on our blog: Archive your emails easily with eM Client 

To enable Offline mode from within the application simply navigate to Menu > File > Work Offline.

If you want to run the application in the Offline mode when opening it, hold the CTRL button while the application is being initialized. This will be detected by the program and you will be given an option to enable the Offline mode.

To get back Online either click the Menu > File > Work Offline option again or click the Refresh button.

Search folders are virtual folders that perform a search on selected criteria once you open the folder, allowing you to collect your items from specific folders or multiple selected folders just by using the right keyword or criteria.

The Search folders can be seen in the Favorites section. If you don't see Favorite folders on the top of your Folder list you can enable them in Menu > Settings > General > General (Show Favorite folders).

Once you have Favorites shown, you can right-click any of the folders and select Display > Search folders. Right-click the search folders option and create a new search folder.

You can also create a Search folder using the Search function in the top right - open the drop-down menu and select the 'Create Search Folder' option.

Read more in our blog: Custom search folders

You can easily subscribe to an internet calendar of your choice via Menu > Tools > Subscribe to Internet Calendar. Simply copy the URL address of the calendar into the address field and you are ready to browse the calendar in the Internet Calendars section of your Calendar.

Please be aware that you can only use valid iCalendar links.

Read more in our blog: iCal Subscriptions

NOTE - with the oAuth in v8 the calendar and contacts are set up automatically
Using the automatic setup in Menu > Accounts will set up your AOL account only for email using IMAP for incoming and SMTP for outgoing mail (which is the default setting taken from the mail server). 

However, you can set up separate Calendar and Contact accounts in eM Client, so using the "+" button for New Account in Accounts section select the Calendar>CalDAV and then Contacts>CardDAV manual options instead of the Automatic setup.

Server settings for these accounts are:

CalDAV Base URL:    https://caldav.aol.com
CardDAV Base URL:  https://carddav.aol.com

and just use your AOL login to set these up.

When your email account is going to be canceled soon or your space on the server is getting filled up, you might want to create a local backup of your messages or download them from your server.
This applies mainly to IMAP and EWS accounts.

Here are steps to follow to copy your messages and/or folders to Local folders:

Make sure to have the option to ‘Show local folders’ enabled in Menu > Settings > General > General.

To copy folders:

1.        Right-click the folder you want to copy
2.        Select the ‘Copy folder...’ option
3.        In a new window select the ‘Local folders’ as the destination where you want to make a copy
4.        Confirm
5.        Wait for eM Client to copy the folder with messages
6.        Continue with other folders from the top

You can select the 'Local folders' directly if you want the folder to be at the same level as the ‘Local Inbox’, ‘Sent’, etc. If you select any of the folders directly, the folder you are copying will be a subfolder of that folder.

To copy just messages:

1.        Open the folder with messages
2.        Click one of the messages to bring focus to it
3.        Press Ctrl+A to select ALL the messages in this folder (or select the ones you want specifically using the Shift or Ctrl button)
4.        Right-click one of the messages (with all messages still selected)
5.        Use the ‘Copy to Folder…’ option in the drop-down menu
6.        Select the exact folder where you want to copy these messages to
7.        If you are copying from Inbox, select the Local Inbox, etc.
8.        Confirm
9.        Wait for eM Client to finish copying these messages
10.        Continue with other folders from the top

If you have a large number of messages that have not been previously downloaded for offline use, the copying can take some time. In that case, eM Client is downloading the messages fully for the first time so it takes longer than copying a message that is already downloaded in eM Client.

After the messages are safely copied, you can remove the originals from your account folders, in case you need to free up space on your email server.
The copies in eM Client's Local folders are safe from any external force.

Note: We do suggest enabling automatic database backups if you keep local copies of important messages, in case the files in your computer got corrupted or if your computer crashed.
You can backup manually using the Menu > Backup option or enable Automatic backup in Menu > Settings > General > Backup.

Automatic replies (also called "Out of office") can be enabled in Menu > Tools >Automatic Replies.

In the new window that pops up, you can select the email account to apply the Automatic reply to, set the First and Last day when the reply is to be sent and then input the Subject and Body of the reply itself.

The Automatic reply feature is currently available for Gmail accounts, Icewarp accounts and accounts using Exchange protocol.

Read more in our blog: Automatic Replies in eM Client for tutorial and Out of office messages with eM Client for examples.

Unfortunately, we do not provide a direct import option from Eudora.

The best way to get your data from Eudora to eM Client safely is to first use Thunderbird to import the data into it (detailed instructions can be found in this MozillaZine article).

After all your data is safely imported in Thunderbird, go to eM Client and then use the Menu > File > Import.. > Application: Thunderbird option.

The default Export option for Contacts is VCF file, which is a standard file type for electronic contacts, but you can export your contacts into a CSV file as well. 

1. Go to the Contacts section and use the List - Custom view.
2. In this view, all information columns are available - you can either keep them all or use the Columns configuration to select which columns you want to keep in your final CSV file.
3. Then open the folder/s or make a search for the contacts you want to export. The data you see is the same the final CSV file will contain.
   Use Ctrl+A or Menu > Edit > Select All to select all the contacts.
4. Right-click the selection and use the Export List > Export to CSV.
5. Select the location for your file and finish the export - and you're done, your custom CSV contacts file is finished.

The easiest way of moving your database to another device is to make a backup of your current database in Menu > Backup.

eM Client will back up the whole application database into the folder selected in Menu > Settings > General > Backup. You can also enable the option of automatic backups in regular intervals here.

You can transfer this backup to a device of your choice and restore from it through Menu > File > Restore.

Read more in our blog: How to work with automatic backups in eM Client

If you have several email addresses linked to eM Client, the first one that you have added will be automatically set as default. Default account will be selected as sender when you compose messages in a neutral place, such as the Favorites or Local Folders, for example. You can change which email account you’re sending messages from just by clicking on your email address in the New Message window.

If you want to change your default account so you don’t have to perform this step every time, go to Menu > Accounts, select the preferred account from the list on the left side and then click the ‘Set as default’ button. The account marked by a star is the one set as default.

Read more in the Documentation: Accounts

You probably already know that you can link several accounts to eM Client. But you might also decide that, for whatever reason, you don't want a specific account linked to eM Client after all. Luckily, you can remove an account from eM Client in just a few seconds.

Go to Menu > Accounts.
In the left-hand side of the dialogue box, you'll see the list of accounts you've linked to eM Client. Select the one you want to remove and click the Delete button in the toolbar at the top.

Read more in the Documentation: Accounts

To change the order of the accounts, go to Menu > Accounts. On the left side of the window that appears, you’ll see a list of the accounts that you have linked with eM Client.

If you want to change the order of these accounts, simply click on one of them. Then use the Up or Down buttons in the top toolbar to move the account in the desired direction. This changes the order of your accounts in the main Mail tab.
The location of the Local Folders and Archive cannot be changed.

IMPORTANT: Please note that changing the account order is not the same thing as setting an account as default. The default account is always the one marked by a star, not necessarily the first one on the list.

To set up an alias to your account navigate to the account settings under Menu > Accounts, select your account, click on "Aliases" under the General setup of your account and add your email address to the list of Aliases.

Note: In order to send out on behalf of such account, eM Client may require an initial setup of the account with your mail server, for example connecting the two accounts in your online Account settings. In case of Google accounts you first need to go to gmail.com and link the two accounts in Settings there.

Update 6/10/2022: Since Google discontinued their Less secure apps setting, you might not be able to use the account as POP anymore. Please read more in this article: Google ‘less secure apps’ access and what it means for eM Client

While Gmail's default (and preferred) email protocol is IMAP, we definitely support a POP protocol option as well. However, since it's not the available setting from Autodiscover, you will need to set up the account manually.

Gmail has a special secure login called oAuth, which natively supports only IMAP. However, a secure POP setup can still be created thanks to App-specific passwords.

You will just need to Allow access for Less secure apps (as POP connection is seen as less secure than IMAP with oAuth login), enable POP protocol in your Gmail settings and then enable 2-factor authentication to create an App password (a special password which will be used only for eM Client - so your actual Google password is safe).

Manual setup in eM Client is then available in the New Account window under Mail > Other.
There you can select the POP protocol, input your server settings and create your desired POP setup. Make sure to use the created App password instead of your main Google password.

If you want to set up just a separate calendar account or your available calendar account could not be found using the Automatic setup, you can definitely set it up manually.

•          First, go to Menu > Accounts, and click on the + Add account button.
•          Skip the Automatic setup and click the Calendar section instead.
•          Select the option that applies to your existing Calendar account and click Next to finish the setup.

Note: If you don't have an online calendar account but would want to have one to synchronize your calendar online to your other devices, you can register an account for free on platforms that provide an option to synchronize just your Calendars and Contacts (such as Fruux, for example).

Read more in the Documentation: About Calendar

If you want to set up just a separate account for Contacts or your available 'Contacts' account could not be found using the Automatic setup, you can definitely set it up manually.

•          First, go to Menu > Accounts, and click on the + Add account button.
•          Skip the Automatic setup and click the Contacts section instead.
•          Select the option that applies to your existing Calendar account and click Next to finish the setup.

Note: If you don't have an online contacts account but would want to have one to synchronize your contacts online to your other devices, you can register an account for free on platforms that provide an option to synchronize just your Calendars and Contacts (such as Fruux, for example).

NOTE - with the oAuth in v8 the calendar and contacts are set up automatically
Using the automatic setup in Menu > Accounts will set up your AOL account only for email using IMAP for incoming and SMTP for outgoing mail (which is the default setting taken from the mail server). 

However, you can set up separate Calendar and Contact accounts in eM Client, so using the "+" button for New Account in Accounts section select the Calendar>CalDAV and then Contacts>CardDAV manual options instead of the Automatic setup.

Server settings for these accounts are:

CalDAV Base URL:    https://caldav.aol.com
CardDAV Base URL:  https://carddav.aol.com

and just use your AOL login to set these up.

After you set up your Gmail account you might encounter this error message:

'All Mail' folder disabled

For Gmail and Google Apps accounts, eM Client synchronizes the 'All Mail' folder. It appears that IMAP access for this folder on account '<your email address>' is currently disabled and synchronization will fail.

To fix this, you need to make sure the 'All Mail' folder has 'Show in IMAP' checked in their Gmail settings at https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#settings/labels.

Simply follow the directions from the error message and enable All Mail label to be shown in IMAP.

NOTE: The 'All Mail' folder is a vital part of your Gmail account - it stores all the messages in your account (with the exception of Trash and Spam folders - these are separate).
Synchronizing this folder will not create any duplicates of your messages, because eM Client supports this specific Gmail structure and each message is stored only once in the All Mail folder and all the other folders (Inbox, Sent, Drafts, ...) are just Labels - special search folders which will show the messages from All Mail folder with the matching Label. Kind of like Tags in eM Client.

This actually allows for the synchronization to be faster and the data to take up less space on your device than if the Labels were converted into real folders.

No, email synchronization cannot be limited just to a selected time period (for example from only the past few months or years) at this time.

For IMAP accounts, we by default only synchronize the email headers instead - this way you have an overview of all your messages but the synchronization is more efficient and the downloaded data doesn’t take up too much space.

A full message is downloaded into the eM Client database only after you open it.

For EWS accounts we automatically leave out the attachments and images - those are then downloaded only once requested. Unfortunately, the bodies of the messages are downloaded automatically, by the nature of the Exchange protocol.

eM Client is able to show avatars for your contacts and can also download avatars from external sources like domain icons and gravatar. But how do you change your own avatar?

This cannot be done directly via eM Client yet, but there are ways to get your avatar updated and connect an image with your email account everywhere.

The easiest way to change your email avatar is via Gravatar - https://gravatar.com/
Just create an account with your email address and upload an image.
eM Client will be able to load this image for your email account.

If you own your domain/have a website on the domain you can set up a favicon.
You can read about favicon setup here - https://www.w3.org/2005/10/howto-favicon

Another tool that you might find useful is a favicon generator, to create different sizes of your image - https://www.websiteplanet.com/webtools/favicon-generator

IMPORTANT: Please note that since eM Client updates the downloaded avatars every 30 days, the avatar changes won’t be immediately visible.

However, you can force eM Client to re-download new images by disabling and re-enabling the download of images from external sources, which will clear the image cache:

1.        Go to Menu > Settings > Contacts > General
2.        Disable the option ‘Download avatars from external sources’ and click ‘Apply’
3.        Then enable the option ‘Download avatars from external sources’ again and click ‘Ok’
4.        Your new image will show up now

Sharing in eM Client is done via Delegation for Exchange (EWS) accounts.

You can find the Delegation setting via the Menu>Accounts section in the Exchange Web Services tab of the given account or via right-click on the specific account in the folder list.

• In the Delegation window or section click the Show... button next to "Accounts you can access:"
• The "Delegated accounts" open will open.
• Click the Add button on the Delegated accounts window.
• The "Select users or groups" window will open.
• To add the delegated account you should have access to, enter it under "Enter the name of users or group:". E.g., [email protected]. Then click the Search button.
• That user will be displayed under "Group or user names". Click on the proper account name and click the Ok button.
• Click the Ok button on the Delegated accounts window as well and close/save the original Delegation window.

If the shared folders do not appear right away, try closing and re-opening the eM Client app.

You can find the Public folders setting via the Menu>Accounts section in the Exchange Web Services tab of the given account or via right-click on the specific account in the folder list.

• In the Public folders window or section click the Edit... button next to "Choose which public folders to show:"
• A list of domain shared calendars and/or folders should be displayed.
• Select the ones you want to add, then click the Ok button. 
• Then, click Save & Close on the Accounts window or close the Public folders window.

After you download the installer from our website, run the downloaded ‘setup’ file and proceed with the installation steps.

During the installation, you can, for example, choose to make the application launch on the system startup or set it as the default mail app on your device.

eM Client can import your data directly from Microsoft Outlook, Thunderbird, other popular clients, previous eM Client database or relevant data files.

When you first run the application, an automatic import wizard will lead you through the process if it detects that you have other email client(s) installed.

Besides this, the import options can be accessed at any time in Menu > File > Import.
This option allows you to import your emails from .eml files, contacts from .vcf or .csv files, calendar and tasks from .ics files or even eM Client settings from .xml files.

Read more in our blog: Import Data from other email clients to eM Client and in the Documentation: Getting Started.

After you finish installing eM Client you will be automatically asked to set up your first account. You can use the Automatic setup or open the other tabs to explore manual setup options.

To set up additional email accounts go to Menu > Accounts section and create new accounts using the '+ Add account' button.

To explore the setup options in more detail please read the Create New Account page from our online Documentation or check out specific account types in the Compatibility section on our website.

eM Client supports all standard mailing services that synchronize items through the IMAP protocol or download messages through the POP3 protocol. The application also supports synchronization through the Exchange Web Services protocol for MS Exchange and Outlook.com accounts. Outlook.com accounts can also be set up with IMAP for mail and AirSync for calendar and contacts.

To include examples: we support Gmail, Apple iCloud, Office 365, Outlook.com (MSN, Live, Hotmail), IceWarp, Microsoft Exchange, Yahoo, AOL, GMX, Kerio, ... and many more - feel free to try out the Automatic setup and see.

An email program such as eM Client can retrieve your emails using different protocols. Two of the most common protocols are IMAP and POP3. So how do they work?

POP3 protocol downloads the emails from Inbox to a specific device from the server. Once the emails are downloaded, the originals are deleted from the server. This means that if you’re using POP3, the emails are tied to a specific device and can’t be viewed on other devices without forwarding them.

IMAP, on the other hand, is not tied to a specific device. Instead, you can view your emails on any device because the emails are stored on a remote server and not on an individual device. A good example of this would be when you check your Gmail account on your phone, through your email client on your desktop or through the web interface on your laptop and you see the same messages in each case.

Most of today’s mail servers support IMAP, even though there are still exceptions. If there’s only a small storage space available on the server, synchronizing messages through IMAP would quickly lead to hitting the limit so only POP3 might be available. Fortunately, eM Client supports both IMAP and POP3. You can therefore use whichever type you prefer, depending on your server.

The automatic setup in eM Client uses the autodiscover settings on your email server. That helps the application detect the correct account settings and lets you access your data almost immediately. The most common setup is IMAP, this however depends on the mail server you’re using with eM Client.

Read more in the Documentation: Create New Account

You can set up your account manually in eM Client in a few simple steps.

1.        Go to Menu > Accounts and click the button ‘+Add Account’.
2.        Skip the Automatic Setup option, click on Mail and select ‘Other’ from the menu that appears.
3.        Click ‘Next’ to proceed with the manual configuration of your account and then simply follow the instructions.

Read more in the Documentation: Create New Account

eM Client can also synchronize all your calendars, contacts or tasks items if your server supports the CalDAV or CardDAV protocol. An example of a service that uses both of these protocols would be Fruux. You can also synchronize your Google calendar and Google contacts.

If your provider doesn’t support the synchronization of any of these items, you can always use the local calendar, contacts and tasks. Please keep in mind that items saved locally cannot be synchronized.

The default database location is in the eM Client folder under your user profile in hidden folders AppData\Roaming (the path is usually C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\eM Client).

To change it, please navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Storage where you can adjust the database folder location.

However, as the disclaimer in the settings warns: when you change the location, your original database will not be transferred. Instead, a new database will be created there on the next startup, unless you move your old database files into the new location.

eM Client supports export to all standard file types for all your items.

You can export emails into an email message format (.eml), calendars and tasks into iCalendar files (.ics) or your contacts into VCards (.vcf).

You can also export your account settings, rules, signatures, and other settings into a .xml file and import it into another instance of eM Client.

The export feature is accessible in Menu > File > Export.

Read more in the Documentation: Export

eM Client for Windows and macOS is currently localized in the following languages:

•          English
•          Catalan
•          Chinese (Simplified)
•          Croatian
•          Czech
•          Danish
•          Dutch
•          French
•          German
•          Greek
•          Hungarian
•          Italian
•          Japanese
•          Korean
•          Latvian
•          Norwegian
•          Polish
•          Portuguese
•          Portuguese (Brazil)
•          Russian
•          Slovak
•          Spanish
•          Swedish
•          Turkish
•          Ukrainian

eM Client for iOS and Android is currently available in:

•          English
•          Czech
•          Danish
•          Italian
•          German
•          Spanish
•          French
•          Hungarian
•          Japanese
•          Latvian
•          Norwegian
•          Dutch
•          Portuguese
•          Portuguese (Brazil)
•          Russian
•          Slovak
•          Turkish
•          Ukrainian
•          Chinese (Simplified)

Note that some of the translations were created with the help of our users and may contain some translation errors or be unfinished.

If you come across an error like that, please make sure to report it to us as we'll be more than happy to improve the localizations.

If you'd like to volunteer to create a localization for a language we're missing, please contact us at [email protected].