14 DAY TRIAL // Instant messaging is becoming more and more common these days, and everyone is using it. While these services are great for individual use, they require a connection to the Internet, and are as such pretty much useless when it comes to communicating over a small closed network.
There are quite a number of programs out there that serve this purpose; however, the ones that are written for OS X usually don't work on Windows, and the ones written for Windows don't work in OS X? and then you have all those different versions of those two operating systems to take into account.
SnapMail is a small little application that is geared towards facilitating communication over networks, both local and remote, which is available for both current and older versions of OS X and Windows.
What it does In a nutshell, SnapMail acts as a central application from which to send and receive messages to other people, both on your local network and remotely. It can also do things such as act as a reminder; however this is accomplished through the aforementioned messaging system, by sending a delayed message to yourself, so it amounts to pretty much the same thing.
Mail or instant messaging SnapMail works pretty much in the same way as standard e-mail, so you might ask yourself, why you would use this over regular e-mails. There are several distinct differences.
Firstly, in order to use e-mail, you normally need a active connection to the Internet, although this is not necessarily a requirement as some large companies have local e-mail services. The second difference is that e-mail can be overlooked and the response time is on average much slower than that of instant messaging services.
SnapMail is a different service entirely from e-mail, meaning that although it works in pretty much the same manner, you can use it in a small network, out of the box, with next to no additional configuration. Furthermore, the messages it sends out can be in one of two forms: mail or snap. The difference between the two is that mail acts like normal e-mail, while snaps pop up on the recipient's screen, much like instant messages, thus can be responded to instantly.
The two are very well interlaced and you can respond to a snap with another snap or with a mail, and you can even snap yourself a snap from somebody else to act as a reminder. Similarly, you san send yourself a snap message which will act as a personal reminder and will pop up at a later time.
Ease of use Because of how the program is so similar to e-mail programs, everyone should be able to use it without any issues whatsoever. The naming conventions are pretty much the same, and the windows are set up in a manner that is consistent with most e-mail applications.
SnapMail is also quite customizable, letting you define all sorts of presets and automatic responses so that you can easily send out standard messages or respond to snaps with just the click of a single button.
Pretty much everything that you need to know is visible at a glance, with messages having a complex and customizable status indicator icon system, that lets you know which messages are unread, which messages you have replied to, which messages you have sent and have been read by the recipient and which have not yet been read.
More than just messages SnapMail also lets you send files in the form of attachments. These attachments are very strangely handled, part of the implementation being great, other being just plain absurd.
To send an attachment, you simply drag the files you want to the message text box or use the attach menu to select the files. Pretty standard stuff so far, but from here on it gets weird. First of all, once you have added files, you cannot remove one of them? you can either clear the entire attachment list, or add more files. Then, even after you send the message with the attachments, the program still keeps them there and will keep attaching them to all other messages you send until you clear the attachment list.
On the receiving end, you see a little red paperclip next to a message with attachments. Upon opening that message, you will see the names of the attached files as well as a lot of small, extremely small, icons on the top of the screen. From here on, you have two choices, you can either drag those icons to anywhere you want on the computer or, you can click on the little icons, after which you will be prompted with a save dialogue for each and every attached file. To top it all off, once you have placed the files somewhere accessible they will be removed from the message itself, never to be seen again. And the program does not keep track of where the files were placed.
For a program that works so very similarly to e-mail, for the attachments to behave in such a dissimilar manner is confusing and a potential source of many mistakes.
The Good A nice combination of e-mail and instant messaging, with great ease of use and compatibility with different platforms and versions of the operating system.
The Bad Many strange design choices and inconsistencies that will baffle the user when first using certain functions.
The Truth If you have a small network of machines of various types and ages at home, or at the office, this program can help create a communication bridge between them.
Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge:
