14 DAY TRIAL // Emailing is a very popular activity nowadays and I cannot imagine a world without this messaging service. Of course, I cannot imagine one where this service is paid either. Since the beginning, the way you receive and read your emails has changed a little. We now have beautifully designed interfaces like in Thunderbird, and all sorts of options, like The Bat provides.
But keeping it simple is always better and sometimes, a whole lot faster. That's why applications like Pop Tray and GMail Notifier are pretty used, even if they do not benefit from the deserved popularity. It is time for another free little application that is designed to retrieve your emails from who knows what server.
Poppy is an extremely easy to use application that has the only purpose of retrieving and displaying the emails you get. The application is simple, but not all the way. The only flaw I could find was that it will also erase the messages from the server. Of course, this option is quite understandable as had it been otherwise, you would have been displayed the same messages over and over again.
There is no interface, only the Settings window which allows you to configure the small software the way you want it. There are five tabs you should browse for making all the settings. The first one is accounts. This is where you provide the program with the "path" towards your emails so that it knows where to retrieve them from.
A name of the account is necessary, as well as all the account information (POP3 server, port number, ID and password). Additionally, you can add a WAV file to play whenever a new mail is received. This way, you will get audio notification and will be able to read it right away. I suggest to load a small audio file, otherwise you will have to wait until it finishes playing in order to view the message. Also, you can set a program to be executed the moment an email is received.
Notifications tab contains the most options of all. The notification options available when creating the account are also present in here and notification options extend to showing a pop-up message. This way, you can enable both visual and audio notification for incoming emails. The font of the message can be configured to suit your visual needs. The various notification options allow you to be alerted or not by showing email header only, when the email is from a friend, etc.
Settings window covers different aspects like the amount of time between mail checks, POP3 server timeout or asking for confirmation when deleting. Also, you get to set the action for clicking and double clicking the system tray icon. The mail program can be set in here also.
Friends tab is designed for creating a list of friends. They receive special treatment from the application and you can set it to be notified only when you receive messages from one of the addresses in the list. The best part is that you can import a list of friends from a TXT file with no problems whatsoever.
Selection window refers to selecting the messages. Some rules can be applied (IF THEN function) to select or not certain messages.
Viewing the messages can be pretty difficult as you will have to find it among all the raw data presented, but if you are used to it and know where to look, then it is a snap. If you have chosen a default mail program, you can open it by selecting the option from the right click context menu.
Also, right clicking the tray icon allows you to select the accounts for which you want to receive incoming mail notifications.
The Good
Simple, easy to use and free. It will not take much of your resources and the configuration can be done by every type of computer user. What more do you want?
The Bad
As I said before, deleting the emails from the server is a bit of a drawback, but with a little care and a backup, it will not be such a baddie.
The Truth
Nice application. The fact that it is free only ads to its value. I experienced no crashes and it did all the required jobs. Try it for yourselves and see if it rises to your standards.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
