Mailbag Assistant - How to create order out of e-mail chaos
If you're buried alive in e-mail, let Mailbag Assistant come to the rescue with tools to search, organize, analyze and archive your mountain of messages ­- tools that are probably inadequate or unavailable in your mail program. Mailbag Assistant complements your mail program without interfering with it or modifying its message files. It reads and processes your current and archived e-mails with ease, whether they are stored on your computer, on networked drives, or on removable media. Version 3.98 released February 22, 2008.	With Mailbag Assistant, you can... open all your mail files, even those backed up on CD-ROMs or ZIP drives; find relevant messages quickly; filter out e-mails that contain virus attachments; create e-mail archives in compressed format to save disk space; archive and easily extract all your e-mail attachments; change mail program and still keep access to your old messages; export your e-mails as EML files, Web pages, or other formats based on customizable templates; automate tasks with the built-in scripting language; examine email for evidence (computer forensics).
Windows 95/98/2000/NT4/ME/XP/XP64/Vista 32 MB of RAM, 5 MB disk space Pentium or AMD processor

The powerful search tools provide both easy-to-use wizards (see our animated screen shot) and advanced features like Boolean operators with multiple criteria. In addition to searching for exact matches in your e-mails, Mailbag Assistant lets you search for approximate and Soundex (sound-based) matches. These flexible tools make it simple to define, group and find relevant messages quickly and accurately.

If you're not an experienced computer user, you'll enjoy the program's simple grid layout, which allows you to sort e-mails in many ways just by clicking column headings. You can also use the E-mail Wizard and Quick-Match searches to track down messages quickly and easily.

If you're a power user, you'll appreciate tools for creating message subsets, extracting addresses and attachments, and compiling traffic and word statistics (see our animated screen shot). You can take advantage of a full-featured scripting language that allows you to create custom operations and automate repetitive tasks like opening message folders, searching through correspondence, and archiving e-mails.

Whether you're maintaining folders with thousands of e-mails, or just want to save time hunting down a few old ones, Mailbag Assistant makes it much easier to perform searches, organize your e-mails efficiently, and archive them for rapid retrieval.

Mailbag Assistant supports Outlook Express (including newsgroup messages), Windows Mail, Eudora, Mozilla Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, Netscape Messenger, Pegasus, The Bat!, Forte Agent, PocoMail, Barca, Calypso*, Courier Mail*, Opera Mail, FoxMail, Juno 3.x, maildir, Unix mail (Pine, Elm, mbox, etc.), and EML message files.

Other email products developed by Fookes Software include Aid4Mail and E-mail Examiner. See our comparison chart for a list of differences between these tools.

* Calypso and Courier mail must be exported as archive files before Mailbag Assistant can read them.

Free Download

Click on one of the links below to get your free 30-day trial copy. The distribution file is available in two formats. The EXE package is the easiest to install. However, some systems don't allow downloading those file types. In that case, download the ZIP package and extract its contents with a utility like Winzip.

If you own a registered copy, please go directly to the upgrade page to update your paid version.

Download (size 2,027 KB), then run Mailbag_Setup.exe to install.


Download (size 2,024 KB), then unzip and run Setup.exe to install.

A Help file is included with the program. However, if you prefer a printed manual, just download the following file (size 278 KB) and print it through Adobe Acrobat:

Key Features

• Easy to use thanks to helpful wizards.
• Handles the most popular message files.
• No need to import e-mails to use them in Mailbag Assistant.
• Handles native message files even if you no longer have the original e-mail program on your computer.
• Enables you to easily share your correspondence with other Mailbag Assistant users.
• Favorites menu to quickly reopen frequently used e-mail folders.
• Message text is colored based on quote level.
• Match tool selects all messages matching your criteria.
• Filter tool shows only messages matching your criteria.
• Search tools support Boolean operators, approximate matches, and Soundex matches.
• Groups messages together meaningfully.
• Sorts grid data when column header is clicked.
• Saves e-mails into compressed message archives.
• Stores and extracts e-mail attachments and HTML messages.
• Exports e-mails as plain text, EML files, Web pages, and other formats based on customizable templates.
• Extracts information like e-mail addresses and traffic statistics.
• Provides built-in scripting language to automate tasks.
• Integrated editor for scripts and templates, with syntax highlighting.

Reviews on the Web

• Mailbag Assistant 3.2 (4/5 rating)
• SharewareJunkies.com (5-star rating)
• Rocket Download
• TUCOWS (5 golden cows)
• WinPlanet (Mailbag Assistant 1.0)

Links to Mailbag Assistant Resources

• EmailReply.zip (from Larry Thomas)
  Template and script to make it easier to reply to e-mail offline.

Related Third-Party Software

• Aid4Mail
  Helps migrate email messages to another client, creates compressed mail archives.
• SuperCat
  A disk cataloging program for finding files located on any disk media.
• Mozilla Thunderbird
  The e-mail and newsgroup client for 2005 and beyond. Freeware.
• Calypso -- now free!
  Users appreciate the security/privacy features in this mailer. Freeware.
• Eudora
  A popular mail client. Available in different flavors, including a free version.
• Free Agent
  A popular free newsreader with an integrated e-mail program.
• Netscape Messenger
  This free mail client is one of the components of the Netscape browser.
• Outlook Express
  The free mail client from Microsoft that is fully integrated with Windows.
• Pegasus Mail
  A popular free mail client, which can be used by single or multiple users.
• PocoMail
  A small, fast, and very powerful e-mail program. Shareware.
• The Bat!
  A small e-mail client that handles multiple POP accounts. Shareware.

News

Fookes Software news and software updates are now available directly through the latest Mailbag Assistant update. The news feature is activated through the Check for Updates command under the Help menu. Read more about this feature here.

• February 26, 2008
  Version 3.98 released. See WhatsNew.txt for a list of changes. Registered users can upgrade for free by downloading the update from the Check for Updates feature.
• June 17, 2003
  PC Magazine (USA) recommends Mailbag Assistant.
• September 16, 2002
  SharewareJunkies.com gives Mailbag Assistant a top rating of 5 stars.
• August 22, 2002
  Mailbag Assistant is featured in Dr. File Finder's Picks.
• May 10, 2002
  Mailbag Assistant was a nominee for the 2002 Shareware Industry Awards.
• May 22, 2000
  Mailbag Assistant featured as "Head of the Heard" at TUCOWS. Receives a top rating of 5 cows.
• September 16, 1999
  Mailbag Assistant 1.0 officially released at ZDNet's Launchpad. Receives a top rating of 5 stars.