Anyone with a Palm III or higher has the ability to read and compose email with a built in email application. The application is built in to the system ROM and can be setup to Hotsync your email to and from your Palm Pilot to your desktop computer. That is, you can ONLY read and compose the email on your handheld. Your desktop computer is required to actually send and receive the email from the Internet.

Enter MultiMail Pro

MultiMail Pro is an email application that is capable of sending and receiving email directly from your Palm. I communicated in the most common email protocols, POP, IMAP and SMTP, as well as NNTP for newsgroup reading. SSL security is available as an extra option.

The beauty of MultiMail Pro is that it looks and feels like your desktop email. Whether you use Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, or any other application, you'll feel right at home with the layout of MultiMail Pro.

The Setup Wizard is designed to walk you through the configuration required to send and receive email on the Internet, and even if it's your first time, you'll be ready to go without a single problem. All you'll need is the necessary server information, which you can get from your Internet Service Provider (ISP). Simply plug that information into the Wizard and away you go.

MultiMail Pro's standout features include:

• Ability to handle multiple email accounts, up to as many as eight.
• User configurable file folders (up to 16) to organize your email.
• Ability to handle massive email messages - with a maximum of 60K in size. Far larger than the built in email application.
• Send and receive attachments. This requires optional plugins, which can be downloaded for free at www.actualsoft.com and include:
  • Text files Palm applications (.prc files)
  • Quicksheet files
  • vCard attachments for sending address book information

Composing Email is straightforward with MultiMail Pro. Simply select New from the button bar at the bottom, and you are brought to a standard email form. With Smart Addressing enabled in the Preferences menu, MultiMail Pro will try to anticipate the addressee by replacing the names of contacts in address book with emails listed as you enter the letters. I found this feature slow and somewhat annoying and turned it off after a few attempts. However, it is impressive how accurately it works. After your email is addressed, you can choose to carbon copy or blank carbon copy it and/or add an attachment. Finally, your subject line and message. After all your information is complete, you can choose to send the message immediately if you're connected. Or you can send the message to the Outbox until it's convenient. This is a nice feature if you have to send multiple messages as you'll only have to connect once.

When receiving email, you have many options:

• Receive "Headlines only" will download only the subject and sender information and allow you to decide which messages to download in full. This saves precious Palm memory.
• Truncate, or set a file size limit for the messages. For instance, you can download only the first 8k of each message. This will also save space and it allows you to download the rest later.
• Delete queued messages will permanently delete the email from your ISP after it is downloaded to your Palm. Or, with this box unchecked, you'll have a backup copy when you get your email on your desktop computer.
• Ability to setup and use filters.

The documentation for these and all of MultiMail Pro's many features is clear and easy to follow. You can easily configure your Palm and send and receive your first email in a matter of minutes.