Free Open Source Web Mail Application

Most web hosts have a default webmail client that comes pre-installed with a typical web hosting package. The most popular of these happens to be Horde – which is a dinosaur of a web app. A couple of days ago I came across an interesting open source project called Round Cube. “RoundCube Webmail is a browser-based multilingual IMAP client with an application-like user interface. It provides full functionality you expect from an e-mail client, including MIME support, address book, folder manipulation, message searching and spell checking. RoundCube Webmail is written in PHP and requires a MySQL or Postgres database. The user interface is fully skinnable using XHTML and CSS 2.” – RoundCube.net.

The installation process is a bit difficult, but I’ve managed to get it up and running. My hosting package currently houses 12 domains for various clients and with my installation of RoundCube Webmail my clients and I are able to access webmail on the go . The application works with all of my client’s IMAP accounts which I’ve previously setup. All emails are pushed to and from the mail server providing an efficient workflow along side Outlook and Apple Mail.

I tend to access my email accounts on my iPhone when I’m on the go, however, it’s nice to have a backup option when I don’t have either my laptop or my phone on me. All of the activities in reading, deleting and moving emails are automatically synced with my mail server and thus when I’m back in front of my computer at home, all the tasks I’ve done on webmail are automatically reflected in my Apple Mail application on my laptop. As far as my theme, I decided to design a Peanut-like interface.. as usual.