Vivaldi is also a calendar. It’s also an RSS feed reader. And now, it’s also an email client. That’s right, the developers of the Vivaldi web browser have integrated a full-blown email client, so you don’t have to either deal with web-based clients or work with yet another application window on your desktop. As to the Vivaldi Mail features, it includes such things as:
IMAP, POP3, Gmail, iCloud, and Outlook supportLabels, filters, and a powerful search toolUnseen/unread countersCustom keyboard shortcutsIntegrated Feed readerShow/hide read email, mailing lists, custom folders, feed, junk, and trashSave searchesMessage queuing and batch sendingInvite management with Vivaldi Calendar integration
According to Jon von Tetzchner, CEO of Vivaldi, “Vivaldi Mail is an ode to the original, simple, and reliable form of communication.” Tetzchner adds, “Email can at times be chaotic and messy, but Vivaldi Mail is the partner you need to get the job done – keeping your mail organized and easy to navigate.” The new email client resides in the Vivaldi left sidebar (Figure 1) and opens in a browser tab when needed. When you don’t need it, simply close the tab. Although my version of the email client is still listed as Beta (I was privileged to get early access), what you will install is, in fact, version 1.0. Once you open the email client, it should look very familiar to anyone who’s ever used an email client (whether a web-based or standard application – Figure 2).
How to get the Vivaldi email client
The new version of Vivaldi (with the built-in email client) will be released today (June 9, 2022) at 3PM EST. So all you have to do is either upgrade your existing installation or download a fresh installer (from the Vivaldi download page) and install the browser. Once you’ve installed the latest version, you’ll then need to configure your mail server.
How to configure your mail server in Vivaldi Mail
After installing Vivaldi, open the browser and then click the Vivaldi icon in the upper left corner of the browser window. From the popup, click Settings. In the Settings window (Figure 3), click Mail. In the resulting window, click + at the bottom left corner of the MAIL ACCOUNTS section (Figure 4). In the next window, click Manual Setup (Figure 5) to expand the account creation options. In the Mail Setup window (Figure 6), fill out all the necessary information for your email account and click Add Account at the bottom. Once you’ve added the account, you can then configure Vivaldi Mail to look and behave exactly as you need.
How Vivaldi Mail performs
To be quite honest, I do prefer my email to be handled by a separate email application. That being said, Vivaldi Mail is one of the best web browser-based mail clients I’ve used in a long time. The one caveat to Vivaldi Mail is that it cannot be opened in its own window, which means it is tied to the browser so that you can open it as a standalone tool. That’s fine because Vivaldi makes it easy to open and close the Mail client right from the left sidebar. Other than that one oversight, I’ve found the Vivaldi Mail client to be very well designed, easy to use, and reliable. The one glaring feature missing from Vivaldi Mail (for me, at least) is encryption. But there are plenty of other options, such as a powerful filtering tool, mailing list management, and the ability to customize the interface and other options. If you’re looking to bring even more of your work into a browser window, the latest version of Vivaldi has your back with Mail.
