Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop is free opensource all in one desktop software for Windows,Linux, MacOS. When I say all in one software, I mean its a fully featured desktop software with email, Calendar, Documents, Contact Manager, Tasks and briefcase. Zimbra Desktop supports configuring an email account on a Zimbra server or yahoo, gmail, aol, Microsoft Exchange IMAP or infact any Pop/IMAP account from a service provider like your ISP. Zimbra can work online or completely offline and there is no storage limitation.
The interface is easy to use and much user friendly and eye catchy, more like your yaoo email online.
Highlighting features include
* Easily management of emails with ‘Drag and drop’ support
* Supports plain text and html message formatting
* email signatures for individual accounts
* Automatically reply with the correct ‘from’ address
* Online and Offline support
Conversation Views, Tags, and Search
* Collapse email threads into a single Conversation View to simplify your inbox
* Tag messages as important from people you care about
* Quickly search your mailbox for pictures, documents or text- even with attachments
* Use the visual Search Builder to easily search by folder, date, person, subject or attachment
* Save searches as Virtual Folders- for example “All email with attachments from Joe”
Web mash-ups
* View addresses as Yahoo! Maps
* Automatically detect your location and find points of interest with Yahoo! Local
* Preview web pages at thumbnails instead of opening a browser
* See your calendar schedule from within an email message if you hover over a date
* Web Search powered by Yahoo! is built directly into Zimbra Desktop
Contacts
* Store all your contacts in one place for all your accounts
* Create groups and tags to organize them
* Add photos to contacts
* Auto complete email addresses when composing email
* Easily import new contacts from other applications as .csv files or export contacts as .csv files for backup
Calendar
* Manage multiple color-coded calendars
* View calendars in Day, Week, Work Week, Month or List view
* ‘Drag and drop’ events to new days or to change times
* Import public web calendars (iCal format), such as sports schedules
* Invite others to meetings and view free/busy times
Documents, Tasks, Briefcase
* Edit Documents including add images, tables and spreadsheets; share them in email
* Track your to do’s including start and end dates, percent complete
* Save attachments in Briefcase rather than as message attachments
* Works with any account you set up
Install Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop
Unfortunately, there isn’t a 1-click installer for Yahoo! Zimbra desktop but having said that installation is not so difficult and in fact it is as simple as click a few “Next” buttons. Download the latest stable version of Zimbra Desktop from here
To download from a terminal,
saibaba@opensuse11:~/Desktop> wget http://h.yimg.com/lo/downloads/zdesktop/installer/beta/1278/zdesktop_0_90_build_1278_linux_i686.sh
Change permissions
Change execute permissions to allow the executable to be run
saibaba@opensuse11:~/Desktop> chmod 755 zdesktop_0_90_build_1278_linux_i686.sh
Install Zimbra Desktop
Now, we are ready to go! Remember, for security reasons, zimbra Desktop installation is not allowed to be run as a ROOT user and will fail. So, run the installer as yourself as follows
saibaba@opensuse11:~/Desktop> ./zdesktop_0_90_build_1278_linux_i686.sh
Unpacking JRE …
Preparing JRE …
Starting Installer …
This starts the GUI installer for Zimbra Desktop. Select your language and click OK. This starts the installation wizard. Click Next.
Accept license Agreement and click next. Select the Destination Directory (good to accept defaults) and click Next.
This starts the installation. When the installation is complete will promp to create a desktop icon. If you do not want a desktop icon, untick the box and click Next.
This starts the Zimbra core service and complete the desktop setup. Place a tick in Launch Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop and click Finish.
This should start Zimbra Account setup wizard. Click “Setup an Account”. Click on the type of account that you would like to create (yahoo,gmail,zimbra mail etc).
Enter Account Details and click Save Settings. This should create the account. Click OK to check the email settings or to create another account or Click “Go to Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop”.
This should launch Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop for you with your email inbox. Click on any of the tabs for the relevant service like calendar or Documents. To edit settings or to set signatures etc, click the options tab. Should you need to add another account or edit the existing account, click “Account Setup” on the top right corner.
In the email or calendar, you can add tags by simply right-click on the appointment and create a new tag or add an existing tag.
Overall a very great Desktop tool for every web user. Click here to visit the project homepage.
I don’t get the need for this software. Lol.
Neither did a lot of other people. It is no longer here or even there for that matter.
From what I could gather, it’s main use (which few other programs can do) would be to allow Yahoo users to access and store their mail remotely. In 2002 Yahoo stopped POP3 access unless you pay $20 US annually for YahooMail Plus. This program would allow you to access and locally store your Yahoo Mail w/out paying.