What follows is an independent review of MailCOPA written by Steven C Peyrot. InterVations did not pay for this review or solicit Steven to write it. We appreciate Stevens' hard work and enthusiasm for our product and also for allowing us to reproduce the review here.
MailCOPA V9.01
By Steven C Peyrot
Publisher: InterVations, Inc., PO Box 1017, Sandwich, MA 02563 USA. Phone: (508) 833-1660 Email: office@intervations.com. Pricing: $39.95 for a five-user, single machine license, and may be purchased securely online on http://www.mailcopa.com/. Affordable licenses are available for multi-user and multi-machine installations. You can download a fully-functional 30-day trial version from the same web address. MailCOPA v. 9.01 runs under Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008/7/2008 R2/8
MailCOPA is a mail client that is extremely intuitive, very easy to learn, and with features that every level of user will absolutely love. With a clean interface, MailCOPA provides basic functionality for the beginner or average user and also provides some of the most advanced functionality that power users and network administrators will love.
MailCOPA can be configured to be a single client on one computer or it can be set up to help entire families manage emails on their home computer or LAN. MailCOPA keeps track of each family member's email addresses, signature files, and format information. Personal email stays personal while the entire family can access the shared information.
If you are a home or small business user with one or several email addresses, MailCOPA can handle it. MailCOPA can collect email into the same or different folders. Each folder can have more than one personality within the same user. For example, you can have stored messages in one folder purge after 60 days while another folder maintain retention of one year. Not only can you use multiple email address, but also you may use multiple signatures and different reply to address. You could even use plain text in one personality and HTML in the other. That is not all! You may share settings for accounts by cycling gateways or have "on the road", home and business settings that cycle without needing to change anything.
MailCOPA is very simple to set up with parental, administrative and root user accounts. If you are a beginner and don't know what that means, don't worry. Setting up your software is super easy! There are automatic "wizards" that hold your hand and walk you along! Whether in the work force (Mangers, network administrators) or at home (moms and dads) all can have a super user account that has access to all others while all accounts have password protection from one another. Each user may have any number of email accounts. Simply choose EDIT USER Details from the CONFIGURE menu and add or modify incoming mail locations to keep accounts private or share across users.
Some examples of how MailCOPA allows one to set up the application are: One User, Multiple Email Addresses, One Email Address, Multiple Users , One or Many Users, Multiple PC's, and One PC, Multiple Users, and all are very easy to set up.
Some of the new features in this version of MailCOPA include the ability to assign any number of categories to each email message; the ability to paste pre-written text of any length, including fully-formatted HTML, by pressing an ALT key combination; a receipt-received icon that shows you which sent emails have been acknowledged by their recipients; the ability to create temporary custom filters to quickly locate emails; and automatic sharing of subfolders with other users.
Some of the features carried over from previous versions of MailCOPA include
Speak Mail Message
MailCOPA email software will speak the text in your emails by simply using a right-click menu option. Great for listening to your emails while you do other tasks and like my wife suggested, great for vision impaired users.
Stationery (Templates)
Save documents with pertinent information and text ready for your next email.
You can also utilize the built in Macros to add real time data into your message, or create your own Macros to include in template content. This provides such a custom power to your work that I would purchase MailCOPA for this feature alone!
Threaded Message Topics
MailCOPA intelligently provides a methodology to effectively link messages by topic and does so regardless of FROM, TO and SUBJECT lines. Viewing the thread of messages about a particular topic are kept together making chronological following much simpler.
Message Locking
If you have a message that is important to save and you do not want to accidentally delete it or automatically purged, you have the option to "lock" a message and safeguard it from being deleted.
Interactive and List Downloading
With MailCOPA, you can elect to get a list of emails waiting on the server prior to downloading that you can selectively chose to receive or delete without having to download first. This feature is great for dealing with junk email and the associated need to purchase other email management software for washing your inbox from junk.
Spell Checking
Spell checking is fully integrated into the MailCOPA email software. MailCOPA checks words as you type. Common misspellings are replaced automatically.
Message Searching
The MailCOPA email software has an in-built search engine, allowing you to locate a message anywhere in your system very quickly. Searches can be narrowed down to a single folder, selective group of folders, or your entire folder tree. MailCOPA also includes a standard regular expression search algorithm to achieve very detailed "drilling" results.
Locate Replies
Ever found a message from a customer that you know you've replied to, but cound not locate the reply? MailCOPA will locate all replies for you, no matter where you have moved them in your system
Locate Originals
Just like locating replies, the MailCOPA email software can locate the original message for you. If you've found a reply you have written but need the original message, it's simple a click away no matter where you may have moved it to
Image Viewer
MailCOPA contains its own image viewer, compatible with all common image formats. No longer do you have to wait for your external viewer to load to see attached images.
Support for WinMail.Dat attachments
Emails generated by MS Outlook sometimes contain attachments, which are unreadable by other email programs. MailCOPA will decode these attachments transparently.
Automatic Upgrades
MailCOPA is set to automatically update registered users by upgrading over the Internet.
Import your existing email
MailCOPA contains filters to easily import messages from a wide range of other email software including Outlook Express, Outlook, Thunderbird, Windows Vista Mail and Eudora. MailCOPA can also import mail from .eml, text files and Unix MailBox (NETSCAPE) format files allowing email to be imported from a range of other software
Exporting Email
MailCOPA can export your messages to .eml, text files or Unix MailBox format files. And unlike other email programs, MailCOPA keeps the original RFC822 message formatting totally intact. This allows your email to be read into other software with no loss of formatting, attachments, or anything else that may come along in the future.
Drag and Drop Attachments
Attachments can either be saved to a location with a right click, or you can drag and drop your attachments straight out of MailCOPA to your desktop, or any other Windows folder. Attachments can also be dragged in, making sending files a very simple process, just drop the file you want to attach right on to the message you are composing. MailCOPA can even ZIP your files for you before sending.
Personalities
MailCOPA allows you can set a personality on a per folder basis. Personalities provide a customizing ability to utilize various signatures and options.
Options
Not everybody uses email the same way. MailCOPA has been designed to be totally customizable. MailCOPA's Preferences screen has settings to change almost every aspect of how the program functions. MailCOPA works the way YOU want it to!
Context-Sensitive Help
Although very intuitive, it will take some time to learn all the powerful features in MailCOPA. Until then, there is plenty of extensive help within the context or window that is currently active.
S/MIME (Secure MIME) support
Messages can be signed, encrypted, verified and decrypted. Relevant certificates must be present in the Windows system certificate store.
AND IF THAT WAS NOT ENOUGH
Message Trace
If you have ever tried to read the Received headers of an email to try and locate a bottleneck, or to confirm it's sender then you will understand how tricky it can be converting time zones and working out all the details contained within the headers. The MailCOPA email software contains a built in message trace. Just select the message trace option and see all the servers that the email passed through on it's route to you, and the length of time the message took to get between each server
HTML Source Editing
If you want to format your HTML message, MailCOPA allows you direct access to the HTML source in the message editor. The MailCOPA HTML source editor even has syntax highlighting to make your editing easier. Switching between HTML message and HTML source is as simple as clicking on the tab at the bottom of the message.
Message Labeling and Coloring
MailCOPA provides the ability to label and color your emails for increased visibility and tracking. Simply right click on a message and change it's color. Also, MailCOPA can attach a note (label) to a message and those message notes can be added to the details displayed for a folder.
Split Screen Reply Editor
I really love this feature. MailCOPA allows you to compare two sections of the same message while reading or replying.
Filters
MailCOPA has a huge array of email filters you can apply to incoming & outgoing email.
SPAM Filtering
MailCOPA has built-in SPAM detection filters that require no tuning or setup. As every message is received it is scanned and scored. If the score exceeds the threshold then the message is delivered to your SPAM folder. White & Blacklist options available
Multiple Email Accounts
Within a user-account the MailCOPA email software allows users to access any number of email accounts whether they are on the same server or not.
Quick Text
the MailCOPA email software features "quick text" saving you keystrokes and improves accuracy by inserting common phrases and repetitively typed words by the use of keystroke combinations.
Address Book/ Contact List
Multiple Address Books - There is no comparison in the email software world for this feature. If you use more than one identity then this feature is for you. You may keep distinct address books for businesses, home and other endeavors. Perfect for those who represent different companies or clients or church and other community functions.
Sharing of Address Books - Using the MailCOPA email software any or all address books may be shared amongst users.
Alias and Nickname Support - MailCOPA's alias and nickname support saves keystrokes by giving a 'short' or nickname to your most often used email addresses or email lists.
Mailing Lists - Addresses from address books can easily be transferred into mailing lists allowing you to send out reminders to all your customers, or vacation notices to all your friends. With the MailCOPA email software you can even email to everyone in an entire address book without having to define a separate mailing list.
Advanced Folder Properties Help You Manage Messages
MailCOPA is unique in that it that allows the user to maintain specific views, options and filtering preferences for each folder in the tree. Users may associate different identities including: name, email address, signature and stationery just to name a few. Users may choose to view one folder by subject line and another by from or date received. All the message field placements, column headings, dates and other data may be customized.
Virus Security
The MailCOPA email software confronts the problem of potential virus threats in your email in a number of ways.
1. MailCOPA IS NOT susceptible to Outlook targeted viruses using the Outlook address book to spread infected email. .
2. MailCOPA software is capable of switching off HTML email so that so that dangerous scripting CANNOT be run within the email messages.
3. Unlike many of MailCOPA's competitors, MailCOPA software does not use Microsoft's Internet Explorer to display HTML messages, MailCOPA has it's own independent HTML reader for security.
Still not sure? Take a month to "try it out" with a fully functional trial:
Unlike other email programs available for trial, this software is not hampered in any way. Not only that but we will give you full technical support during your trial period. The only restriction in the trial version is the 10 second delay on startup to remind you that you are still in your trial period.
I highly recommend MailCOPA to both the novice and veteran users everywhere.
Copyright 2008 Steven C. Peyrot, 106 Audubon Road, Oak Ridge, TN 37830. Permission to reprint is granted to provided proper credit is given to the author. Steven C Peyrot is an active evangelist of the PC User Group community. Currently serves as President of the Oak Ridge PC Users Group and is an active participant in leadership liaison boards and beta tester with numerous software publishers.