It seems as if more and more Internet services are moving to become web-based only, but there are advantages of using local programs like the email clients Outlook or Outlook Express.  Let's take a look at a few of the top advantages so that you can decide whether or not using an email client is right for you.

1.) If you have multiple email accounts an email client can quickly download and organize all your email in to one convenient place.

2.) Using an email client downloads your important emails on to your computer, where you have total control over the security and backup.  It will also be much quicker to access each email, since it generally takes less time to open a file on your computer than it takes to download a file from the Internet.

3.) One of the greatest advantages of using email clients is that they allow you to work with your emails even when you are offline.  There is not always a Wi-Fi connection available for your laptop when you want to work in your email.   With an email client, you will be able to access your email because it has been stored on your computer's hard drive. You can write new messages or responses and tell your email client to send the messages. Your work will be instantly sent out the next time your computer connects to the Internet.

There's no right or wrong way to use email, but it's important to know what your email system can and cannot do.  If you store a lot of valuable information in your email database, it is recommended that you have your email saved on to your PC through the email client, then you can even back it up to an external hard drive.  If you like to check your email from different computers throughout the day then webmail might be best for you.   For a combination of both, you can set your email client to leave a copy of the email on the server for a set amount of time.