Opera Mail (formerly known as M2) is the

email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...

and news client developed by

Opera Software Opera is a Norwegian multinational technology company and subsidiary of Kunlun that specializes in web browser development, fintech, as well as services such as Opera News and YoYo Games. The company's total user base, including users of its ...

. It was an integrated component within the

Opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used o ...

from version 2 through 12. With the release of Opera 15 in 2013, Opera Mail became a separate product and is no longer bundled with Opera. Opera Mail version 1.0 is available for OS X and

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...

. It features rich text support and inline

spell checking In software, a spell checker (or spelling checker or spell check) is a software feature that checks for misspellings in a text. Spell-checking features are often embedded in software or services, such as a word processor, email client, electronic di ...

, spam filtering (both automated and

Bayesian Thomas Bayes (/beɪz/; c. 1701 – 1761) was an English statistician, philosopher, and Presbyterian minister. Bayesian () refers either to a range of concepts and approaches that relate to statistical methods based on Bayes' theorem, or a followe ...

), a

contact manager A contact manager is a software program that enables users to easily store and find contact information, such as names, addresses, and telephone numbers. They are contact-centric databases that provide a fully integrated approach to tracking all in ...

, and supports

POP3 In computing, the Post Office Protocol (POP) is an application-layer Internet standard protocol used by e-mail clients to retrieve e-mail from a mail server. POP version 3 (POP3) is the version in common use, and along with IMAP the most common ...

and

IMAP In computing, the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) is an Internet standard protocol used by email clients to retrieve email messages from a mail server over a TCP/IP connection. IMAP is defined by . IMAP was designed with the goal of per ...

newsgroups A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are discussion groups and are not devoted to publishing news. Newsgroups are technically distinc ...

, and

Atom Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons. Every solid, liquid, gas, ...

and RSS feeds. Opera Mail uses one database that keeps an index of all mail and sorts the messages automatically into several "views" or access points. Messages are automatically sorted by types, such as mailing lists, and mail with attachments. This approach to indexing allows for quicker access to messages. For instance, a message sent to a mailing list with a word document attached will appear in both the "Documents" attachment view and in the "Mailing lists" view. Opera Mail can also use Bayesian filtering to automatically sort messages into other views. All messages in the database are accessed by opening the "Received" view. The integrated mail component included a simple

IRC client Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for group communication in discussion forums, called ''channels'', but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages as well as chat an ...

, but this is no longer present in the standalone program. The IRC client supported multiple servers, file transfers, and interface customization through CSS. Opera Mail can display text and

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaSc ...

emails and uses the Presto layout engine to display HTML. Opera Mail is at the end-of-life stage of its product lifecycle; this means neither technical support nor product and security updates will be provided. The product is no longer available for download. Users of Opera Mail who have large amounts of email and would like to utilize 64-bit performance can use the 64-bit build of the Opera Web Browser, which is the same code contained in the standalone email client. In November 2020,

Vivaldi Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741) was an Italian composer, virtuoso violinist and impresario of Baroque music. Regarded as one of the greatest Baroque composers, Vivaldi's influence during his lifetime was widesprea ...

has launched a Technical Preview of its email client, Vivaldi Mail which many users have considered it to be a spiritual successor to Opera M2.

References

Freeware Email client software for Linux MacOS email clients Opera Software Usenet clients Windows email clients Proprietary freeware for Linux {{internet-stub

See also

References