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gardenmad | 09:54 Mon 25th Apr 2016 | Computers
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If you had a computer which did not have any facility for getting emails on it, which (free) one would you install please? I have a laptop and an iPad, I presume one installation would work on both...there is a book which I should perhaps get, called computing for dummies, but I need the one titled computing for old dummies......
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You assume wrongly I'm afraid, iPads have their own mail client (called Mail) which works well for most basic mail tasks, there are other mail apps available (I've not used any) but they won't work on your laptop. You haven't said what operating system your laptop uses so that others may advise you as to what to use on that, although, if it's an Apple then it will have its own version of Mail.
Why not try Ubuntu. This is free, has a free update service and all manner of applications are available for free, including browser, e-mail handling and archiving, etc.
Eeek! Ubuntu is an Operating System, not an email provider.

Try GMail - I like it.

I'm confused.

The 'thing' that you can use on a Windows computer for accessing emails is called an email 'client'. (The equivalent on a mobile device is, confusingly, called an email 'app'). However:
(a) you need to have an email account somewhere first ; and
(b) you don't actually need those 'things' on either device, as you can simply access your email account via the provider's website .

It's not clear from your post whether you've already got an email account or not. I'll assume, for the moment, that you haven't. (Please post again if you have, telling us what comes after the '@' in your email address, so that we can assist you).

Go here:
http://www.gmx.co.uk/
Click 'Free Sign up'.
Fill in your details (including your preferred email address, which will end in @gmx.co.uk, and your chosen password). That's it, you've now got an email account.
To access your account at any time, go to the same link as above, click 'Log in' and enter your address and password. (When you've finished, it's good practice, to click on 'Log out' in the top right-hand corner).

You can use that method to access your email on both your laptop and your iPad. However you might prefer to use the iPad's dedicated email app instead. If so, see here for instructions:
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201320
(If your iPad doesn't recognise the account automatically, use the 'Manual' instructions, choosing 'IMAP' as the email system and using the server settings shown here:
https://help.gmx.com/en/applications/imap.html )
Everyone is trying to help but as you will have noticed each seems to interpret your question differently. When you said you had a computer which has no facility to get e-mails, I assumed it can't separately handle e-mail downloading and archiving. You asked which facility you could use for free.

Any computer with internet connectivity and the simplest browser allows you to look at your e-mail account online, including composing and sending messages - if you have an account, as Buenchico points out. In order to download the e-mails for storage on your computer and keeping copies of what you have sent, you need a specific application for this. You can choose whether in and out messages remain stored on your e-mail account's server or are deleted once you have collected them.

The application you choose will have to be compatible with your operating system, such as Windows, Ubuntu, etc. Windows is not free (comes with a load of applications including e-mail handling). Ububtu is free, as I already said.

"App" is popular mobile-speak for application - applications are exactly that whether used on a phone or a computer but they are generally not interchangeable from one platform to the other.
Question Author
Thank you both...I am now an old woman, (very old) and computing has come on in leaps and bounds and I haven't..(there are other things in life)...I bought a computer from John Lewis in the 70's which had Outlook Express installed (free)...a few years ago I bought a Samsung laptop from JLP which did not have this facility, and this year I bought an Apple iPad, also with no email facility. I can access my mail via the Waitrose website, but this is limited and I cannot store emails I want to keep permanently. If I had a permanent outlook express for example, for which I do not want to pay, I did not pay for OE on my desktop, life would be easier....please advise..and thank you all again.
I saw your post of today so have come back to your original - I very rarely revisit threads, once I have seen it and/or replied I generally leave it at that.

As said in a reply to your new post, every iPad actually comes with an e-mail handler - I can't remember what it is called but I have seen it. What you need to do, however, is to enter your e-mail address, etc. and then it should automatically check e-mails for you.

As for a laptop, if you have any version of Windows (in its complete package form) then you should also have Outlook within it - is it possible you have not found it ? Again, as I said before, you could switch to Ubuntu and use the applications that are compatible with it - all of this is free. But you need to have some ability with computers and software or else maybe it would be best for you to find someone willing to help you.
Sorry, Karl, but Outlook comes as part of Microsoft Office, not as part of Windows. That means that it's not included with many computers.

You've not told us, Gardenmad, which version of Windows is on your laptop but it seems likely that it's Windows 7 or 8. If so, the nearest equivalent to Outlook (or Outlook Express) that's available as a freebie from Microsoft is Windows Live Mail. It can be downloaded (as part of the Windows Essentials package) from here:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/essentials

Your iPad most definitely came with an email facility, in the form of the dedicated app for that purpose. The instructions for configuring it were in my link above which, for simplicity, I'll repeat here:
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201320

The information you'll need for your Waitrose email account can be found here:
https://www.johnlewisbroadband.com/support/email/setup/guides/iphone-email-setup.html
(Don't worry that the page refers to an iPhone; it's the same for an iPad)
Question Author
Thank you both, I shall investigate all this this evening, it is a fine day and I have to garden!! But thank you, I will do it all tonight, what a weight off my mind!!

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