Windows Mail Is Retired: What to Use Instead in 2026

The Windows Mail app is retired. Microsoft ended support for Mail, Calendar and People on 31 December 2024 and moved everyone to new Outlook, so if you are working out what to use instead, the replacement is already sitting on your PC.

Here is the part a lot of pages skip. New Outlook is free, no subscription needed, and for most people that is simply the right answer. You do not need to buy anything to get your email back.

We build an AI email client called AI Emaily, and it appears near the end of this page. It is not what you should install if what you wanted was Windows Mail back.

Why this page exists#

Search for a Windows 11 mail app today and you will still find guides describing Mail as a working, free choice. It is not one. It stopped sending and receiving on 31 December 2024.

That gap between what is written online and what is true is the reason for this page. Everything below was checked against Microsoft's own support pages in July 2026.

Where did my Windows Mail emails go?#

Almost certainly nowhere. For nearly every account type, your email is stored on your provider's computers, not on your PC. The Mail app was only a window onto it.

Sign into the same account in a different app and the same messages come back. There is one exception, and it is worth checking before you do anything else.

The honest answer for most people: new Outlook#

Microsoft's replacement is new Outlook, and its own page states plainly that it is free for everyone with Windows, no subscription needed. On Windows 11 it is already installed and set as the default.

If your requirement was free, built in and no fuss, the argument mostly ends there. It connects to Outlook.com, Gmail, Yahoo and other providers, keeps mail and calendar together, and is the only option here that Microsoft supports.

The fair complaint is that it is bigger than Mail was — more toolbars, more menus, more asking for attention. That is fixable in settings. If you can live with it, stop reading and use it.

All your options, side by side#

Free options come first, because that is the order most readers should try them in. The paid entry is last, and it is ours.

If new Outlook feels like too much#

Three free routes, in the order most former Mail users get on with them.

Wino Mail is the closest thing to getting the old app back — a free, open-source Windows mail and calendar app built deliberately as a clone of the built-in one, in the Microsoft Store, connecting to Outlook, Gmail and standard IMAP accounts. The free version covers three accounts. It is a small independent project rather than a company, worth knowing before you make it your mail's only home.

Thunderbird is the long-established free option: open source, actively developed, handles almost any provider, calendar included. It puts more settings in front of you than Mail ever did, which is either the point or the problem depending on who you are.

Webmail is the route nobody suggests because it is not a product. Open your provider's site in a browser, sign in, pin the tab. If you have one address and one PC, this works, costs nothing and needs no setup.

If you want more than a mail app: AI Emaily#

Full disclosure: this is our product, and this is our site. Skip this section if the free options above already solved your problem — most readers of this page will be better served by them.

AI Emaily answers a different question than Windows Mail did. Mail showed you your messages. This sorts them, drafts replies and hands you the result to approve. If your inbox is a few messages a day, you do not need it.

It connects to a Gmail, Outlook or IMAP account you already have, so there is no migration and no new address. The assistant runs in three modes — Manual, Copilot and Autopilot. In Copilot nothing sends until you press send, actions have an undo window, and an audit log shows what it did and when.

On privacy: replies are written from a Personal Context brain and client profiles you fill in yourself, and we do not train on your mail. The limits, stated plainly, because you have just been on the wrong end of somebody else's product decision:

• On Windows it is a real downloadable installer — AI-Emaily-1.0.7-x64-setup.exe, 78 MB, released 17 July 2026. The Mac app is Apple Silicon only, with no Intel build.
• The desktop app is an Electron shell around the web interface. Features arrive the same day as on the web, but it will not match a native app on memory use or deep Windows integration.
• No Linux build. Android installs as a web app rather than a native one today; the iPhone app is native.
• Offline is partial by design — read and draft, but not a complete archive on your PC the way Mail did with POP. And it is paid, with a free trial.

What changes when you move from Mail to new Outlook#

If you take Microsoft's default route, these are the differences people notice in the first week. Most have a workaround.

Getting set up again, step by step#

This takes about twenty minutes for one account. Do the first step even if you are in a hurry.

1. 1

   Check whether anything is stored only on this PC

   If your address ends in outlook.com, hotmail.com, gmail.com, yahoo.com or a work domain, it almost certainly is not. If it came from an old internet provider as POP, it probably is.

2. 2

   Export anything local first

   Microsoft publishes a step for exporting emails and contacts from Windows Mail and People into new Outlook. Follow it, and put a copy on a USB drive as well.

3. 3

   List your accounts and passwords

   Write down every address the old app was checking. Reset any password you cannot remember now, rather than halfway through setting up a new app.

4. 4

   Open new Outlook and add the first account

   It is already on Windows 11. Type the address, sign in when prompted, let it finish. Mainstream providers fill in the technical settings — you should never need to type a server name.

5. 5

   Add the rest, then wait

   Repeat for each address and give it a few minutes, especially the calendar. An inbox that looks half-empty at first has usually just not finished.

6. 6

   Make it feel less busy

   Turn on the simplified ribbon, switch off notifications you do not want, put the reading pane where you like it. Ten minutes here removes most of the objection to new Outlook.

7. 7

   Only now try something else

   Still wrong after a week? Install Wino Mail or Thunderbird and add the same accounts. Your mail is on the server, so two apps can run at once and you lose nothing by comparing.

Switching without losing a day, and how to back out#

This is one of the more forgiving switches you will make. Nothing has to happen in one sitting, and nothing is being taken away from you a second time.

Two apps can read the same mailbox at once. Add your accounts to a second app and use it for a week — read something in one and it shows as read in the other.

Backing out means opening the other app again. Do not delete or uninstall anything, and do not remove an account from a device, until you have been happy elsewhere for a fortnight.

The verdict#

If you liked Windows Mail because it was free, simple and already there, use new Outlook. It is free, it is already there, and twenty minutes of settings gets it close enough. That is the answer for most people reading this.

If it still grates after a week, Wino Mail is the closest thing to the old app and Thunderbird is the most capable free desktop client. Both cost nothing to try.

AI Emaily suits a narrower reader — someone whose real problem is not a missing app but an inbox they cannot keep up with. If that is you, try it free at app.aiemaily.com/signup. If not, keep your money and use the free option that fits.