Someone reviewed v on Jul 5, 2022

Pros: 555

Cons: 555

Bottom Line: 555

Mystiqq reviewed v3.2 on Sep 9, 2007

Same here. Been using it for years as well. Probably one of the "cleanest" interfaces ive seen. Hard to make it any better, it just works perfectly.

Vicconius reviewed v3.2 on Dec 20, 2006

Have been using this program for years and it's one of the few essential programs I can't live without. Gets installed immediately on any system of mine.

ninjeratu reviewed v3.2 on Dec 19, 2006

Still can't encode/decode UTF-8, KOI-8, 8859-* or any other "exotic" charsets. Even Popman can and Popman is almost as slick as PopTray (it's even possible to replace the icons) so I'll recommend that instead.
Too bad.
And 3.2 isn't beta, or even new. It was released 2006-09-16. Why did Betanews add it now?

Kipster reviewed v3.2 (Beta 5) RC1 on Sep 5, 2006

This used to be a five star program.
If you have 3.1 and like it, keep it.
3.2 is way bad, unless you like annoying pop-up error messages.
I realize this is a technically a beta.
But I checked their "support forum".
There are quite a few posts reporting the same error I keep getting at random (Socket Error 10054 connection reset by peer).

The offical response is "there's nothing wrong with the program, it's your connection".
It's hard to believe so many people suddenly have bad connections. Especially when this is the only program having errors.

This same error has been reported for at least four months now.

There's to many good free notifiers out there to put up with these annoyances. Pick a different one.

ninjeratu reviewed v3.1 on Mar 15, 2006

Actually the latest version is PopTray 3.2 (beta 4).

Anyway .. As a notifier it's does what it's supposed to do. Lots of options and tweaks and a polished look too. It'll even tell you the numer of unread mail directly on the systray icon if you want it to. I like it!

The mail client part can preview, sort and notify according to rules, delete spam and lots of other things. This should be a killer app, but ..

The "beta" Hotmail plugin is, well, beta.. No other webmail can be checked. I don't really care myself, but it should be included IMHO.

Far worse is the fact that the built-in mail client (preview and reply to messages directly on the server) can't encode/decode UTF-8, KOI-8, most 8859-* or any other "exotic" charsets. All the headers and bodies end up with a lot of garbage characters. Unfortunately support isn't planned either (not on the TODO-list). If you have to open your normal mail client to read and reply to message you don't really need the client part .. and thus the program is basically useless (except the very nice notifier part).

An mail notifier AND client that 3/4 of the emailing world can't seriously use isn't worth more than 3. Sorry. Fix the charset encode/decode or release a notifier-only version and I'll give it a 5.

Since it's only really usable as a notifier I think I'll change back to IMAP Notify (835Kb including installer), even though that program is seven years old and not as feature rich.

_Ender_ reviewed v3.1 on Mar 25, 2005

I too have tried other pop3 notifiers and Poptray is not only the most functional and bug-free, but in my experience has the lowest RAM usage.

supadupafly666 reviewed v3.1 Beta 8 RC2 on Mar 5, 2005

this program is amazing

devilofadawg reviewed v3.1 Beta 8 RC2 on Dec 20, 2004

Very Useful and very Cool.

DigitalSin reviewed v3.1 Beta 8 RC2 on Dec 20, 2004

Impressive. Does exactly what it should

brotherS reviewed v3.1 Beta 8 RC2 on Dec 20, 2004

I tried many tray notification tools, this REALLY is the best! Love how flexible it is, I use individual sounds and let the tray icon change the color if I receive an important mail. Great!

Brian49 reviewed v3.1 Beta 8 RC2 on Dec 20, 2004

An excellent program - does everything I want a mail notifier to do except make the coffee.

foe reviewed v3.1 Beta 7 RC1 on Oct 14, 2004

Yea, this 1 is very nice.

56 reviewed v3.1 Beta 7 RC1 on Sep 7, 2004

BEST BEST BEST
I remove ChekMaile by DeskSoft.

vasarnap2000 reviewed v3.1 Beta 7 RC1 on Sep 7, 2004

Fantastic!

londonmike reviewed v3.1 Beta 7 RC1 on Sep 7, 2004

As near to perfect as a piece of software can be

cdanr reviewed v3.1 Beta 6 on Sep 3, 2004

Awesome program!! This was exactly what I was looking for. Small, unobtrusive, fast and powerful.

betateen reviewed v3.1 Beta 6 on Jul 31, 2004

spiffy

dzjepp reviewed v3.1 Beta 6 on Jun 21, 2004

How does this compare to ePrompter?

  reviewed v3.1 Beta 5 on Apr 26, 2004

"...this program works correctly." Important words left off the end: "...for me."

CapZap reviewed v3.1 Beta 4 on Mar 30, 2004

I've used PopTray for months and have NEVER had a program error. Maybe it's my setup, or luck, but this program works correctly.

420sg reviewed v3.1 Beta 4 on Mar 30, 2004

What a nice program. Read my POP3 accounts and my Hotmail and Yahoo! accounts flawlessly. Easy to configure and run. The simplicity of it all is astounding. Nice work!!!

scodan reviewed v3.1 Beta 3 on Mar 8, 2004

Yeah, I'll replace my other POP checker with this freebie, which gives me access violations left and right, and throws errors when I try to preview messages. No thanks! I give it a second star for its feature set and general design only.

CapZap reviewed v3.1 Beta 1 on Mar 5, 2004

I've tried many mail checkers -- all of the common shareware checkers. Nothing beats PopTray in my estimation. Very complete, reliable, easy, efficient. I test dozens of software applications every month and have for years. This is, in my opinion, a "must have" utility. Replace the one you spent $30 to buy with this freebie.

baloor reviewed v3.1 Beta 1 on Mar 4, 2004

It is certainly a good program. But there are better out there.
I have been using poppeeper from http://poppeeper.com for quite a while. It also lets you check Hotmail, Yahoo and Mail.com accounts, a feature sorely lacking in PopTray, whose Hotmail plugin has been at the same buggy revision for some time now.

scodan reviewed v3.1 Beta 1 on Mar 4, 2004

I tested not this 3.1 beta, but rather 3.0.3 final. PopTray is a good looking and well-designed program in general, but I got constant access violation errors, and timeout errors when trying to view messages (even though the raw message tab proved that the message had been fully downloaded). Since to me reliability and stability is paramount, I give this a (apparently heretical) 1-star rating.

TheVoodoo reviewed v3.0 Beta 16 (RC4) on Oct 9, 2003

Hey, wow im useing poptray now over 2 years, and it's still the best pop mailchecker ive ever seen. Thanks Renier for this excellent free software and thanks God for Renier ;) best regards TheVoodoo

rendermaster reviewed v3.0 Beta 12 on Sep 8, 2003

Metshrine: Yes, I realize that PopTray! is a good piece of software and it's nice that you'd pay for it, but my point before and now is that there are other e-mail checkers, e-prompter, for one, that not only check popmail accounts, but that of many other systems in addition. Most people have at least one hotmail, msn, yahoo, or aol account in addition to their popmail accounts and that is why I mentioned e-prompter; it gives all of that additional functionality and it's FREE.

Metshrine reviewed v3.0 Beta 11 on Sep 1, 2003

To rendermaster, this software's name is POPMASTER hence its limitation to POP EMAIL. I use this software every single day and love it. If it required purchase, I would definitely purchase it. It lives up to its name and all of its functionality is top notch. Way to go!

oachkatzl reviewed v3.0 Beta 11 on Sep 1, 2003

i really like this program.
stable, fast, full of features, user-friendly and free!

excellent work!!

XF reviewed v3.0 Beta 6 on Jun 23, 2003

Remember this is beta!! Viewing html messages as html seems a feature ready for the near "final" future. If you didn't notice, the html-code you see is rendered like test, but the engine is IE's engine, thus the smooth scrolling (i hate that, BTW). I would prefer to see the body part by default instead of html for security reasons, but the whole program itself is very nice and it's the only one I tried that could made me switch from the "ancient" but still wonderful (and freeware) MailInspector2k...

jotapece reviewed v3.0 Beta 3.1 on May 27, 2003

I can´t view html msgs!!! I see the msgs in html code!!!
I prefer to use PopPeeper. It works very good.

flave reviewed v3.0 Beta 3.1 on May 27, 2003

To the user promoting ePrompter, here's a recent post about this little jewel: An email reader named "ePrompter" is being promoted at CNET and elsewhere as popular freeware. But it is suspicious as possible spyware, adware, a security risk, and a source of infection by viruses. It contains advertising and the first such ad which appeared was from an well known advertising domain (*synergy.com) which is blocked in my HOSTS file as well as my Restricted Sites security zone in Internet Explorer (as recommended by reliable security protection sources). Uninstall of ePrompter was not clean leaving the original installation directory, some files, an ePrompter.ini file in the windows directory, several shortcuts, and several entries in the registry. There is no way to know, for sure, how to clean it out of the system completely. Note the following suspicious items in the terms of service/user agreement: 7. Privacy Policy. ePrompterT will Periodically connect to each user's computer so that we can track the number of active users, transfer automatic software updates, replace advertising, and send messages through the communications button... 9. Disclaimer of Warranties. ...Tiburon Technology, Inc. assumes no liability for advertising content which appears as part of the ePrompter product... Triburon Technology, Inc. does not guarantee...that the files available for downloading from the ePrompter site will be free of infection or viruses, worms, Trojan horses...

Think I'll stick with good old PopTray thank you very much.

rendermaster reviewed v3.0 Beta 3.1 on May 27, 2003

PopTray is a decent piece of software, but as pointed out by others, it is limited to POP e-mail accounts only. If you are looking for a great utility that not only checks POP accounts, but MSN mail, hotmail, AOL, and even some semi-proprietary e-mail systems, you should use E-prompter.

BTW, E-prompter is also freeware!

Ozzy1 reviewed v2.1 Beta 13 on Dec 4, 2002

When I first tested this program, I was in a little "Do I really need this?"-mood. But, after using it for a couple of days on my system, I really got into a "What did I do before?"-mood. PopTray is perfect for those of us who has a 24-hour connection and a busy computer. No need to start the BIG mailprograms before its really needed!

RobertM reviewed v2.1 Beta 12 on Dec 2, 2002

I was looking for a program like this and tried out several--this one is great! The betas are exposing some features we'll hopefully have in final form soon... (BTW, rich.ward's comments below are a little flawed if he did use the *beta*.)

rich.ward reviewed v2.1 Beta 8 on Oct 5, 2002

I've used this program for well over 7 months with no problems. Just installed the latest version and error messages were popping up all the time - it wouldn't even check my mail. A quick uninstall and re-installed an old version fixed it.

Even there website right now isn't working!

infinitejones reviewed v2.1 Beta 7 on Sep 10, 2002

I think Jinno's complaints are a little unfair. A - it's called POPtray, because it uses the standard POP protocol to check messages. Hotmail doesn't use POP, it uses a proprietary Microsoft protocol. B - C'mon, it's Freeware! That means Renier has a day job! (I guess...) If he was getting paid to develop POPtray, maybe he'd be able to build in Unicode support (as well as Hotmail support, if MS would let him). As it is, he's doing this off his own back and sharing his efforts with the world. I think POPtray's one of the best freeware programs available because it's small, simple, and does a very good job very well. It's not designed to track down spam (like Spamdetective or Mailwasher), it's simply designed to download the headers from your POP server and display them. And it does that perfectly. Good on ya, Renier!

jinno reviewed v2.1 Beta 7 on Sep 9, 2002

Good Program.
A- It does not support the most popular HotMail ( Author says it will not support web mail) ...MailWasher (author
promises to support Web mail.) Spamdetective already supports Hotmail.

B- Unicode (Japanese, Chinese,etc) Windows 2000, XP natively supports various languages, including unicode.
Thus,in outlook Express or Outlook, you can read unicode
messages correctly. Author responds: No support. Not
even think about it. Mailwasher- author promises to
support unicode. Spamdetective..no support.
As the program does what it says it does...thus, rating is
3.

DiSNEY reviewed v2.1 Beta 4 on Jul 18, 2002

Like someone else said, this is an emailnotify program i've searched for 5 years and now i've found it, it is small, has LOTS of nice features and smart options.. i REALLY like the new baloon popup (w2k, xp-style).. And an athour that replays on support questions, GREAT!!

user101 reviewed v2.1 Beta 3 on May 11, 2002

Having used ePrompter I tried other programs I could never find exactly what I was looking for. Until now, that is. This program is easy to use, well thought out, and, oh yeah... it's absolutely free. This one is a must have for someone who doesn't want to keep Outlook open all the time or for someone with more than one account and for just about everyone else. Get it.

visionaire reviewed v2.1 Beta 2 on Apr 2, 2002

Since I only currently have access to webmail if I wish to send or respond to messages, PopTray speeds up everything for me. I always liked the idea of quickly screening messages. The only thing I am waiting for is the ability to optionally download and view/save attachments with the mail. Wonderful example of the power of Delphi development =)

SAoke reviewed v1.5 Beta 24 on Jan 10, 2002

Nice work Renier! This does everything that I need it to do...

reidyn reviewed v1.5 Beta 23 on Jan 9, 2002

I've used a few of these... this is the best that I've found. Excellent work.

KAMiKAZOW reviewed v1.5 Beta 23 on Jan 9, 2002

I uninstalled Beta4 after I saw the nag screen. I still could use Visual Styles. After some research I found out that the previous installation of Beta 3 caused this (hacks a DLL). If you want to use Visual Styles, use Beta 3.

HobbyMan reviewed v1.5 Beta 16 on Dec 27, 2001

THE BEST POP CHECKER EVER! Very smart features. Uses very little resources. Awesome!

dsilver reviewed v1.5 Beta 16 on Dec 20, 2001

I've been checking out mail checkers for many years. PopTray! is, without a doubt, the most bang for the buck (absolutely free). Its small, fast, accurate, and feature filled. Thanks again Renier for such a GREAT program!!

TheVoodoo reviewed v1.5 Beta 16 on Dec 20, 2001

With every beta it's getting still better ;)
No more to say but excellent work!

captainahab reviewed v1.5 Beta 14 on Nov 12, 2001

Arrr! I'm using this program now and like it a lot. Similar to another program (Easy Notification) but with more options. I highly recommend this!

TheVoodoo reviewed v1.5 Beta 14 on Nov 12, 2001

Ok, I also tried allmost all mail notification tools, but i really never seen any better than poptray 1.5 xx. But thats not all, it is still getting better and better. It's extremly configurable but also looks userfriendly and is simple to use. It works on W9x,NT,2k and XP and it has all you ever wanted to see in a POP mail notification program.

roban reviewed v1.5 Beta 8 on Aug 30, 2001

OK ! Well I have tried almost all of the notification proggyz and this one is the only one I will stick with. Unfortunately it sucks up memory ( over 4K on my Win 2K machine )but the advantages outweigh that. I recommend this.

hdaalz reviewed v1.5 Beta 8 on Aug 29, 2001

This is one nice program, I used to use it quite a bit, but if you run ICQ and want use this, then perhaps you want to try Miranda with the POP3 notify plugin. This is what I use now. This however is still an super program for those who wish not to change their ICQ program.