With more and more time spent online, it is little wonder that many computer users now have several email addresses and make use of one or more social networks. Many email accounts, from Google Mail and Hotmail to Yahoo and AOL, are online, and checking each of your accounts for new messages can mean having to visit several web sites. And that’s before you even start to think about social networks. Whether you are keeping in touch with friends on Facebook, tweeting and following people one Twitter or maintaining professional connections with LinkedIn, the number of sites you need to visit on a daily basis just to keep up to date soon mounts up. This is where Inbox2 can help.

Inbox2 is not only an email client, but also a social network management tool. It enables you to access all of your emails in one handy program and use the same interface to keep up to date with the social networks you are part of. Upon launching the program for the first time you will be prompted to enter the details of one of your email accounts – just provide your email address and password and you’re ready to go. As well as a number of web based email accounts, there is also support for IMAP/POP3 and Exchange accounts and if two or more have been configured, you will be asked to indicate which should be used by default.

All of your emails are delivered to one central inbox, but small icons are used to indicate which account they have been sent to. While all of your email accounts are displayed by default, they can be easily toggled on and off by clicking the relevant icon in the upper right hand corner of the program window. Emails can also be flagged in a number of ways (such as adding to a To Do list, or indicating that a response is needed), and this allows for simple message filtering with very little effort. To save you having to search through emails to find those which have attachments, separate tabs are available in the program which list both images and other files attachments for easy access.

This in itself makes Inbox2 and incredibly useful program, as it is much easier to configure than many alternative email clients. But support for a number of social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, Hyves, Yammer and Twitter) help to make it even more useful. The option to sign into multiple accounts using the same service is another handy feature, and the slick, streamlined interface makes the program a pleasure to use.

Internet users are now bombarded with such a volume of communication and information that it can be overwhelming. Inbox2 places you firmly in control of your messaging and networking, providing access to the service you use in a single unified interface.