Outlook Express

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What Does Outlook Express Mean?

Outlook Express (OE) is an email client that lets the user save, send, receive and manage email messages. Downloading and installing Internet Explorer versions 4.0 through 6.0 included Outlook Express for free. Starting with Windows 98, Outlook Express was the default email client until it was replaced by Windows Mail in Windows Vista and later, in Windows 7, by Windows Live Mail.

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Techopedia Explains Outlook Express

Outlook Express was a part of Internet Explorer in earlier versions of Windows. It was later offered as standalone software. Outlook Express is not to be confused with Microsoft Outlook — they both perform the function of sending and receiving emails, but their codebase is entirely different from each other and they are, indeed, separate programs. Their similar names often caused confusion about them being the same.

The last Outlook Express email client edition was released in Windows XP, after which it was discontinued and replaced by Windows Mail and was integrated with Windows Messenger.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist
Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.