I have a lifetime membership to Incredimail Premium, which used to include customer support. Then I was told that I could only receive support if I purchased a yearly subscription. I was often frustrated because the answers I got from customer support were canned responses that did not address the actual problem or offered solutions using features that are not even available. For example, I received instructions to use the data transfer wizard is still listed in File menu, but it no longer works. Only after repeated attempts to get a solution, did they tell me that this feature was disabled in the latest version of the program. Lately, it seems to me that Incredimail has closed up shop but left the lights on so that anyone wishing to use it could continue to do so and I am wanting keep it less and less.
For over two year, I have only been able to view a portion of many emails received though email. Incredimail customer service said they were aware of the problem and were working on a solution. They told me that I would be able to view the entire message if I forwarded the email to myself, which was a hassle. This problem has never been corrected.
Several months ago my Incredimail also stopped saving copies of my sent emails in the sent folder. Incredimail said the problem was with my email server, but tests showed that the problem only existed when I sent emails using Incredimail and went away when I sent emails directly from my email provider.
These problems coupled with the fact that Incredimail only offers customer support if you pay a yearly fee and they never even fix the problems made me start looking elsewhere. I liked having the various stationary backgrounds, cool animations, and cut notifiers. I also feared losing my saved emails. However, I was very tired of all of the unresolved issues.
Recently, I realized that the newest version of Incredimail syncs all of the Incredimail folders with the folders on my email server. This meant that my email server had the same folders and saved emails as my Incredimail. Since my email server mirrored my Incredimail folders, I was able to sync my email server to Outlook.com and all of my folders and emails transferred to Outlook easily. Outlook does not have all the bells and whistles, but at least I can read my messages without having to forward them back to myself and I have a backup of my sent emails.

Years ago when this company first offered their program to consumers, I tried the free version. I liked it (still do) so I purchased the 'Lifetime' license. A couple of years later they offered a set of extras under the "gold" package, and I purchased a 'Lifetime' license for that too: and my receipts clearly state "LIFETIME".

Several years later they changed their format to a 'yearly' subscription, and offered a newer version of their program.

I have used this program for over 15 years, but now they refuse to activate my program. I had a lot of trouble with my computer and had to change hard drives. Since the activations are not kept on the pc itself, this required I reactivate both my licenses. They have been blocked by the company.

I have been back and forth with them several times about this, and explained that I am using the original version of the program since I didn't like the changes in the newer one, and I have both lifetime licenses. This was their response:

Feb 5,18:47 IST

Hello Carolyn,

Thank you very much for your response.

Please note the IncrediMail products have long been annual subscriptions.

While we honored the older licenses for a number of years, enough is enough.

It is the annual subscribers who keep the business afloat, not users who purchased some license over ten years ago.

Surely, if you had been using the same computer for the past ten years, the license codes would still be active and you would have all of the advanced features.

There is no sense in allowing the same license to be used on multiple computers till the end of days.

As a business, our primary objective is to make money on our products, not make people happy by letting them register the same license ad infinitum.

I hope this clarifies the matter.

Best regards,

Yechiel Racer
Customer Support

I truly wonder what they think "Lifetime License" means? Or maybe they should have thought of this way back when they were first selling their product. Do they honestly think a computer (in whole) will last over 10 years? I have changed just about everything in this one except the case it is in over the years, without issue; until now.

They want me to buy an annual subscription, but it won't work on the older version and I won't upgrade - Catch 22.

So do beware if you decide to deal with these people. They are not trustworthy.

Like several reviewers, I have had the Premium paid version of Incredimail for over 10 years. Always used to be excellent - lots of fun things to do with email (recipients loved it!) and no usage blips. However, just recently I "lost" my menu bar and could not retrieve it. Importants because you need it to access your account. Also found on occasions that overnight it managed to change its skin! Contacted VIP support - told to do full re-install for the latest updated version. Did that yesterday - hey presto - got the menu bar back - BUT for some unknown reason it has decided to drop emails from one of my accounts straight into the deleted items folder? Also, the "empty deleted items folder on exit" function is not working! This email client was brilliant in its early days, but since being taken over, has become quite sad. I am now looking for an alternative, but not a boring one - anyone know any alternatives out there worth looking at? So gutting really...

13/03/2017 - Update
As of yesterday I booted Incredimail into touch. Having tolerated its erratic behaviour for several months, I opened it the other day to find my inbox,(containing important emails left on there) was empty. Could not find them in any of my folders - just gone!

Since my first review, although the preferences were set to "empty deleted items on exit" hey presto, next day they were all still in the deleted file. Even when manually deleting the content of the folder, they still re-appeared the next day. The email wallpaper decided to change overnight, and I was no having a problem logging off my computer - "IMangru is preventing log off". I was having to force log off whenever I closed down, and the close down was taking ages. Due to its increasingly erratic behaviour, I felt I could no longer trust it - almost expected it to totally disappear overnight.

Goiod news is - I did a bit of research into other email clients out there and decided on Mozilla Thunderbird (I actually use their Firefox browser, which is really good) - and it was a brill move. Has all the features, and more, Incredimail has, barring wallpapers and the other fun bits - but I can live without them as long as my email programme is stable. Very quick to download and set up - used it for a couple of days to familiarise myself with how to use its features etc., and once I was happy with it - GOODBYE INCREDIMAIL... if whoever took it over get their act together anytime, and get it back on track, I would maybe go back, but at the moment I am more than happy with the efficient way Thunderbird operates.

This free service is not realy free.