For personal use, you can install eM Client on as many computers as you desire - there is no limit. You simply need a separate Free License for each computer. The restriction is on how many email accounts you have setup in eM Client. If you have more than two, consider forwarding as an option to receiving email from other accounts, and aliases as an option for sending email.
For business use, there is a substantial discount if you purchase more than one license at a time.
eM Clientās policy on this reminds me of a family run mail order business I used to work for.Ā All of our competitors were offering free delivery but our boss insisted on charging as a matter of principle even though we could see that it was badly hurting our sales.
No matter what the customers or staff said, his policy on delivery was set in stone and he wouldnāt be budged.
I donāt know what eM Clientās corporate setup is but I wonder if there is one person at the top with a bee in his bonnet regarding licensing.Ā
I personally think that eM Clientās Free License policy is an exceptional gift, and way beyond what you can expect from a free application. And while there is nothing wrong with making suggestions, it does seem a little ungrateful to find fault with that gift.
But then again, even your competitorās customers are still complaining that they want same day or next day delivery, and that the 2 days free option is not good enough!
Just my opinion. 
In favor of eMClient I would say that the price is right, and if buying a lifetime license it is quite logical to have that license for one computer only. That is just the way it works with software, and MS Office and many others have equal licensing.
However NOT in favor of eMClient is their reluctance to a) offer a user based hiring option b) deliver multi platform options c) offer discount on prices when you donāt buy them simultaneouslyĀ
of course every company makes itās own decisions about licensing, but in my opinion it is becoming real hard to see which public eMClient is targeting. The product is especially nice for non-business users because of the fact that business users mostly already have access to Outlook. But the licensing model is particularly unfriendly to probably their biggest target: the non-business user. Outlook 2016 plays pretty nice with gmail too, one of the big plusses of eMClient gets undermined by this fact. Multi-platform would be a big plus, but in about 5 years of development they were not able to deliver. The linux community is crying out loud for a product like em-client, but well, if a Mac version is not happening, donāt hold your breath for a Linux versionā¦Ā I am a happy PRO user and converted more then a few customers to eMClient over the years, but I donāt think I will ever upgrade anymore because of the lack of progress on the mentioned subjects.
It is of course very nice to have a free version, but hey, just 2 mail addresses is not something of this century anymore. And sooo many people are willing to pay, but eMClient refuses to adopt to aĀ licensing model those customers would be willing to acceptā¦ Really a shameā¦ I think it is āgame overā for many of the existing users.
The Mac version is happening; there are already users testing it. If there was a Linux version, I would dump Windows the day it was released. I havenāt tested it recently, but there is much improvement in Wine and CrossOver since I last did, and it is possible that eM Client will run happily that way.
Maybe another license option for personal users who need more than 2 email accounts? Like a Home version for a nominal price. You could have more email accounts, but remain limited with the other facilities like translation.
But then maybe relaxing the restrictions on the Free License will result in even more violations of the license policy as it becomes a better alternative for shady business users.
I agree with the point regarding the free licensing.Ā However, I would have liked to give the company money (and I suspect there are a lot of other home users who would like to also).Ā Now, bearing in mind I know absolutely nothing about the eM Client Incās running costs or overheads, it does seem strange that they are refusing to cater for customer demand.
Which is better, receiving money for, say, a three device license or not receiving any money at all?
I am not suggesting to relax the restrictions of the free version, but mainly relaxing the amount of installs for the paid-version. home users donāt want to pay twice or more for the same software on multiple devices they own. Another suggestion is to start a monthly o yearly renewable license icm with a relaxed limit of installs.
There is nothing to prevent personal users from supporting the company by purchasing a Pro License, and then installing Free Licenses on all the other devices. Is there?
Thereās nothing stopping a person from only using a free license. However, the free license is limited, thus doesnāt meet usersā needs ā at least the users complaining about the requirement to buy multiple licenses.
Gary, if email is the only thing holding you back, why not switch to Linux today? There are reasonable email clients on Linux already. I have a ton of apps on Windows that prevent me from making that move. I tried once. Three months in, I had to go back. Windows apps are usually far superior and definitely more plentiful. Trying to go from Office to Open Office of Libre was a joke. Gimp pales in comparison to Photoshop. No Quicken type software. No good icon editors. Video editors not nearly as good. I can go on, but you get the idea. But if all you do is browse the internet, Linux is pretty good. At least thereās one good browser.
I used Linux as my main OS from the late 90s till last year, so it is more like I have recently switched to Windows. In most respects Linux apps are far better than what you can find on Windows but many Windows applications run under CrossOver, so there is a huge choice. As far as functionality, there are a few email clients but nothing that compares to the aesthetic of eM Client.
Linux apps run far better? Thatās quite subjective. Iāve used linux since the 1990s, too, and theyāre not as good. Most applications are free software with minimal features. If you think OpenOffice or variants are as good as Microsoft Office, you have a very different view of whatās better than I do. As I said, Iāve got a number of things I use to get my job done. Iāve looked at the Linux variants. Theyāre good for the price you pay, so Iāll give you that.
I too like Linux and have dual booted with Windows since around 2006, but all my serious work is done with Windows.Ā I also donāt feel that Linux is āready for prime timeā with the average user.
Recently my son (the software engineer) set up his system with Arch Linux (for the third time) and was quite proud he got a basic system up and running in record timeā¦ 8 hours.Ā Ugh.
I know it is really off-topic.
Paul, I donāt think my comment is subjective. The worldās top 500 supercomputers all run Linux. That would not be the case if things ran better on Windows. Yes, Linux is open source and so many applications are free. But that does not mean they have minimal features. In fact the exact opposite is true. Open source applications tend to have more functionality that proprietary or closed source ones. A good example is eM Client vs Thunderbird. That is just the nature of open source. On alternativeto.net MS Office got 568 votes, whereas LibreOffice got 1908 votes so I would think that there are a fair number of users who may disagree with you. But for those who need to use MS Office, it does run on CrossOver.
Jay, maybe Linux is not ready for the average user, but that may be because Microsoft has saturated the market with their way of doing things for so long that average users just donāt have the ability to think otherwise. Distros like Ubuntu are changing that though. They are easy to install, easy to use, more secure and less likely to crash than Windows.
I remember the days when it took a whole weekend and a build party to setup a usable Linux machine with a desktop. Currently openSUSE will install in less than 30 minutes (yes I am a fan of most things German), including updates. Ubuntu is even quicker and will have most of the applications you use pre-installed.
But in the end, we live in interesting times where we do have choices. So whatever works for youĀ - stick with that.
Gary, itās off topic, but I like the debate, especially since it might feed into development prioritization.
You canāt equate super computers to a desktop OS. I spend my days writing code for Linux, though generally using a code editor on Windows. Iāve also published some open source Linux projects. However, as much as I prefer Linux as a server OS, I prefer something more refined on the desktop. Linux had come a long way, but still has the look of Windows back in the late 90s or early 2000s. And while some of the desktop are pretty good, many applications are still missing, drivers less stable, fewer device drivers exist, etc. Linux would make a fine OS if it looked better and had the applications I use.
Iāll admit Iāve never used CrossOver, but no doubt Iām going to run into some stupid compatibility issue. So why bother? People have better things to do in life than deal with computer issues.
Good stuff guys.Ā You both are obviously IT professionals, I am just a lowly accountant.Ā Unfortunately, I have also become the family IT guy, so I kind of know what the typical user capabilities are,Ā I have used Ubuntu, Mint (with Cinnamon is my favorite-- maybe because it is windows-like?), Manjaro and Arch.
I would hate to load any of them on a family PC, because I fear I would spend way too much time supporting them.Ā I think Windows is way more stable with many more capabilities than any of the Linux distros I have tried.Ā That being said, I commend those Linux developers, as their products are getting much better and they put pressure on Windows.
Well, thats fine-until you want to upgrade the rest of your office. Instead of getting what should be a discount (based on your pricing), you have to start at the most expensive level first. Makes absolutely no sense.
BTW- I just started a thread because I couldnāt figure out how to add on to a license. Common sense would seem that this would be a normal thing to expect.
I fully support this.
I understand that em Client can be afraid that the same license key is used by several people. I have 3 different computers, and would like to support em Client, but I donāt want to buy 3 licenses to check the same mail on 3 different computers.
I would suggest this: If you want to use your license key on more than one computer, then you can, but you will have to agree to your mail setup being synchronized across all computers where you use that specific license key. That way you canāt share your key with your friends, as you would have access to their mail as well. The setup saved on the server should be password protected though.Ā
I have a Pro License and eM Client setup on more than one computer, but I donāt have the same configuration on any of them, even though they all include some of the same accounts.
Besides, eM Client Inc. donāt have access to your setup details, so how would they know you are using the same accounts on more than one computer? Are you are suggesting, Lars, that they hold and monitor your email credentials on their servers? I think that would be a big mistake, and I would certainly find another application if they went that way.
Fortunately there is a huge discount on additional licenses, so it is not that much extra for the other two.
If you use the same license on more than one computer you are breaching the terms.
Yes I do suggest that they save the configuration on their computer if you want to use the same license on several computers. I think that they are afraid to lose money if they allow you to use the same license on several computers. How can they check that you are not just giving your friends your license? So what I suggest is that you can use the license on several computers, but that the configuration will be shared between all the computers. The file can be encrypted, so that you will have to enter your license key ANDĀ you password in order to register your computer with a valid license. Itās always a matter of trust. Whoās to say that em Client doesnāt send your credentials now when it communicates with their servers?