What is an E-mail Client?
An e-mail client is a type of application that you install on your computer that can download your e-mails from your e-mail account on the Internet and store them in your PC and send e-mails as well. Popular examples include Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird.
In general, to acquire an e-mail address you sign up with an e-mail provider, and the e-mail provider has a website where you can log in to see your e-mails in a webpage in your web browser, i.e. it has a web interface.
An e-mail client lets you see your e-mails without opening a web browser. While a browser uses web protocols like HTTP to fetch webpages, e-mail clients use protocols like POP3, IMAP, and SMTP to fetch e-mails, and even to send e-mails from your PC without opening a web browser.
You could think of the web interface of an e-mail provider as an web application that is an e-mail client that only works with that provider, whereas the typical e-mail client is an installable application that works with any provider that supports the standard e-mail protocols. You can even add multiple e-mail accounts to your e-mail client, e.g. if you have a hotmail.com account and a gmail.com, you could have both of them in Thunderbird so you don't need to visit Microsoft's and Google's website to see all of your e-mail.
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