Today I came across an interesting add-in for Microsoft Outlook – TwInBox. It adds all the Twitter related functionalities directly into Outlook. So, if you are someone who has Outlook open all the time (like me), then this Twitter add-in for Outlook will make your life a lot easier.
When you install TwInBox, it adds a small toolbar below the normal toolbar of Outlook. This Twitter toolbar has option to compose a new message, send a direct message, and even send a reply. To send a new tweet, just select the relevant option, type your tweet in the pop-up window, and send it. That’s it! You just sent a Tweet right from your Outlook.
Send Tweets from Outlook with TwInBox
TwInBox provides some very interesting features for sending tweets. You can use integrated tinyurl functionality to shorten URLs. It also provides an interesting feature to add pictures as tweets. Just pick the attachment option of Outlook, and choose the attachment. TwInBox will upload it to some picture sharing site, and add the URL for that in your tweet from Outlook.
Receive Tweets in Outlook with TwInBox
For receiving Tweets, all the tweets come as emails. So, it is recommended that you set up a separate folder in your Outlook to get all those tweets (otherwise, your Inbox would be filled with tweets from your friends). You can also use the features of Outlook to see tweets only from particular Twitter users into your Inbox, and rest in some archive folder.
Apart from the above, TwInBox has following interesting features:
- You organize your Tweets in the same way as you manage your emails.
- TwInBox can track keywords for you, and download all the tweets matching your specified keyword.
- TwInBox provides a preview feature to see your tweets.
- TwInBox marks Direct messages and @replies to you with high importance, so that you can easily identify them.
- TwInBox also adds a graph of your Twitter usage statistics right into Outlook.
I found TwInBox a very professionaly created, and a well thought through software. It includes all the functionalities that I desired, and then some more. Integrating TwInBox right into Outlook means no need to check Twitter updates on a separate client.
TwInBox is totally free, small in size, and very easy to use. Love it!
Download using links at the end.