If you use Outlook, you're probably tired of having to go to its sprawling program window to check for mail. Wouldn't life be easier if you had an assistant telling you every time you've got a new piece of Email? That's exactly what Mail Alert 2.5 ($7, thirty-day free trial) does.

If that were all Mail Alert did, that would be enough. But it does more as well. It also works as a mini email client, so that you don't need to head into Outlook for common tasks for incoming mail, such as reading it, responding to it, flagging it for follow-up, forwarding it, and more. Mail Alert does require that you have Outlook open, but at least you can minimize Outlook and work in Mail Alert's smaller window instead.

Will Mail Alert change your life? No. Will it give you back some much-needed time every day? Most likely yes. At $7 it's not overly expensive, so may well be worth paying for it you're tired of constantly monitoring mail in Outlook.

Note that in addition to being a 30-day trial, the trial version will also display 10 alerts each time you start Outlook.