MultiMi

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on May 14, 2012

If it sometimes seems that social media apps have taken over your desktop and are coming after what's left of your free time, you're hardly alone, but that's the problem, isn't it? All those people communicating using all those programs; and you're already in deep, right? Help is available from MultiMi, a free app that unifies your e-mail and social media accounts in one interface. You can check your inbox and chat accounts, access Facebook and Twitter, post photos to sites such as Picasa and Flickr, and manage your Google Calendar and other Google Apps. It also lets you easily share stuff across multiple accounts.

MultiMi's main window has the look of a Web browser, with tabs, a searchable address bar, and wrench icon for accessing the settings. Setting up the program involves the tedious but necessary step of configuring all the accounts you want MultiMi to track and access. If you're seeing red flags rising, you're not alone in that, either; we might not have gotten that far, except that AVG provides the muscle to MultiMi's security. We set up our various accounts by clicking a series of icons labeled Messages, Social, Events, and so on; each with appropriate subentries, such as YouTube under the Media heading. MultiMi imported our Facebook photos and settings, displaying our Friends under Popular Contacts. It's possible to edit and add to these settings later on. Clicking Done produced a variety of Tool tips describing how to customize and manage our accounts, update our data, and perform general housekeeping. A navigation console on the left offers the same buttons as MultiMi's quick-access dialog. A tray icon let us open the main view or quit the program.

MultiMi's interface said "beta." We don't need no stinkin' betas, thank you very much. But MultiMi didn't crash right away, so we stuck with it. We were unable to access our main e-mail account, though we were equally unable to find out why since the settings were correct and the account was active. But MultiMi managed to access our Webmail as well as Facebook, Google features, and other apps, displaying our message alerts in the notification area. This intriguing program is worth checking out.