EssentialPIM has issued its second major release of 2025—version 12.5.
This release is different, and I say this as a 20-year user. Version 12.5 feels like a new era in EPIM's development.
- The architecture has advanced from 32-bit to 64-bit, which is designed for better performance and security, improvements that beta testers confirmed.
- The free version has been retooled into an advanced email manager and renamed accordingly, EssentialPIM Mail.
- EssentialPIM has been rebranded. In our typical zeal for shortcuts, users have often shortened the name to EPIM. Now, it is official. EssentialPIM is EPIM Mail (free) and EPIM Pro (paid).
While laying the groundwork for the future, v12.5 introduces numerous enhancements and adjustments, too many to discuss in one post.
To understand the changes, I like to dig behind the descriptions in the release notes and discover differences from prior versions. Accordingly, there are numerous “before” and “now” screenshots in this post, and the headings tie back to those in the version history. I'll group them into two categories: appearance and streamlined handling.
Changes to appearance
Calendar and Tasks/Notes Colors
The release notes say there is a “subtler display of colors” in lists. Figure 1 shows the difference: the colored bar that had stretched across the title is confined to the checkbox.
Figure 1. Colors assigned to lists display more subtly in v12.5.
Calendar Highlighting
In response to suggestions from users, the current day is more visible across all views in the Calendar (Figure 2). A colored box and heavy line at the top help today stand out from other days.
Figure 2. Today's date stands out more clearly in the Calendar's year view.
Task Customization
From EPIM's beginning, text for overdue tasks has been red. This remains the default color, but as of v12.5, you can set overdue tasks to black (none) or assign your preferred color (Figure 3).
Another new option lets you control how to display completed tasks when you group tasks by due date or start date. Previously, EPIM automatically moved completed items to the Completed list. Now you can prevent that, so completed tasks remain with their group (Figure 4).
Figure 3. Options for changing the font color for overdue tasks. Set these in Tools > Options > Modules > Tasks.
Figure 4. In this display of tasks grouped by Due Date, completed tasks have been moved to the completed list, which has been EPIM's default (Screenshot 1). Screenshot 2 shows the results of the option to prevent moving completed tasks.
Quick Add Bar
The View menu has changed, reflecting modifications to the Quick Add bar and tags.
The Quick Add bar appeared by default when it was introduced in Tasks in v11.5, extended to Notes in v11.7, and later to the remaining modules. A toggle has been added to the View menu in v12.5 to hide or display this bar (Figure 5).
Figure 5. The View menu features two changes in v12.5. A toggle to hide or display the Quick Add bar has been added. Tags have been revamped, and the option to display the Tags Field has been removed. More information about tags is below.
Figure 6. The Quick Add bar appears as the first entry in each of the modules. Display or hide it using the new toggle in the View menu.
Streamlined handling
Tags
A field for entering and displaying tags spanned the bottom of items in previous versions and took up quite a bit of space. EPIM v12.5 separates these two functions.
An icon in the formatting toolbar in each module (Figure 7) is for selecting tags. They will display in a reserved field that appears only when the item has tags.
The Notes module includes an additional display for tags. Besides the field at the top of a note, EPIM displays the tags in the Notes list (Figure 8). In response to requests to suppress tags in the list, an option to turn off this display was added in v12.5.1.
Figure 7. An icon in the formatting toolbar in each module replaces the tag field that spanned the bottom of entries. When an item has tags, a reserved field appears (right).
Figure 8. Initially, tags were displayed in the Notes list by default, but an option to allow hiding them was added in v12.5.1.
Notes Layout
Methods for adjusting the layout of your notes have been consolidated in v12.5. In Figure 9, the items in blue move into the Layout function.
Figure 9. The view menu for Notes has been streamlined by moving several settings into the Layout menu.
Figure 10. A look at the expanded layout menu for Notes and the corresponding sections of the window.
Quick List/Group Addition
New buttons reduce adding a list in Tasks and Notes or a group in Contacts and Passwords to one click (Figure 11). Previously, to add a list or group, you had to right-click in the list panel, select Add from the context menu, and complete the dialog form.
Figure 11. Adding a list or group takes one click of the new buttons in EPIM v12.5.
In the next post, we'll focus on the Passwords module and a variety of adjustments to handling dates.