Gmail vs. Outlook.com: Which offers the best email in the cloud? - whitesains1990

There's an elephant in the room, and it's wearing a Microsoft T-shirt.

Of course, when it comes to stage business-intimate webmail services, Gmail has been the go-to tool for American Samoa long American Samoa anyone posterior think of. Outlook? That was strictly a desktop mail node. Hotmail? Most business users wouldn't touch that with a 10-foot spam filter.

But, now, here comes Outlook.com, Microsoft's new webmail service. And you be intimate what? It's pretty adept. So good, in fact, that IT deserves a chance to gainsay Gmail head-on. Call it the elephant in the room versus the 800-pound gorilla.

Gmail already has legions of fans and a massive reputation as a versatile, tried mail avail. Outlook.com needs to prove that it's non just Hotmail with a fresh coat of paint, that information technology can pass business users the tools they need to work quickly, efficiently, and securely. You said it does it rank at treatment both work and personal electronic mail? Can it keep them separate but equal? For that matter, can Gmail?

Ahead I put these two in the ring, however, celebrate in mind that Prospect.com isn't intended to replace Outlook for Windows. Although you derriere use the former to superintend multiple mail accounts (both concern and personal), as you can Gmail, it can't moment Lookout PST files—only Outlook contacts exported to a CSV file. If you're thinking that Outlook.com power just be the joyride you need to unconstrained yourself from the shackles of its desktop counterpart, think again. (Run into the equivalence chart at the remainder of this article for details.)

Interface

Proof prescribed that you can't judge a account book by its cover, Gmail is almost surely the world's ugliest webmail service. Anyone raw thereto would probably be circumvent by its untidy and unintuitive layout, its confusing sidebar, and its text-heavy design. Acquisition your direction around Gmail International Relations and Security Network't hard—and there are rewards for doing so—but information technology isn't pleasant, either.

Mind-set.com, meanwhile, looks heater and many welcoming, using larger fonts to delineate sidebar sections and message headers. You canful quickly throw among a dozen color schemes, every of which emphasise the interface without overwhelming it. Gmail, on the other pass, has lots of themes, but about of them merely impart extra misdirection to an already cluttered interface.

Even the online Outlook's ads appear nicer, with thumbnail photos that pop up when you mouse over deals that catch your interest. Gmail continues to commixture in largely text-supported ads, without so much as a shaded background to help separate them from actual inbox matter.

And from a productivity perspective, Outlook.com wins the day with single-get across actions for tasks such A deleting messages and marking them as unread—tasks that require two or three clicks in Gmail.

WINNER: Mindset.com

Looking for an e-mail in a Gmail haystack?

Search

Even if you're diligent about deleting old or unnecessary email, it's a good bet that your inbox contains hundreds—if not thousands or even tens of thousands—of messages. So how can you potentially promise to find a single email acerate leaf in the rick that is your inbox? With a robust search railway locomotive, course.

Outlook.com covers the bedroc fairly well. You can type A keyword into the search field, operating theatre click Advanced and add the sender, subject, folders, and/or dates to the mix. Cipher florid, but it works.

Naturally, as you power expect from a Google mathematical product, Gmail buries the competition. You get dynamic search parameters that appear A you type in the search sphere. You can refine your explore any number of shipway, adding operators for items such as attachments, labels, and even Google+ circles. Best of every last, Gmail lets you turn whatever search into a filter, thus making it simple to running play again in the future.

WINNER: Gmail

Postal service organization

It's not uncommon to use your inbox as a file cabinet, a storage facility for grave messages from coworkers, customers, and other business contacts. Merely Gmail and Mind-set.com take decidedly different approaches to organizing all those messages.

Mindset.com's Intelligent Views are unique.

Mindset.com relies on a tralatitious folder system, allowing you to make as galore folders as you like and to arrange them hierarchically away dragging and dropping. Likewise, you sack drag email messages into those folders. Merely Prospect too lets you put messages to categories, which you can then use for Quick Views—filtered lists of messages that make it simple to find ring mail of a taxon character, such as newsletters, notes from the chief, or mail with attachments.

Gmail has long championed its system of labels and filters over folders, and although that organization has its merits, whatever users have a rough sledding wrapping their brains around it. The arrangement is less intuitive and fewer familiar. However, Gmail's superlative hunt capabilities help to extenuate any much obstacles: Why pain organizing at all when you can so easy search for what you motivation?

It's stony, then, to answer the question of which system is better. Ultimately the answer depends on what you're used to you said it you like to organize. Some systems are effective; they're exactly radically different.

Achiever: Standoff

If you're interested in POP and IMAP options, Gmail supports both.

Daddy/IMAP patronise

Whatever good webmail service should be able to send and receive mail from strange accounts, thus allowing you to manage multiple email addresses (including work and physical accounts) under one roof. Gmail earns screaky First Baron Marks of Broughton in this area, offering support for some POP and IMAP. But Outlook.com supports only POP, so synchronizing mail accounts among multiple mail clients is much tougher. For example, the mail you show on your laptop won't sync with the mail you read on your smartphone, and vice versa. (The exception is if you connect via Microsoft's Exchange ActiveSync; see "Mobile access" below.)

Prefer IMAP? You're out of portio with Outlook.

That's a potential deal-breaker for some users, and arguably it's the only area where Outlook.com has a fundamental defect compared with Gmail. For the past to compete, Microsoft needs to sum IMAP affirm, stat.

Success: Gmail

Fastening treatment and storage

When you receive a message containing, say, a Word single file or PowerPoint presentation, opening that attachment should be a simple topic. Thankfully, both Gmail and Outlook create the task bad darn elliptic.

I emailed a Son document to both my accounts. Outlook made a prominent show of the attachment, complete with a familiar-look Countersign icon atop the body of the email. One click, and the document downloaded immediately in its native format (ready for viewing in Scripture suitable), though I besides had the choice of downloading it as a .zip file. Or, by clicking Sight online, I could view the document in Microsoft's Word Web App, with the option of fashioning quick edits right in my web browser.

Gmail operated similarly, with simple View and Download options; the early steered me to a Google Docs viewer and, if I wanted, a full phase of the moon-dyspnoeal editor.

Outlook lets you sequester a 100MB file out (and even bigger items with a hand from SkyDrive).

As for attachment size, Gmail limits you to files zero bigger than 25MB, while Outlook.com caps them at 100MB—or 300MB if you establish a link to your SkyDrive account. And speech production of storage, Gmail gives you just 10GB, spell Microsoft promises an unlimited inbox. Granted, expanding your Gmail storage space doesn't monetary value much, but wherefore ante up if you don't experience to?

WINNER: Outlook.com

Mobile access

For forthwith, the option to add up Outlook.com to your iPhone ISN't frank.

Want to access your Gmail or Outlook.com account on your smartphone or tablet? With Gmail IT's a snap; Android devices have the service built into their DNA, and iOS devices list it conspicuously when you attend add a mail account.

With Outlook.com, things are a little trickier. iOS still has a button for Hotmail, not Outlook.com, on the listing of compatible mail services. You can still use it to check in to your account, but if you take a unusual top-level netmail address associated with your Microsoft history, that's what will appear when you try to compose a new message.

The better option is to determine in the lead Outlook.com via Microsoft Exchange—or "Bodied" if you're along Android. Apparatus can be a hassle, though, and Microsoft doesn't make IT easy to discover the appropriate world- and waiter-apparatus instructions. The good news is that one time your bill is configured, you'll get IMAP-style syncing.

WINNER: Gmail

The overall victor

As with classic prizefights such as Mac versus PC and Coke versus Pepsi, we have no trenchant winner; in the end, your choice may merely bet on which features and capabilities you prise the most.

Both Gmail and Outlook.com Army of the Pure you manage work and personal identities with relative comfort, funneling various accounts and assigning them their own folders. However, it's important to note that because Outlook.com doesn't support IMAP, you may have a harder time working with corporate accounts.

For those keeping score, it's Gmail by a poke. (See the graph below for more side-by-pull comparisons.) But give credit to Outlook.com for being a thick second, and for offer a many visually pleasing and intuitive email experience. Can you get your work done using Microsoft's newly service? Absolutely, specially if you administer with a lot of attachments and be after to store massive amounts of email.

Connected the flipside, Expectation.com could put together a problem for bittie businesses that need IMAP documentation and don't have the tech expertise to deal with Exchange ActiveSync. What's more, while Gmail can take your inbox to new places thanks to add up-ons such arsenic Boomerang for Gmail and SmartrInbox for Gmail, Mentality.com has no add-ons—at least for the moment. It's none surprise that the desktop Expectation and its organized, obscure counterpart (Outlook Web Approach) volunteer richer features than the fledgling Outlook.com does.