Trying to choose between Google’s Gmail and Microsoft’s Outlook.com? These two Web-based email services have some significant differences to consider.
In large part, it comes down to context — and you might be surprised by the factors that influence your choice.
Like many folks who spend hours on their computers, I have more than a few free, Web-based email accounts. Some I’ve used as samples when writing articles; others help me keep different projects organized and outside my general workflow.
I’ve had Hotmail accounts, MSN accounts, Gmail accounts, and MS Live accounts. When I was testing Office 365, I had several @onmicrosoft.com accounts (a domain name that made no sense to me). Recently, I began working with a nonprofit organization that uses Gmail for all its email needs.
I also use Outlook 2010 on my desktop computer, Outlook 2013 on my Windows 8 tablet, and Web-based Yahoo Mail on my Windows 7 netbook. Recently, it occurred to me that this schizophrenic use of email apps and services is probably complicating my life — or at least making email more difficult to manage. That raised the question: If I wanted to consolidate all my email tools into one I’d use everywhere, which tool would it be? I decided to compare the two biggest players in online email — Gmail and Outlook.com — and see how they line up.
Design: Working with what feels most comfortable
If you’re used to working with the client version of Outlook, Outlook Express, or some other local email app, both Gmail and Outlook.com appear to have rather spare interfaces. They’ve been stripped down to the basics necessary to work well on various browsers. Adjusting to their simplified UI can take some time.
Outlook.com: In a recent makeover, Microsoft gave Outlook.com a sparse, open design that brings the email service in line with SkyDrive and Office Web Apps. You’ll notice an easy-to-navigate menu bar across the top when you click a message you want to read or manage. When you click the arrow to the right of the Outlook label (top-left corner of the screen), tiles appear — offering a quick jump into related apps: People, Calendar, and SkyDrive.
A panel on the right side of the Outlook screen displays advertisements (see Figure 1). Microsoft claims these are randomly displayed — not targeted to keywords a search engine finds in your message content. When you double-click a message sent by someone in your Contacts list, the right panel then displays information about your contact, including items they’ve shared on connected social media accounts. If you open a message sent by someone other than a contact, you’ll still see the column of ads.
Figure 1. Outlook.com has a clean, simple screen with tools across the top and ads along the right. (Click here to enlarge the image in your browser.)
Gmail: It might seem that Gmail is going retro: moving from a bare-bones interface to something more like what you’d see in a traditional desktop app. Google recently unveiled Gmail’s new look, which includes optional tabs for organizing messages you receive. Figure 2 shows a few of the new Gmail tabs as well as the inbox transformed by an applied theme (something Outlook.com doesn’t offer).
Figure 2. Gmail now includes tabs to help you organize messages — and you can apply themes and add-on apps, too. (Click here to enlarge the image in your browser.)
After you turn on the tabs feature (Tool icon/Configure inbox/Select tabs to enable), received email is automatically filed according to your choices. Google currently offers five tabs: Primary, Social, Promotions, Updates, and Forums. If you find that Google is assigning messages to the wrong tabs, simply drag-and-drop them to the tab where they belong.
Gmail Lab apps (not a new feature) offer another way to customize your email interface. For example, I’ve added a calendar app, as shown in the lower-left corner in Figure 2. But there are dozens of available apps to be found in the Settings/Labs tab. (Outlook.com offers nothing similar at this time.)
As with Outlook, Gmail has ads. But they work a bit differently. You don’t see any in the default Inbox view, but they do appear in the right column of the screen when you open a message. The ads are sometimes eerily relevant to the content of your message, but Google claims that no one (at least no one at Google) is reading the content of your email and displaying ads that might spark your buying interest. (The automated process has a lot to learn — at least about me. Why do the ads keep trying to sell me bathtubs?)
You can, in theory, turn off the contextual ads feature by changing your ads preferences. Click Tools/Settings/General, then scroll down to the Importance signals for ads section and click the link. On the Settings for Google Ads page, scroll down to the Opt-out settings section near the bottom of the page.
Sending messages: Make it brain-dead easy
An email system is worthless if you can’t send a message quickly and easily. Both Gmail and Outlook pass that test. Creating and sending mail requires just the five basic steps: click New or Compose, choose a recipient (or recipients), add a subject line, type the message, and click Send.
Outlook.com: When you click New in Outlook, the new message completely fills the window (see Figure 3). This follows Microsoft’s new direction of full-screen apps, but if I need to look something up in Outlook.com’s Inbox while I’m writing the new message, I have to either open Outlook.com again in another browser tab or abandon the new message. That’s a pain.
Figure 3. Composing a new message in Outlook.com takes up the entire window.
Gmail: Google has a better way of handling email creation. When you click Compose, Gmail pops up a relatively small New Message box — with the inbox still visible and accessible in the background. This is really helpful when writing a new message, because I often need to access some other element of the content in another message (see Figure 4).
Figure 4. Gmail's Compose window pops up over the inbox but leaves the inbox visible and accessible.
Both Gmail and Outlook.com offer a variety of ways to organize messages. You can save messages to folders, assign categories, mark messages with stars, or create rules that file messages in places you specify. I find Outlook.com’s rules more flexible than Gmail’s. Outlook.com lets you create time-based rules (for example, delete message after five business days). Gmail uses filters for automated mail organizing.
Outlook has the upper hand with space allotments, too. Microsoft touts “virtually unlimited storage.” (How much is “virtually”?) Gmail gives 15GB of storage for free, and you can buy more space if you need it. Outlook.com lets you attach files up to 300MB; Gmail limits attachments to 25MB.
Other services: Sharing, social networking, etc.
Gone are the days when an email system was just that. For better or worse, depending on your point of view, most email services have added chat, social-networking links, and other popular forms of interaction/communication. This is one area where Gmail and Outlook take different paths.
Outlook.com: Microsoft believes social networking is an important component of its email service. To that end, it lets you set up links to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google accounts via the Manage account window. Click your user name in the upper-right corner of the main window and select Accounts Settings/Permissions/Manage accounts. (Microsoft makes this surprisingly difficult to find.) Next, click the See what you can add link or the Add accounts option.
Microsoft says voice calls are coming, using its recently acquired Skype. Microsoft has rolled out Outlook.com with Skype in a few test markets; here, you can launch a Skype call — voice or video — by clicking the Messaging tool in the upper-right corner of your Outlook.com screen and then clicking the Skype icon in the bottom of the panel (see Figure 5).
Figure 5. Skype is being added to Outlook.com's messaging options.
Gmail: According to Google, Gmail’s primary focus is on being an effective email service (which probably says a lot about the success of Google+). If you want to interact with all your social-media contacts and share content with your favorite accounts, you can do so with third-party tools such as Rapportive (site). Rapportive supports most browsers — except Internet Explorer.
Gmail also lets you make voice and video calls via the Internet, right from Gmail. Simply click the Phone tool just above your contacts list on the left side of the screen to open the Call keypad (see Figure 6) and punch in the number you want to call. If you don’t have a microphone set up, Gmail warns you to make sure the hardware is working properly before you place the call. There is no charge for calls within the U.S., and international calls are offered at what Google calls “insanely low rates.”
Figure 6. You can make a quick call, right from the Gmail window.
Both Gmail and Outlook offer the ability to chat in real time with friends, family, and coworkers. Skype will eventually replace Outlook.com’s existing messaging tool. In Gmail, Google Hangout allows you to use voice and video to connect with up to 10 others, using all sorts of devices and platforms.
Decisions: The right email system for your needs
Those users with a strong affinity for either Microsoft or Google will most likely stay with their preferred vendor, regardless of UI or features. But for those still on the fence, here are some additional points to consider.
On the technical side, Outlook.com currently doesn’t support IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol), which you need for automatic synching between local email clients and the Web. On the other hand, Gmail doesn’t support Microsoft’s ActiveSync. So if you have a favorite email protocol, that might make the decision for you.
Both programs do a good job of filtering spam and safeguarding your privacy (as far as we know), so security is essentially a wash. As I see it, the differences come down to the following:
Outlook.com is probably best if:
You regularly work with Office Web Apps and SkyDrive, sharing files with others in a seamless way;
You want to get updates on your contacts’ social-media posts when you read their email messages;
You’re already a Skype user and want to merge your Skype contacts with email and use it all together easily.
Gmail could be your best bet if:
You want to be able to tweak and customize your Inbox;
You work with Google apps and Google Drive regularly;
You prefer Google Hangouts to Skype and want to keep everything connected to your inbox;
You like automated organizing according to message type (which Gmail’s new tabs feature manages).
I’ll confess that I had no great enthusiasm for any Web-based email service when I started this review. But I expected to prefer Outlook because I like the new look and enjoy the social-media connections. However, after looking over both services, I was attracted most to Gmail.
I enjoyed being able to apply themes to Gmail, and I found a number of items in Google Labs that could be added to make email life a bit more interesting. (Labs features are sandbox-like apps that Gmail says aren’t quite “ready for prime time.” But you can test them out to add extra functionality to your Inbox — for example, adding a Google calendar, showing pictures, text messaging in chat, and so on.) In the coming months, I’ll pare down the number of email tools I use and see whether Gmail really fills the bill for me, long-term.
Which Web-based email services are your favorites? We’d love to hear your thoughts about what works best for you — and why — in the Windows Secrets Lounge forum for this article (see the link immediately below).