[anon(10272511)]

I'm thinking about leaving Gmail for Outlook.com, what are big reasons you prefer Outlook.com over Gmail? (Excluding privacy reasons please)

Edit: Thank you Windows Central for featuring this thread on the homepage!

[tgp]

I don't think there is much difference in performance and features. It's probably more down to personal preference than anything else.

One advantage of Outlook email is that it is probably easier to get the name you want. On gmail, you pretty much have to either have a very long name or add a number or character to it.

[nickx91]

I like the rules filter of Outlook as compared to Gmail. It's easy to just pick emails up and send all the emails to a specific folder that I made. I cannot do that in Gmail. Apart from that, Outlook is more easy to use than Gmail. Since, I use Skype therefore I can make most out of Outlook.

[DJCBS]

To be honest it's not a question of preference for me. I use Hotmail emails still, so it's more a question of legacy. I've used the service for so so long that moving to Gmail would simply be a hassle without any real pay-off since they're pretty similar.

[kittananj]

I always manage my rule to move to specific folder, create wild card block on specific domain. Those two features are much easier in Outlook.

[suprkain]

I use both. I have one I use personally and one I use professionally such as on resumes and what not. Gmail and Outlook have both pros and cons so its hard to say completely if one is far better than the other.

[ad47uk]

i would not use any of them to be honest, while I do have a gmail account due to having an Android phone, I never use it. I use a company called one and one that host my email, I have a domain as well. So yes it cost a bit of money, pittence really per month, but I think it is far more secure anbd privte than any opf these free email services.

[JasCola]

I'm thinking about leaving Gmail for Outlook.com, what are big reasons you prefer Outlook.com over Gmail? (Excluding privacy reasons please)

I really, really like the ability to use aliases. I can have multiple seemingly unrelated email addresses that all funnel into one inbox, and when composing an email I can set the alias that it will use.

I use this for my website email, as well as personal, and other work - all in one inbox and nice and tidy.

[Anton Earmack]

I'm thinking about leaving Gmail for Outlook.com, what are big reasons you prefer Outlook.com over Gmail? (Excluding privacy reasons please)

Started from gmail, but couple of years already only outlook

[TennisGuy45]

Each have their pros and cons.
I use both, heavily.

IMO

Outlook excels in folder and thread management and display/UI, ability to use aliases
Gmail excels in composing emails (love window ability no navigating to new screen), and speed (I seem to receive emails quicker through Gmail and the UI updates more quickly), google wallet integration is nice as well

I use each for different purposes.
For more formal and business purposes I use outlook and its because of the entire platform. OneDrive, online office products, etc....

For personal I tend to use Gmail more often.

[DontBeEvil10]

I'm thinking about leaving Gmail for Outlook.com, what are big reasons you prefer Outlook.com over Gmail? (Excluding privacy reasons please)

UI and integration with ms account and serices like calendar, people, onedrive...

[abhimaurya96]

I'm thinking about leaving Gmail for Outlook.com, what are big reasons you prefer Outlook.com over Gmail? (Excluding privacy reasons please)

You'll love its spam filtering algorithm. It is best you'll ever find in any email service. It just knows which is spam which is not without single set of custom rules and markings. And sweep function that is super easy to use. I don't know gmail has it or not. Sweep is performing delete, moving, etc for a particular email address which I've ever recieved email from. E.g. I shop so much from Amazon they send like 3-4 emails concerned to per order. So I've set it to sweep, i.e move all Amazon emails to my Amazon folder which are more than 7 days old.

I don't know if gmail has that kind of functionality. Overall I like outlook better in every case whether it is UI, UX or ease of doing tasks.

[Wevenhuis]

I'm thinking about leaving Gmail for Outlook.com, what are big reasons you prefer Outlook.com over Gmail? (Excluding privacy reasons please)

1. outlook.com I think is a more professional name to gmail.
2. outlook is a more familiar business name, coming from the outlook program
3. outlook.com has a long establishing in business. Chances are outlook is more refined in many ways over time.

[redmisfitx]

I'm thinking about leaving Gmail for Outlook.com, what are big reasons you prefer Outlook.com over Gmail? (Excluding privacy reasons please)

The reason I prefer outlook is because of the integration with Skype and Office 365. I also use gmail, but I never quite got used to the interface and the way it handles folders and tags, etc.

[BATMANC]

The Outlook UI is way more tolerable than Gmail. Never liked Gmail

[PNvmkpk]

I really, really like the ability to use aliases. I can have multiple seemingly unrelated email addresses that all funnel into one inbox, and when composing an email I can set the alias that it will use.

I use this for my website email, as well as personal, and other work - all in one inbox and nice and tidy.

Yes, alias feature is the biggest difference between outlook and gmail.

[atoqir]

I'm thinking about leaving Gmail for Outlook.com, what are big reasons you prefer Outlook.com over Gmail? (Excluding privacy reasons please)

I tried them both. If you have an Android phone and like 2 way sync of your contacts including pictures with the default dailer and contacts app I would recommend Gmail.

If you have an iPhone you can setup your accounts as and Exchange mailbox and everything works great that way if you use Outlook

[LaVike]

I have both a gmail account and an outlook.com account. I was going to make the switch but I found that it takes hours if not days for outlook.com to propagate any changes across devices.

As an example, I deleted a meeting using Outlook that is connected to my outlook.com account. It doesn't show up on my computer but on my 950XL, it is still showing up and it has been 24 hours since I deleted it. When I do the same on gmail, it is almost instantaneous that the change shows up on my phone.

I'm guessing that this isn't a problem if you are using an iOS or Android device since those devices seem to get all of the love from the Massively Screwed-up dys-Functional Team (MSFT).

So the bottom line is, for a business setting, where your schedule my be pretty dynamic, the outlook.com connectivity with a W10M device is as useless as lips on a chicken.

[avnishgor85]

my favourite features of outlook are calender, and microsoft office apps. therefor i use outlook mail more frequently than gmail.

[FlavioV]

I tried them both. If you have an Android phone and like 2 way sync of your contacts including pictures with the default dailer and contacts app I would recommend Gmail.

If you have an iPhone you can setup your accounts as and Exchange mailbox and everything works great that way if you use Outlook

You can get 2-way contacts sync on Android if you add your Outlook account to the Gmail app. You'll even get an email from the Outlook team asking you to enable the sync service.

Too bad I only found this a good month after I fully switched from Windows Phone to Android. I still use my Outlook account for literally everything, even as a Google account - only migrated my contacts due to this issue. I also disabled the Gmail app, which has no use once I installed Outlook.

[jdawgnoonan]

I simply feel that outlook still seems like a mail client from the 90s. Gmail auto detects junk messages without me even telling it to do it, and it does it perfectly without me ever missing an email that I actually care about. My advice is to stay with Gmail, but start using Google's Inbox client. Inbox is a better looking client that makes managing your Inbox be extremely simple. Thanks to Inbox I am almost always at Inbox 0 for the number or unread messages in my Inbox.

[ryanlrobinson]

I'm thinking about leaving Gmail for Outlook.com, what are big reasons you prefer Outlook.com over Gmail? (Excluding privacy reasons please)

Speed with ActiveSync. Before I decided to switch a few years ago, I ran tests syncing to desktop Outlook and to my phone - a BlackBerry 10 device at the time. Desktop Outlook was close to instant with either Gmail or Outlook. But to my BlackBerry, the Gmail could take up to half an hour, while the Outlook was always instant. I did similar tests with contact changes or calendar entries, all of which were either negligible difference or Outlook.com won out. Don't know if it's still true or if it is the same to other smartphone OSes - my Windows 10 Mobile can definitely be a couple minutes slower than the BlackBerry sometimes, haven't tried with a Gmail recently - but that was a big deal to me at the time.

I definitely like the UI better. There's a degree of personal preference there, but I find it so much cleaner and more intuitive (including Inbox, where I recently spent half an hour trying to find forwarding rules before Googling it and discovering you need to use the old Gmail interface to get that).

Aliases are a great feature, as others have mentioned.

Integration to other Microsoft services if you use those other things like OneDrive. Of course Gmail has the same argument for other Google services.

[DCPaul]

You get 10 alias emails with outlook while I don't think you get with Gmail. Of course you can create number of Gmails and link them together. I still prefer alias!

[anon(10261377)]

I'm thinking about leaving Gmail for Outlook.com, what are big reasons you prefer Outlook.com over Gmail? (Excluding privacy reasons please)

I think that you can stick with your Gmail account and make an Outlook account under your Gmail. At the sign up page, they will ask you for the email you will use for it or you can select "I would like a new Outlook email" or something similar. Don't click that link; instead just type in your Gmail email and then you can sign into Outlook.com using your Gmail address.
I like both email services and use them both frequently. I have accounts for both since I am locked into two ecosystems (I do the impossible): Microsoft and Google. Thank you.

[EJ6612]

Using Outlook in a mobile browser is a very, very nice and modern experience compared to Gmail. I swear, Google hasn't updated their mobile web-interface since like 2013.
Also, Outlook has a broader integration with other services (OneDrive & Office, Dropbox, Skype, Calendar, Facebook, Twitter, and more).
Outlook also has a much better Calendar experience- modern, clean, updated, and easy to use. I use some Google Calendars because of group stuff, and it isn't really good.

I switched from Gmail to Outlook in early 2015- and I don't regret it.