People all over the world use either Google’s Gmail or Microsoft’s Outlook as an email service. This fact is not shocking, as long as Gmail owns 15.8 percent, and Outlook owns 6.7 percent of the email customer market share.
Between these two most popular email service providers, Google’s Gmail service is the older and most used, with more than one billion active users per month, starting with February 2016. Gmail is seen as the industry chief in free email utilities.
Microsoft has released its free variant of Outlook in 2012, and it has been improving it ever since then. Outlook has over 400 million active users and an impressive pack of features that Gmail doesn’t have.
Both services appear to be quite similar on the surface. However, when you look at its core, you realize how much the two vary. Details make the difference, right? Well, it’s in these specifics that you’ll discover the options that are more important to you personally to help you pick the right service. Let’s see a few of these different details between the two email providers.
Storage
This is a massive difference between the two email providers. Gmail has up to 15 GB, including storage for ALL Google services, for instance, Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos. If you’d want to sync across all your devices, the 15 GB will probably not be enough. However, you are given the possibility to acquire more storage space.
Outlook comes with only 5 GB at the beginning, and it gradually increases the GBs. However, this process is not entirely clear-cut, but it could be a good point for those who need to archive a lot of documents, emails, attachments.
Ads
Gmail ads are sometimes confusing as it looks like emails above the ‘Promotions’ inbox. Even if it is specified in a yellow box which reads ‘Ad,’ this can often be tricky. To stop seeing the ads, you can disable the ‘Promotions’ label or completely disable the selected inbox.
Outlook ads are placed in the right side of the page and occupy an enormous volume of real estate in the browser window. This can be annoying for people who wish to have a smooth user experience. The only method there is to disable the ads, is to pay $20 per year for ad-free browsing, but Microsoft outlined the fact that by acquiring this option, your emails will not be surveyed for ad targeting.
Security
Both email services are offering fantastic security features. They both offer a 2-step verification process and automatic spam recognition. Gmail sends spam emails to a spam folder, and Outlook displays a red or yellow safety bar in the upper side of the detected spam emails. Outlook also will put the possible spam emails to a junk label.
Contact Management
Gmail enables you to transfer contacts from Yahoo, Outlook, AOL, Google+ and more, and also input via a CSV or vCard file. Outlook allows you to transfer contacts from Gmail, older variant of Outlook, Yahoo, and Windows Live Mail.
Other features
Besides calendar syncing, tasks, and customized themes, Outlook offers more than 100 add-ins. For instance, Boomerang add-in, which makes it possible to add a reminder to appear later, Evernote add-in, which allows you to save any email to a notebook, and you can even connect to Uber, Skype for video calls and much more.
Gmail has essential features such as Google calendar, tasks, custom themes. The only remarkable difference for Gmail is the automatic filling system and the tabbed inbox. This last feature categorizes emails based on priority, updates, and promotions.
A Gmail account is a Google account as well, and it allows access to Google Docs, Sheets, Photos, Drawings, Calendar, and Forms, which are all syncing on all the devices connected to the account.
Outlook offers almost the same features via its OneDrive, which comes with an online version of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Sway and Docs.com.
Closing Words
Picking the right email service can give you some hard time. However, both Google’s Gmail and Microsoft’s Outlook are some incredible services, offering great features. The one you pick will revolve around your need in storage space, ad display, and additional add-ons.
Nora Reynolds is a major in biology and a minor in Biological Basis of Behavior, writing about science in general. She also likes to try new gadgets and sports about the AI new era.