The Best E-Mail Program Ever: How Gmail destroyed Outlook.

Slate ^ | January 29, 2009 | Farhad Manjoo

[Arec Barrwin]

The Best E-Mail Program Ever How Gmail destroyed Outlook.

By Farhad Manjoo

Posted Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009, at 5:52 PM ET

As of this week, Gmail has reached perfection: You no longer have to be online to read or write messages. Desktop programs like Microsoft Outlook have always been able to access your old mail. There is a certain bliss to this; if you've got a pile of letters that demand well-composed, delicate responses (say you're explaining to your boss why you ordered that $85,000 rug), unplugging the Internet can be the fastest way to get things done. That's why offline access is a killer feature—it destroys your last remaining reason for suffering through a desktop e-mail program.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

I’ll stick with Yahoo mail. Yahoo is the Cadillac of email services.

[FrankR]

I tried gmail for a temporary project...and I think it sucks. Even when having Outlook download it, it sucks.

Outlook works well for me, it has the features I like and use often; I use Outlook Express at home and I like it as well.

I know - different strokes for different folks - but if Outlook and other apps work well, and I am trained in using them, I'm not going to let "bill gates envy" stop me from using them or dissing MS.

[Jeff Chandler]

GMail is an excellent service. I use it (through Google Apps) for all my email.

It’s fast, efficient, scans attachments for viruses before I ever download them, is accessible from any computer, and has a wonderful spam filter.

It syncs with my Blackberry, as does Google Calendar, and doesn’t hog resources the way Outlook does. I can us GMail while compiling a video or working on a website with no loss of speed on my computer. With Outlook I experience a noticeable loss of speed.

If my computer is down for maintenance or repair, I can still access my email. If my computer crashes, I can still access my email.

That being said, I find that Outlook is a wonderful program for backing up my GMail to my computer. Utilized over night, it doesn’t interfere with my work by hogging resources during the day, and because GMail supports IMAP, I can sync my GMail accounts with Outlook for peace of mind in case Google ever goes bankrupt.

[SmokingJoe]

Gmail is not even on the same planet as Outlook, when it comes to power, features and depth. It’s not even an issue. It’s like comparing a Russian Lada(Gmail) to a BMW(Outlook).

[fso301]

Those who complain about Outlook don’t use/need the features it provides. Anyone in a small business needing computers connected to the internet is nuts if they aren’t sophisticated Outlook users.

[Jeff Chandler]

I don’t see how to easily group or find email from a certain person.

You can create a filter which applies a label to that person's email. Labels are GMail's equivalent to folders, but they are more powerful because you can cross reference them.

Additionally, you can type in that person's name or email address in the search box and pull them all up.

[romanesq]

Hey thanks for the tip. On the Apple Mail you can click just one button on from with one email and all the emails from that person are then shown together.

But at least there is a way to do it.

I’ll have to try the labels method. Thanks again.

[aft_lizard]

I have to say gmail does have some really nice features. Like if you get into a back and forth email session you have a reply tree that shows all of your emails for that particular starting email, plus it has a cleaner and much more intuitive setup than yahoo.

Now to be fair I really like the new m.yahoo.com they have been beta testing on occasion, very nice setup and you can consolidate some of your email services(even gmail) into one mailbox. Plus the preview shows three times as many emails as the current preview does.

[engrpat]

I have a gmail account that I use as a throw away account for when I purchase something online. I find it to be a very cheap, lacking in bells and whistles that I enjoy on Incredimail.

[Kolb]

I suppose Manjoo has never experienced Outlook connected to Exchange nor used the Outlook Web Access feature of Exchange. Blows all other email programs/ services out of the water, at least for large organization & corporate email.

DoD uses Outlook/ Exchange- I wonder why? /s

[eclecticEel]

I use Outlook at work, and I hate it.

Why does it have 1000 different features that I will never, ever in a million years think of using?
Why won’t it let me customize my button bar? I really don’t want “Business Contact Manager” on there at all; why it insists that I do is beyond me.
Why does it inexplicably go offline, sometimes for hours at a time? I don’t even realize it’s off, unless I check on it periodically to make sure it’s still working, restarting the entire computer being the only surefire way to get it to come back online.

[Poser]

“I use Agent as for Newsgroups only. I never considered using it as my email platform. What is good about it?”

1. It will handle any number of email accounts on any number of servers.
2. It will automatically file your mail in the folders of your choice.
3. It has a built-in learning capability to filter spam. You simply drag an email to the spam folder and it learns.
4. It allows you to turn HTML on or off in messages.
5. It allows you to either leave your messages on the server or not.
6. It allows you to both read and write email offline.
7. You can install it simply by copying its folder to a new computer. There are no registry entries.
8. It has a good spell checker.
9. It is small. It doesn’t hog resources.
10. You can manually or automatically retrieve your email.
11. One click and you can read your newsgroups like rec.guns!

[PugetSoundSoldier]

Exactly. Integrated scheduling, shared contacts, auto-archiving, quick searches, etc. make Outlook years ahead of GMail.

GMail is a nice little web-based e-mail client, but compared to a full-featured application like Outlook? That’s a hoot!

[shorty_harris]

I tried Gmail once, but didn’t like it. I use Yahoo and Thunderbird. I’ve never used Outlook. The ads with Yahoo annoy me, but using Firefox with AdBlock (along with it’s selective element blocking), I’ve figured out how to block all the ads.

[balls]

Google has archived every single query ever made, for “research” purposes. Don’t be surprised if they keep all your email forever, for “research”.

[LibWhacker]

So I'm asking myself would I give a bunch of vicious liberal retards complete access to and control over decades worth of my email archives? No, I don't think so.

I wouldn't give them to my good buddy Opelosi and I won't give them to Google, which might be two very similar things.

[ReformedBeckite]

I used EUDORA too, I think it is great, I’ve got about 50 folders and filters set up on most of them. No trouble finding emails from the past.

[Principled]

With Gmail, you'll never see pop-ups or untargeted banner ads. Instead we display text ads and related links you might find useful and interesting.

Google watches you closely.

[Aria]

I worked at Nike and honestly didn’t see how they could function without Outlook. It must have been really wild in the early days.

[Uri’el-2012]

I used EUDORA too, I think it is great, I’ve got about 50 folders and filters set up on most of them. No trouble finding emails from the past.

I've used Eudora for almost twenty years.

First on Windows 2 and now on OS X.

The cut and paste was always painful.

Always liked content search and filtering.

I just upgraded to PowerMail with spamsieve.

It only works on OS X Leopard.

20 years of mailboxes converted in 15 minutes.

Another half day to update the filters.