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Gmail vs. Outlook is not a serious debate like many other discussions in the world. Most professionals already know that Outlook is way better than Gmail account. It’s not that Gmail is not favored by anyone, individuals who love Google products definitely vote for Gmail. But, we’re not discussing your love for Gmail or Outlook; this post focuses on clarifying why Outlook is better than Gmail from a business point of view.
Both Gmail and Outlook have their own advantages and disadvantages, making it challenging to decide the true winner. For instance, both provide rules for sorting and organizing messages, translation capabilities, reminders, and options to schedule/send new messages. However, if you consider the functionalities and accessibility, Outlook has much more to offer as compared to Gmail, especially third-party email integration. Below we have mentioned 10 key reasons that will show why Outlook is better than Gmail account.
1- Easy integration with emails, contacts, and calendar
For every organization, email is the primary method of communication between employees, customers, and clients. Outlook is a complete application to communicate at work and get things done effectively. Whether you want to set up meetings or find information about a contact, Outlook is a one-stop destination for everyone.
The consistent user experience of Outlook makes it stand out from other email applications. On the other hand, Gmail lacks smooth integration across various communication channels.
2- Allow you to organize mails
Every user has a different way of organizing emails in their mailbox. Some users prefer to sort their emails from oldest to newest; others like to create specific folders for specific emails. For instance, many users often receive hundreds of emails daily, and finding the relevant email often becomes challenging. Outlook allows you to set your mailbox as per requirements. You can create and apply rules to each email to organize it in a better way.
Gmail allows you to only organize your emails in limited ways, making it challenging to find some older emails.
3- Offline access to mailbox
This difference is pretty obvious to every user. With Gmail, you cannot access your mailbox without an internet connection. However, Outlook allows you to access emails even in offline mode, making it easier to look at specific emails when necessary. For example, if you’re traveling somewhere without an internet connection, you can still access your emails with Outlook.
4- Apply rules to reduce email clutter
Though Gmail and Outlook allow you to set rules on your mailbox, Outlook provides very advanced rules. You can create rules to move specific items to different folders, which allows you to de-clutter your inbox. You can even send unnecessary emails to the trash folder by applying rules. Gmail offers filter capability, but the functions of these filters are limited.
5- Categorize emails your way
Outlook gives you the ability to assign categories to your mailbox items, including messages, calendar, tasks, journals, etc. You can assign multiple items to a single category to classify it in various ways. You can even color-code your categories for visual cues to analyze how you spend your time across different areas. Color-coding offers a simple solution for organizing your emails. Gmail doesn’t provide a color-coding facility, which makes it a little difficult to organize emails.
6- Find emails in various ways
Every email client has a search bar that allows you to find specific emails based on your information. But sometimes, users don’t have an idea about what they’re looking for. Outlook makes it easier to find emails with various filter options like sorting email by date and size, specifying the timeframe, and the places to find your specific email. With Gmail, you only get the search feature to find emails.
7- Change importance of emails with flags
With flags, it is easy for users to give attention to emails. You can apply various tags to your emails, such as red flag, yellow flag, or green flag. Some users have said that seeing a red flag on any email helps them understand the importance of the email. Apart from the importance, Outlook also makes it easy to flag emails for quick follow-up.
Gmail doesn’t offer any such functionality, so users are unable to get the proper priority of attention to their email from the recipients. With functionalities like flags and rules, you can be more productive in your work.
8- User interface
Even if you don’t have much knowledge about the configuration and capabilities of both email platforms, you can easily recognize the UI difference between Gmail and Outlook. The UI of Outlook is iconic, with everything aligned in a tree structure. You can view and access all your mailbox items from the left pane of Outlook, such as a folder pane, message list, a reading pane, and more.
Google also has a modern and streamlined UI with the navigation pane, a simple command bar, a condensed message list, and a search bar. But compared to Outlook, Gmail fails to impress users who have been using MS Outlook for quite some time now.
9- Rich contact information
How convenient it would be if users could find someone’s office address by looking at their contact card. Outlook provides you with this functionality with rich contact information. It allows you to add your photo to the contact card with your name, which helps others to get more info about you. The presence information shows your status, such as busy, offline, away, in a meeting, etc.
Any user can use this information to start a chat, schedule a meeting, make a quick phone call, or start an online conference. But, Gmail doesn’t provide this functionality; you need to use Google Hangout or Google Chat on your system to use the chat with anyone functionality.
10- Get hands-on mail tips
Mail tips in Outlook allow you to configure your email address list. Whenever you compose an email, a message pops up displaying the distribution list. This option enables you to make the right decision while sending any email. Moreover, mail tips are pretty handy when the recipient of your email is on vacation or has the automatic response turned on.
Individuals who have been using Outlook since the beginning or switched from Gmail to Outlook love this feature. Gmail doesn’t provide any such functionality for users.
Both Gmail and Outlook have their advantages and disadvantages; it really depends on your business need which platform is more convenient for you. However, if we talk about large enterprises, MS Outlook is the widely used platform for email communication.
So, if you are planning to move from Gmail to Outlook, you need an alternative solution like Kernel IMAP Backup. This IMAP email backup tool is specifically designed to backup IMAP mailboxes and migrate them to MS Outlook. Whether you want to backup single or multiple mailboxes, the Kernel IMAP Backup tool can fulfill all your requirements.
Key takeaways
MS Outlook is an incredible email communication platform compared to other IMAP email platforms like Gmail. Many businesses rely on MS Outlook to manage their client communications, schedule meetings and manage their weekly calendar. If you’re confused about whether to move to Outlook or stick to Gmail, this article can clear your confusion.