Webmail war: Gmail vs. Outlook.com vs. Yahoo Mail

There's little question that Web-based email has captured a major portion of the user base. The conveniences of webmail -- all your messages in one place, few or no practical limits on storage, access from almost any client device -- make it all the more appealing to generations of users for whom client apps like Outlook are clunky relics.

Trouble is, hard numbers can be tough to come by. Google, for instance, claims that as of June 2012 Gmail alone had some 425 million users, although analytics firm ComScore gave an estimate of 289 million for May 2012. The other two major contenders -- Yahoo Mail and Hotmail (now Outlook.com) -- were in about the same ballpark, according to ComScore, with 298 million and 325 million users, respectively.

The picture is further complicated by other issues, such as how many users have accounts on more than one service, how many accounts are abandoned, how reporting on mobile versus desktop is skewed, and so on.

Fuzzy as the hard numbers might be, any service type with a user base in the hundreds of millions is worth keeping fresh. Over the past year, each of the three largest webmail providers has made major changes to its service.

In the case of Gmail, those changes have been part of the rolling tweaks Google makes throughout its family of services. On the other hand, Microsoft has pushed through a major rebrand and relaunch, turning its well-known Hotmail email service into Outlook.com, with an entirely new interface and overhauled feature set. Yahoo has also been attempting to reinvent itself, giving its service a new look and some new features.

In this roundup, I look at what's changed for each email service during the past year -- both cosmetically and functionally -- and the ways each implements commonly used features: mail organization and searching, POP/IMAP access, handling of attachments and the mobile experience (including apps).

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How to switch email accounts

One of the biggest problems with using a webmail account is leaving it and/or going to another. None of the accounts profiled in this piece have an obvious way to export your email and your contacts, and move them to another service. That doesn't make it impossible, though.

Moving email

Gmail lets you import email from another provider; you can also have messages forwarded from the provider to your Gmail account for up to 30 days. Most popular mail services are supported, and I was even able to set up a link from my own vanity email address after manually specifying the needed POP3 login information. If your provider isn't one of those that Gmail imports from, Google has a tool it calls the Mail Fetcher, which lets you download messages from up to five accounts.

Leaving Gmail is trickier. Third-party services, such as the command-line Got Your Back and Gmail Keeper tools, or online apps like Backupify and BackupGoo, can be used to automate the process without needing much babysitting.

With both Gmail and Yahoo, the easiest way to export your email is via IMAP connectivity, which is supported by each service. Install an email client that supports IMAP -- such as Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird -- then download your email locally.

You can also import email to Yahoo using this method, but it's not easy. When you set up a local mail client for IMAP, you can copy mail to or from the remote IMAP folders. So if you have two services set up in the same mail client via IMAP, you can transfer mail between them simply by copying them between remote IMAP folders.

The process is slow and a bit tedious, especially if you have a lot of folders, but it can be done. And this, or using a third-party application such as TrueSwitch (see below) is the only way to import email to Yahoo.

Outlook.com does not support IMAP, but you can use Microsoft's Outlook Connector tool, together with Outlook (the desktop application, which does support IMAP), to accomplish the same thing. (The Outlook Connector is built into Outlook 2013 and Outlook for Mac 2011; it can be installed to earlier versions.)

While there is no built-in import mechanism for Outlook.com, there is at least one third-party outfit that might help. TrueSwitch copies email messages and contacts from one account to another for you, provides mail forwarding between accounts, and notifies contacts of the upcoming change in address. TrueSwitch is free for some services, such as Gmail and Outlook.com; it will also work with Yahoo, but you have to purchase a copy of the software for $29.95.

Moving contacts

Migrating contact information, thankfully, isn't as hard. Gmail (and Google generally) makes it easy to do this. The Google Takeout service lets you create an archive which contains data associated with your various Google accounts. Contacts information can be downloaded as a CSV file, vCards or as an HTML file.

If you're migrating to Gmail, importing contacts can be done via CSV or vCard. Google has documentation for how to import CSV files and how to format them for use in Gmail.

One very nice feature of Yahoo's contact export option is the variety of formats. Not only does it export in Outlook-friendly CSV files, but also a CSV format recognized by Yahoo itself (in case you want to re-import to a new account), a Mozilla Thunderbird-native format, and either multiple vCards in a ZIP file or a single vCard. Contacts can also be imported from a whole plethora of sources -- another Yahoo account (you'll need the login and password), a variety of social networks or as a CSV file exported from a desktop program.

Importing contacts into Outlook.com isn't hard; it can be done via a CSV file exported from Outlook or another program. Exporting is also simple; just go to the "Export" option in the "People" submenu, click that and you can download a CSV copy of your contacts. The bad news is that this copy, at least as of this writing, doesn't include contacts imported from social networks (Facebook, Google+, Twitter); it's only contacts that you have added directly in Outlook.com yourself or imported via a file.

Gmail

Gmail currently provides email for an estimated half a billion users, according to its own internal stats, with at least 10GB of email storage for every one of them. In the last couple of years, Gmail has shed its "perpetual beta" stigma -- something that was common to many Google applications -- and has become a service that, it sometimes seems, just about everyone has an account with.

Google's Gmail recently underwent a redesign, and elements are now spaced wider apart.Click to view larger image

The most visible of Gmail's changes in the last year or so, apart from placing Gmail under the recently unified Terms of Service that were rolled out across Google, involves a redesign of its interface. Elements are now spaced wider apart, an echo of the visual changes made across Google systemwide. If you'd rather stick with the previous look, Google has provided a way to change back: Click the gear button on the right side of the main screen and select "Compact" from the list of possible views to restore the old, more closely spaced view. You can also customize the look and feel with various themes (in contrast to Outlook.com, which allows only basic customizations). One thing still missing from the interface (and provided by both Yahoo Mail and Outlook.com) is a message preview pane option.

Gmail differs from most other email services in the way that it handles message replies. With Google, the standard reply is edited via a frame nested at the bottom of the original message (as opposed to Outlook.com and Yahoo Mail, which open a new tab or window). This is handy if you want to keep both the original message and the reply in front of you as you edit. You can also pop out the reply into its own subwindow and edit it separately -- and since I tend to work on multiple mail drafts at once, this is a welcome feature for me.

Gmail is closely integrated with the rest of the Google ecosystem in a variety of ways. If you use the Google+ social network, for example, messages from that service are indicated in your inbox via a "g+" icon next to the subject line. Hover over the name of a sender and contact information appears, along with any Google+ circle membership you have for them. If you use Google's Chrome browser, Gmail can be used as the default email handler. And a feature currently in field trials allows you to see search results from your email when searching Google generally.

Gmail, like Google's other free-to-use services, is ad-supported. Ads are contextual and personalized -- they're served based on what sorts of emails you've been receiving -- but you can opt out of personalized ad delivery if you wish.

Another major set of changes involves support for new mail-related protocols. Gmail has long supported IMAP and CalDav, but a new addition to the mix includes CardDav, for contact management with third-party clients like Thunderbird or the contact manager in iOS.

On the downside, Google recently discontinued the consumer version of Google Sync for Microsoft Outlook, which allowed Outlook users to keep their calendars, mail and contacts in sync with Gmail. Those who want to continue syncing have two choices: Pay for a Google Apps for Businesses account, which supports sync, or switch to an email client that supports CalDav and CardDav (e.g., Mozilla Thunderbird). Other Google Apps account features include the ability to use a custom (non-Gmail.com) address, a bigger inbox, uptime guarantees and live support.

In Gmail, the standard reply is edited via a form nested at the bottom of the original message.Click to view larger image

If you use IMAP to access Gmail from more than one device, take note of the "recent mode" feature. This allows the last 30 days' worth of mail to be made available to multiple devices, whether or not it's already been downloaded -- handy if you want to keep offline copies of mail on more than one device. Another nice touch for IMAP users: All folders, apart from the Inbox, can be optionally hidden from IMAP clients to streamline the download process.

Organizing with labels

On top of its usual type-to-search functionality (which returns results from your mailbox, your Google+ circles and your contacts), Gmail has an organizational system that lets you create hierarchical lists of labels (it uses the term "labels" rather than "folders") that can be applied to email. Apart from the usual Inbox, Trash, Drafts, Archive, etc., you can also create your own labels. The labels are all listed on the left side of the window; click on a label to see only messages with that label.

Within each label category, you can star individual messages (and then see just those by clicking on the "Starred" label). Google also lets you indicate which messages you consider important by clicking on a small flag-like icon in your message list. Over time Gmail will figure out what messages you consider important and automatically flag them; you can then see all such mail in a special view (labeled, appropriately, Important). If you want all your important, starred and unread email to be on top of your list, you can choose Priority Inbox.

Attachments in messages can be downloaded singly, en masse, or -- depending on the file format -- viewed either in-browser or through Google Docs. I had trouble getting some larger, more complex Word documents to render in the latter, but files like PDFs and images worked fine. Gmail also scans attachments for viruses and will bounce incoming messages or block attachments, incoming or outgoing, that appear to be infected.

I was disappointed that it isn't possible to export an archive of your email via the Google Takeout data-portability service, but (as detailed in our sidebar) you can use an independent email client such as Mozilla Thunderbird to accomplish the same thing via its native IMAP connectivity. I tried this once, and depending on how much email you have, it can take many hours.

Auto-forwarding from Gmail can be done by simply adding one or more forwarding addresses via your account settings. The addresses you list are confirmed by sending a confirmation code to the address in question. You can also opt to have forwarded mail kept intact in Gmail, marked as read, archived or deleted entirely.

Mobile use

For mobile devices, Google makes dedicated apps not only for Android but for iOS as well. The new 2.0 version of the iOS edition lets you access multiple Gmail accounts, works directly with various Google service requests (e.g., if you get a calendar invite, it's handled right in the app), and lets you post to Google+ through email.

Users of the Chrome desktop browser can add Gmail Offline, which caches up to a month of mail directly in your browser for offline access via the magic of HTML5, although it makes the layout and format of Gmail look a lot closer to the iOS app than to the desktop website.

And the mobile-site version of Gmail is also very nicely designed, with a remarkable amount of easy-to-access functionality crammed into a small space.

Bottom line

Google's Gmail email service is still a fine choice, rich with meta-organizational features and external connectivity options -- although its highly useful sync features for Outlook are now only available for paying customers.

Outlook.com