Gmail and Outlook.com are two of the most popular web email services, with billions of active accounts. Both have their separate mobile apps, come in free and premium versions, and integrate with their corresponding Google or Microsoft services. This comparison evaluates Outlook.com vs. Gmail to help you decide which one fits your needs the best.
Tip: do you know that you can still use a Hotmail email address with an Outlook email account?
Outlook.com vs. Gmail: Quick Summary
Whether you’re comparing Gmail vs. Outlook.com for personal use or business, we’ve summarized a typical email user’s key expectations. We have further rated both Gmail and Outlook.com on a scale of 1 to 5 for each of these points.
| Gmail | Outlook | |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of use | 5/5 | 2/5 |
| Integrations | 5/5 | 5/5 |
| Search | 5/5 | 3/5 |
| Storage (and attachments) | 4/5 | 5/5 |
| Security | 4/5 | 5/5 |
| Accessibility | 4/5 | 5/5 |
| Pricing | 4/5 | 3/5 |
1. Ease of Use
Outlook has been around for decades and still retains a traditional email user interface. Clearly, Outlook.com hasn’t kept up with the times, which makes the interface feel cluttered and dated. Scrolling through all your emails can feel painfully slow.
Gmail, on the other hand, has a modern, elegant interface. The absence of extra menu items ensures much swifter navigation. Scrolling through emails is much faster: just go to See All Settings and change your Maximum page size to contain 10, 20, 50 or 100 conversations.
The Gmail interface feels more intuitive. It allows you to take action on any email directly from the shortcut icons on top. Whether you want to set a label, mute/block a contact, or delete emails in bulk, it only takes one or two clicks.
Both Gmail and Outlook.com offer auto-complete suggestions using the Tab key, but Gmail has a definite edge here. Its Smart Compose feature uses generative AI for text prediction and sentence rewrites. The feature works equally well on Gmail’s free version and a Google Workspace account.
Outlook uses Microsoft Editor for auto-complete suggestions. However, its free version can only do basic spelling and grammar checks. To get AI-based predictive writing, you’ll need to purchase a Microsoft 365 subscription.
Winner: Gmail is a clear winner in ease of use.
2. Integrations
If you’re comparing Gmail and Outlook.com for business, you will need a full set of app integrations.
The first thing to remember is that both Gmail and Outlook.com integrate quite well with their respective apps in Google and Microsoft. Even with a free Gmail account, you can readily interface with Google Drive, Calendar, Maps, Photos, and much more.
Likewise, a free Outlook.com email account is your gateway to other Microsoft apps, including Skype, Teams, OneDrive, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
For advanced third-party integrations, you will need to visit Google Workspace or Microsoft Azure Marketplace. Both offer a rich collection of apps to integrate with your Gmail or Outlook.com accounts, such as Slack, Asana, Hive, Dropbox, and Zoho.
Winner: consider this contest a tie.
Tip: Learn more about Google Calendar’s business features.
3. Search
When you have thousands of emails to browse through, using the search box becomes very important.
The Gmail search bar brings accurate date results based on keywords. It’s very easy to trace older emails. Using search operators like in:spam and in:sent makes the task faster.
While the Outlook.com search works fine in retrieving old emails, it does not support search operators.
Moreover, with Outlook.com, the search results may sometimes appear broken if you’ve put the emails in certain folders, such as Archives. Gmail’s search results cover all the folders in your Gmail account, including the Archives.
Winner: Gmail has a superior search engine compared to Outlook.com.
Tip: would you like timely backup for your Gmail storage? Use Google Takeout.
4. Storage (and Attachments)
Both Gmail and Outlook.com free accounts support 15 GB of storage, but there is a difference. In Gmail, the 15 GB quota covers not only the mail component but also Google Drive and Google Photos. The actual amount of mail storage is much less.
With Outlook.com, you have a guaranteed 15 GB of free email storage which, includes attachments and messages across all folders. On top of that, you also get 5 GB of Microsoft storage for OneDrive.
Outlook.com and Gmail support large file attachments, which is capped at 20 MB for Outlook.com free account. For Gmail, each email can’t have attachments greater than 25 MB. However, if you migrate to a Microsoft 365 account, you get much greater attachment limits with Outlook.com.
Winner: Outlook.com wins this round.
5. Security
Both Gmail and Outlook.com take email security very seriously. In each case, all your email attachments are scanned very carefully to detect zero-hour threats. They will remove any dangerous malware so that you don’t accidentally open it.
Gmail has prominent Report Phishing and Report Spam buttons to report suspicious emails. Outlook.com has a few additional options, such as reporting emails as junk and the Ignore button.
Outlook also supports a security feature called Safelinks, which displays warning messages next to suspicious URLs. Gmail doesn’t have a similar intervention.
Both Gmail and Outlook.com support two-factor authentication. You can either use Google Authenticator or Microsoft Authenticator for an extra layer of security to your online accounts.
Winner: Outlook has a slight edge over Gmail in email security.
6. Accessibility
For an email provider, being accessible means the ability to connect to multiple users on different devices. Both Gmail and Outlook are available on a wide variety of operating systems, including Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, and much more. In the case of Outlook, you can download a desktop app, whereas Gmail sticks with a web browser for desktop use.
Outlook.com is slightly more accessible for users with disabilities. It has a prominent Dictate button in the Compose window for users who are unable to type on a keyboard. It also has an Accessibility Checker to help people using screen readers listen to images.
Winner: Outlook.com is more accessible.
7. Pricing
If you want to migrate to a premium pricing plan, Gmail offers cheaper options with Google One. A 100 GB storage plan costs less than $2/month, and a 200 GB storage plan costs less than $3/month. This is a great bargain compared to Microsoft 365’s starting subscription for additional storage in Outlook, which costs $6/month.
Winner: Gmail is cheaper than Outlook.
Tip: if you’re planning to get a Microsoft 365 subscription, get a Business plan that gives you access to SharePoint.
Outlook vs. Gmail: Which Is Best?
Having compared Outlook.com vs. Gmail, it is obvious that both have their specific advantages and disadvantages.
Choose Outlook if you:
- work more with Microsoft products
- need more storage space
Choose Gmail if you:
- need smoother navigation and quick access to features
- work more with Google products
- need more productivity and collaboration features
- have cost concerns
Based on the above criteria, Gmail is a better choice for a vast majority of email users. Given its modern rich UI and functionality, it is more future-centric and available to more users on most devices.
It scores an advantage with privacy as well. You can delete your Gmail account permanently if you don’t need it anymore. With Outlook.com, that’s not the case, as it makes your expired email addresses available to other users after two years.
Image credit: Unsplash. All screenshots by Sayak Boral.
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