EMAIL MADE EASIER THAN EVER
Outlook’s new tools – better than Gmail?
For the past few months you may have noticed a ‘Try the beta’ button at the top right of your Outlook.com window. Clicking it would have taken you to a preview version of Microsoft’s revamped webmail, packed with new tools to try. In mid-march, Microsoft said it would soon be “rolling out” the new Outlook.com to everyone, giving us the chance to compare its new features with its all-conquering Google rival, Gmail.
To check whether you’re using the new version, sign into https://outlook.live.com, then look at the top right of the screen. An ‘Outlook beta’ slider means you’re still using the beta version, but most of the tools we cover here will work. If the slider isn’t there, you’re probably using the full version of the new Outlook.com. For help with any new tool, visit Microsoft’s help page: www.snipca.com/27411.
Make video calls in your email window
The Skype logo at the top right (see screenshot below left) is one of the first things you’ll notice in the new Outlook.com. We clicked it excitedly, hoping for a live video link to our email contacts. Perhaps a quick chat face to face with family members overseas, while going through email travel itineraries together. But alas it was not to be. At the moment, Outlook.com’s mini Skype doesn’t support voice or video calls. Instead, it’s just a text-messaging tool. Not really Skype, then, is it?
Gmail, by contrast, does let you make free video and voice calls in your email window. And unlike Outlook.com’s tool, which only connects Skype contacts, Gmail Video Chat lets you chat to anyone with a web connection. To use it, click ‘+’ to the left of your Gmail inbox, type an email address, then click the video icon. You can send an email invitation if the other person isn’t online.
WINNER: Gmail
See important emails at a glance
By default, the new Outlook.com displays your most important messages in your ‘Focused Inbox’ (see screenshot above right). Everything else - promotional emails, newsletters, special offers - is automatically filed under Other.
Outlook.com uses machine learning to assess an email’s importance, and we found its judgement to be spot on. To make it even more accurate, help it to learn by manually sorting emails (‘Conversations’) between the two tabs. The quickest way is to select multiple emails and then drag them.
This will all sound familiar if you’re a Gmail user. Gmail sorts your incoming emails into Primary, Promotions and Updates, and lets you add more tabs if you want. But it’s not as easy to use.
WINNER: Outlook.com
Find any email in your archive
Outlook.com’s new search tool borrows a few Gmail features. You can now look for messages from a specific person, and refine your search using keywords and search operators (such as ‘has:attachment’ to find emails with attachments only). The search bar also now includes an ‘All folders’ dropdown menu that lets you search certain folders only.
But it’s not a patch on Gmail’s search. Gmail’s filters are more accurate and its results are much faster. And unlike Outlook.com, its search bar offers loads
of suggestions - matching emails, contacts and Google docs, plus a web-search link - to help you find what you’re looking for.
WINNER: Gmail
Attach an email to another email
Never bother forwarding an email again, because Outlook.com now lets you attach emails to other emails - unlike Gmail. It’s very easy to do. Click ‘New message’ to open the compose window, click to select the messages you want to attach, then drag them on to the compose window.
If you seem to ‘lose’ the email you’re composing (for example, when you click a tab to find another email to attach), you’ll find an auto-saved draft by clicking the tabs at the bottom of the compose window.
WINNER: Outlook.com
Automatically back up your email photos
Outlook.com’s new Photo Hub backs up any photo you send or receive to your 15GB of free Onedrive storage. Click the photo icon at the bottom left (see screenshot above) to browse photos by date, see photos of certain contacts only, download and print multiple photos at once, and attach one or more to a new email.
You can also use your Photo Hub page as a viewer for all your photos in Facebook and Google Photos (you can add Box and Dropbox via Settings). However, we couldn’t attach these photos to an Outlook.com email - despite clicking the ‘Send by email’ link.
Gmail offers many more options for attaching photos, videos and even entire albums than Outlook.com does. But only Outlook.com automatically backs up photos from your emails in one easy-toaccess folder, no configuration needed.
WINNER: Outlook.com
Add extra tools
Outlook.com now offers dozens of add-ons (or ‘add-ins’ to use Microsoft’s ‘we had to be different’ term) that let your emails do more. For example, there’s a free add-on for easily saving the contents of any email to your Evernote account, and a free ‘Translator for Outlook’ add-on that lets you read messages in foreign languages. To customise when and where you see these, go to Settings, Email, then ‘Customise actions’.
Gmail offers similar extras, but to our surprise we found more tools to our taste in Outlook.com. For example, a search for ‘weather’ found no Gmail tools, but two in Outlook.com (albeit one isn’t free).
To search and browse Outlook.com’s add-ins – most of which are free – click the down arrow in an email or compose window, then click ‘Get Add-ins’ (see screenshot above).
WINNER: Outlook.com
Add related info to your email
When we heard Outlook.com was adding a ‘Quick suggestions’ feature that finishes your sentences, our hearts sank. But ‘Quick suggestions’ isn’t like predictive text on phones. Rather than foisting suggestions on you willy-nilly, it lets you choose when to see them, and then whether to use them. For example, if you type Let’s have dinner tonight, you can click ‘dinner’ to see restaurant suggestions that you can add to your email with another click. It saves a lot of searching and typing. One small problem: ‘Quick suggestions’ isn’t working in Outlook. com yet. We’ll let you know when it is.
The closest Gmail can offer is ‘Smart Replies’ in its phone and tablet apps. These optional one-tap responses are based on the content of an email you’ve received (‘You too’, ‘See you then’ and so on). Not exactly detailed, but better than nothing. Gmail wins for now.
WINNER: Gmail
See your emails as conversations
You’ll have noticed that Outlook.com now calls your emails ‘Conversations’ and strings replies together, just like messaging apps and Gmail. This new style lets you follow a discussion, but info and attachments can get buried in the long strings, and Gmail’s more powerful search makes it easier to keep track. Both Gmail and Outlook.com let you opt out of Conversations and keep every message separate if you prefer. In Outlook.com, click the settings cog, then Off under ‘Conversation view’. In Gmail, go to Settings then click ‘Conversation view off’.
WINNER: Gmail