The Email Experiment: Another Quick Check-In

Back in September, I began examining alternatives to Google Inbox, which is being retired at the end of March. It’s taken a while, but I’ve found the app I’ll be using on mobile. And a recent change to Windows 10 may provide my answer on the desktop, too.

Yes, it’s been a while since my last formal update on this topic, sorry. But it’s come up a few times in Ask Paul, and my search for an Inbox alternative has triggered a reexamination of how I interact with email. And after some initial experimentation, the focus on the desktop has sort of shifted away from web clients—where I had expected to land—to native clients (as is the case on mobile).

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This is one of those things that is simple … and yet is also paradoxically not that easy to explain. But the way my mind works, especially with something as esoteric as managing multiple email accounts, is that once I figure out something, and get it working efficiently, I basically stop thinking about it. And over time, I lose the ability to even defend why things are configured the way they are: I just know that I did it right in the past, and I forget why or even how I did it. It’s a real gift.

Looking at email specifically, I spent considerable time and energy years ago figuring out the most efficient way to handle multiple email accounts via a single service. This is a form of consolidation that requires you to push email from one or more secondary accounts to a single primary account and then configure that primary account to be able to send mail on behalf of those secondary accounts. Once the plumbing works, you’re good to go: You just use a single primary account on the web and it receives all of your email to that single location.

That works fine on the desktop. But on mobile, things work differently. On mobile, you will typically use a native app, and it can connect to any number of accounts. The consolidation work you did on the web to get all your email from multiple accounts will apply to the mobile app, too, of course. But if you wish to send email from your secondary accounts on mobile, you’ll need to set them up in the mobile app too.

But there are two further complications.

First, where the web client is smart enough to ensure that any replies to email are sent from the correct account, the mobile app can’t do this. Once you start pushing email from secondary accounts to a primary account, it all looks like email sent to the primary account to the mobile app. So you lose this smart reply functionality (meaning the ability to automatically reply from the right account.)

Second, and perhaps even worse, I discovered during my recent experimentations that the process of forwarding email between accounts causes you to lose emails. And some of them are actually important emails, too. The issue here, I think, is that you’re subjecting email messages to at least two different spam/junk email engines. But whatever the cause, emails get lost. And that is unacceptable.

Fixing this is easy enough.

Well, in theory, it is. Instead of forwarding email between accounts, simply maintain those individual accounts separately. Then, pipe them through a single client on both desktop and mobile that can be configured to collect and send email from multiple accounts. In this scheme, the consolidation, such as it is, occurs on the client—via a single inbox view, typically, though that’s your choice—and not up in the cloud. So each service handles its own spam/junk email checking, and you still benefit from a central location for everything.

Maybe this just sounds logical to you. But it’s contrary to how I’ve done things for years, and because Google’s Inbox service—which is a web client on desktop and a normal mobile app on phones—is so damned good, so efficient and minimalistic, I just stopped thinking about it. Until, of course, Google announced that it was killing off Inbox. And now this is something I can’t stop thinking about.

Yes, I left my options open. But I did originally expect to choose some other web-based email client on the desktop—Outlook.com, most likely, or perhaps Gmail if I could figure out a way to not make it look so terrible—and then just use the corresponding mobile app on my phone (Outlook mobile or Gmail). The lost email thing threw me for a loop. And then I started thinking differently.

What if I could leave each email account separate—no more forwarding, no more lost emails—and just find a great native client on both desktop and mobile?

What if.

On mobile, this is easy: Microsoft’s Outlook mobile is that client, and while I’m still not ready to give up Google Calendar on mobile—it’s just a great calendar app—Outlook does also include calendar functionality if I want to go in that direction. Outlook mobile is great. I wish I could just run that on the desktop.

Instead, Microsoft offers two options that couldn’t be further apart: Microsoft Outlook, the massive, overbearing, and too-complex desktop application that I get as part of my Office 365 Home subscription and (Windows) Mail, the curiously inept email client that comes free with Windows 10. (The related Calendar app is fine, and I could easily use that.)

Microsoft Outlook (on the desktop) is a non-starter. Every time I fire it up, I want to rip my fingernails out.

As for Mail, I have a few issues, but the biggest one is that it doesn’t let you scale the text in email messages. And—to my eyes, at least—the text is always too small. If this app would simply let me configure a feature that’s been common in email applications since the 1990s, I could use it. And that would be one less third-party app I need to install every time I fire up a new or recently-reset Windows 10 PC. Put another way, since I use web app shortcuts for mail (and for calendar and Twitter), it would be one less instance in which I was dependent on Google Chrome as well.

And then something happened, as we say in the Microsoft world.

Yesterday, Microsoft announced a new Windows 10 Insider Preview build for 19H1, the version of Windows that will ship in the next few months. And it adds a new feature to the Mail app called Default Font, which Microsoft describes as “a top customer request.” Interesting, since I’ve been harping on this for four years now.

“Now you can customize how new messages will look,” the firm explained. “If you create a new mail or reply to an existing mail, the text you type will be in the font face, size, color, and emphasis you have selected … Default font applies per-account and does not roam to other devices.”

This could solve my problem. I’m away this weekend without an Insider-based PC to test to be sure. But it looks like Microsoft has finally—belatedly—answered my prayers. And it has done so with less than two months to spare until the Google Inbox retirement.

So that’s my current plan, such as it is. I’ve delinked all of my email accounts. I’m checking them all from Outlook mobile on my phone. And I’ve configured Mail in Windows 10—albeit in the shipping version of Windows 10, which lacks default font customization for now—to do the same.

And this may just work.

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Conversation 68 comments

  • Vitor Canova Weingaertner

    02 February, 2019 - 5:33 pm

    <p>I understand what your are saying.</p><p>When we get used to certain workflow is hard to accept the chance.</p><p><br></p><p>For email/calendar/tasks/contacts on Android I use Nine. It was very difficult to me to find a set of tools that worked flawlessly with Microsoft when I shifted from Windows Phone. I tried a lot of them and even Microsoft Outlook was not enough (back then it did not sync contacts back to server)</p>

    • Pbike908

      03 February, 2019 - 12:16 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#401443">In reply to Vitor_Canova_Weingaertner:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>The Outlook app on Android has a come a LONG way. It will now sync contacts back to server. </p>

  • rob_segal

    Premium Member
    02 February, 2019 - 6:02 pm

    <p>I would like to use the Windows 10 built-in Calendar app, but it will only sync events up to 6 months in the future for Google Calendar. This strange, arbitrary time range limitation they have for Google Calendar makes it a no-go for me. I still haven't found an email and calendar app that's any good on Windows. It's frustrating.</p>

  • Darekmeridian

    02 February, 2019 - 6:38 pm

    <p>@paul</p><p><br></p><p>I suggested this a few months ago on a different post. But you should have tried Postbox it's a Windows desktop email client that has a bunch of the stuff you have been asking for built in, including the DPI, default font, light/dark themes, consolidating accounts to a single Inbox and easy separation thru 1-click. It's a powerful email client for desktop the only drawbacks are 1) there is no mobile version yet 2) It's $40 </p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p>https://www.postbox-inc.com/</p><p><br></p><p>It may be moot now that Window Mail is getting some fixes you want.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

    • Paul Thurrott

      Premium Member
      03 February, 2019 - 8:21 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#401445">In reply to Darekmeridian:</a></em></blockquote><p>Thanks. I will check this out for sure.</p>

    • Paul Thurrott

      Premium Member
      03 February, 2019 - 8:45 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#401445">In reply to Darekmeridian:</a></em></blockquote><p>OK, this app is indeed amazing looking. Will use it for a few days, but this may upset the plans. :)</p><p><br></p><p>Thanks again.</p>

      • Darekmeridian

        03 February, 2019 - 10:56 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#401476">In reply to paul-thurrott:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>As long as it's a good upset :)</p><p>Good Luck</p><p><br></p>

    • Vladimir Carli

      Premium Member
      03 February, 2019 - 3:09 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#401445">In reply to Darekmeridian:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>it actually looks great but… it doesn't support exchange server :-((((</p><p>V.</p><p><br></p>

      • Darekmeridian

        03 February, 2019 - 8:15 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#401521">In reply to Vladimir:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>No not native Exchange Server. But if your ES is also supporting IMAP as a work around. </p>

    • rob_segal

      Premium Member
      04 February, 2019 - 9:11 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#401445">In reply to Darekmeridian:</a></em></blockquote><p>I was excited about Postbox. Looks modern. I like the interface. I wish I could use it, but it doesn't use Google Contacts. I had to import contacts through a CSV file that didn't map easily at all. I stopped using it, even after I bought it.</p>

  • walterwood44

    02 February, 2019 - 7:31 pm

    <p>While I use WIndows 10 Mail for multiple accounts, I have two problems (beside the one Paul mentioned about fonts). </p><p><br></p><p>The first is I can not drag and drop anything if I want to move it. I have to cut and paste which is a PITA. </p><p><br></p><p>The other is that I need some way to sync contacts easily with Google. </p>

    • dontbe evil

      03 February, 2019 - 5:27 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#401449">In reply to walterwood44:</a></em></blockquote><p>ask google to adapt to sync contacts and calendar standars</p>

  • kawaidon

    02 February, 2019 - 8:26 pm

    <p>Thanks for pointing this one out. I really, really am enjoying the improvements on the Windows Mail app, and this is also a huge help for me. And they even thought to put a check box to use it for all accounts!</p><p><br></p><p>I still use Outlook, mainly because the calendar is the best – the inclusion of categorizing colors and actual real time zones when setting appointments are necessary items for me. Plus, once you finish configuring Outlook to behave the way you want, it really is solid and works well. Now, why they can't give us ways to synchronize our Outlook settings between computers is a puzzle to me.</p><p><br></p><p>The Windows calendar isn't bad, and the category colors sort of work there. But the lack of time zones drives me nuts.</p><p><br></p><p>On Android, I display my calendar with Google calendar, but I have to edit it in Outlook. I haven't been able to figure out how to get the Google calendar to synchronize back to my other accounts, so I set appointments and they only show in the Google calendar. I also haven't figured out how to get the Outlook calendar to be the default calendar on the phone – is that possible?</p><p><br></p>

  • dcdevito

    02 February, 2019 - 8:48 pm

    <p>I just made the full-time switch from Inbox to Outlook. I was using Outlook on my Android phone for the last few months for my outlook.com address so I would become adjusted to it. Overall I still like it, but I will say I have run into a bug multiple times: I receive a notification that an email has arrived (either for my outlook.com or gmail address), I tap on the notification, and the message isn't there. Not only that, sometimes is <strong>never</strong> arrives. It just happened to me yesterday,. my client emailed me at 7pm, I saw it, tapped on it, then it went away. I had to drive home to see it. Makes me nuts.</p>

    • stridernz

      04 February, 2019 - 2:40 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#401452">In reply to dcdevito:</a></em></blockquote><p>Turn off conversation view and you will find your missing emails.. ? I had the same thing. Frustrated the hell out of me. </p>

      • dcdevito

        04 February, 2019 - 9:11 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#401663">In reply to StriderNZ:</a></em></blockquote><p>Thank you!</p>

  • techreader

    02 February, 2019 - 8:52 pm

    <p>I use the desktop app for quick stuff and fire up the full Outlook when I have a bunch of stuff to do need to work on my calendar. I disable notifications on full Outlook. Mail received messages even when the app is closed and opens nearly instantaneously, which works well for quick stuff.</p><p><br></p><p>Mail has unified Inbox (though not as well implemented as on other clients) and supports multiform authentication as well as CalDav and has a per-message Archive quick action right next to the Trash icon. It also syncs contacts from non-Exchange accounts. Frustratingly, Outlook on Mac supports most of these as well, which makes Mac Outlook the best version for me. Except I normally use my PC. So I ended up using two apps.</p><p><br></p><p>Another feature which Mail has and full Outlook (PC or Mac) doesn't is mail download limits for non-Exchange accounts. You can tell it to only download a week of your email on basically any mail service.</p><p><br></p><p>I really wish they'd update full Outlook with the Mail features I mentioned above.</p>

  • rogerc

    03 February, 2019 - 4:32 am

    <p>&gt; And it adds a new feature to the Mail app called Default Font</p><p><br></p><p>Alas this is not a solution if you don't want to be "that guy" who doesn't know email etiquette: with this setting you will enforce <em>your</em> bad (or good) eyesight and fantastic (or poor) font-taste on <em>everybody </em>else.</p><p><br></p><p>The solution is:</p><ul><li>Send emails without enforcing a font family or font size (Mail can't do that at all)</li><li>Have an option how the client <em>displays</em> emails on your side (Mail wont be able do that without changing the <em>formatting </em>itself)</li></ul><p><br></p><p>Mail is close to be good (enough) for years, but there are still a few basic features missing. This is one of those showstoppers for me.</p>

  • digiguy

    Premium Member
    03 February, 2019 - 6:12 am

    <p>Hi Paul, first let me tell you, google is adding inbox features to gmail (https://9to5google.com/2019/02/01/google-inbox-features-in-gmail/)</p><p>Second, I have a similar situation to you, I have 6 e-mail accounts, 5 for work (I have different businesses) and a private one. They are all on gmail (including gsuite for business) except the one for the University where I teach which is on outlook web app.</p><p>But the is a difference: since I discovered e-mail tracking I cannot send an email without (email tracking is you knowing when someone opens your email without them knowing, via a hidden picture in the message). Also sheduled emails are sometimes important to me…</p><p>So I separate mail checking from mail sending. As for sending. on desktop (windows and mac) I only use the native web interface with a Chrome extension for tracking and scheduling. On mobile the only app the works like that is Newton (I know it's officially dead but it still works fine, I have heard it was bought by Essential).</p><p>As for receiving, on desktop I mainly use Em Client, which uses imap and has a unified inbox. I have one on each Windows pc. On mobile I use both gmail and the same newton. For devices that are not Windows or mobile (Mac and Windows RT) I have a collector address from outlook.com to which I forward all my messages and therefore I use the full Outlook (multiple accounts does not work for me for lack of unified inbox, unless you use pop, which I only use on one pc with outlook 2007 which I have been using since, well…, 2007</p>

    • Paul Thurrott

      Premium Member
      03 February, 2019 - 8:20 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#401472">In reply to digiguy:</a></em></blockquote><p>Yeah, I did see the news about Inbox features in Gmail, and the recent UX change announcement is of interest. You never know, I guess. But Gmail today is just terrible on the web.</p>

      • digiguy

        Premium Member
        03 February, 2019 - 10:49 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#401474">In reply to paul-thurrott:</a></em></blockquote><p>Just out of curiosity, do you use the basic layout or some theme in gmail? Gmail used to be much better before the terrible restyling they did back in 2011 or 2012 (can't remember exactly). I remember being part of those protesting against the terrible visual changes, and we even managed to obtain an hangout with google engineers to discuss our requests. They did little however. I remember using some "userstyles" scripts for year to get gmail to how it was before. But even using just some themes improves things quite a bit…(I use the blue one). Using gmail as it is, without even a theme, is horrible, I don't know how people can…</p><p>Having said that I don't know if your issues go beyond just visual ones…</p>

        • Paul Thurrott

          Premium Member
          03 February, 2019 - 2:33 pm

          <blockquote><em><a href="#401478">In reply to digiguy:</a></em></blockquote><p>Yeah, I've done everything I can to remove the visual complexity in Gmail. You can't make it look (or work) like Inbox.</p>

    • siv

      03 February, 2019 - 5:07 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#401472">In reply to digiguy:</a></em></blockquote><p>Are you sure the image thing works as most email clients don't download images by default?</p><p>I also have my email set to never respond to return receipts?</p>

  • jchampeau

    Premium Member
    03 February, 2019 - 10:56 am

    <p>For years, I worked through similar issues and yearned for a simple solution that gave me just what I wanted with no annoying shortcomings or compromises. I'm lucky enough to work for myself and I made the decision in late 2016 to stop looking for software/app solutions that work with multiple accounts and switched to just using a single account for both work and personal mail, calendar, and contacts. Obviously this won't work for everyone as some workplace policies prohibit using work resources for personal use, but for me it has been freeing. I settled on Office 365 Commercial and it's fantastic. I do have my old live.com mail forwarding to my work account and I have a rule in Outlook that flags mail sent to my live.com address so I know to go update or unsubscribe.</p>

    • wright_is

      Premium Member
      04 February, 2019 - 5:20 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#401480">In reply to jchampeau:</a></em></blockquote><p>Yes, we have a policy of no private email on company equipment and no company email on private equipment – so that means 2 smartphones!</p><p>I use Outlook 365 on my home PC and we have Microsoft 365 at work, so Outlook 365 at work as well. I also have Outlook for Android on both my smartphones.</p>

  • Daekar

    03 February, 2019 - 1:14 pm

    <p>I am cracking up that the solution to your problem is the mail client I would be least likely to use, ever. I would probably install Thunderbird first. </p>

    • Paul Thurrott

      Premium Member
      03 February, 2019 - 2:30 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#401494">In reply to Daekar:</a></em></blockquote><p>OK. But Thunderbird is terrible. </p>

      • Vladimir Carli

        Premium Member
        03 February, 2019 - 3:10 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#401508">In reply to paul-thurrott:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>why do you think it's so terrible? I don't like it very much but so far I could not find any better…</p><p>V.</p>

        • Cavorter

          Premium Member
          03 February, 2019 - 10:00 pm

          <blockquote><em><a href="#401522">In reply to Vladimir:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>I don't know about Paul's reasons, but I've just been working with someone in my household who finally transitioned off of Windows Live Mail (don't ask) and we tried Thunderbird first and had plenty of problems:</p><ul><li>Randomly forgot the account password</li><li>would consistently ignore several server imap folders that other clients sync just fine</li><li>Really badly organized settings</li></ul><p><br></p><p>I really wanted it to work for this person, but it just didn't.</p><p><br></p><p>I noticed in the comment on the last Ask Paul that someone was recomending eM Client (https://www.emclient.com/) and we installed that Friday night and it's been fantastic so far.</p>

          • wright_is

            Premium Member
            04 February, 2019 - 5:18 am

            <blockquote><em><a href="#401605">In reply to Cavorter:</a></em></blockquote><p>It just feels old and unloved. But it has recently got a funding injection, so it is one to keep an eye on.</p><p>I'll stick with Outlook 365 for now.</p>

      • Daekar

        03 February, 2019 - 6:00 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#401508">In reply to paul-thurrott:</a></em></blockquote><p>Exactly. </p>

  • Bats

    03 February, 2019 - 1:46 pm

    <p>I, for one, am not very happy that Inbox is going away. I've been using the app, up until the moment it's retirement was announced. The killer feature that I need for email is the ability to bulk/mass delete them. Gmail on the web has and always had that fiunctionaly for years, as well as the mobile app. Then, one day, that feature was gone on the mobile side. Enter…Inbox, which didn't exactly have mass delete in the usual sense, but nonetheless it did have the ability to delete multiple files in one shot. The problem with Inbox was that it was missing some great features included in Gmail.</p><p><br></p><p>Well, I too started looking for a replacement app and Outlook Mobile appeared to be it. Afterall, why not? I've been using Outlook Desktop for work for the past years and I know how to use it very well. However, when your "stuff" is so tied into the Google ecosystem, using a third party to access and maintain it becomes a hassle. Soooooo…..I came to the conclusion, to just stick with Gmail Mobile.</p><p><br></p><p>The reason why I decided to stick with it, is the for the same one that I have stating for such a long time. That is the Google ecosystem is just so powerful and vast. In a way, Gmail is my personal hub of information, both on the desktop and mobile. It's "tie-in" with Calendar, Keep, Tasks, Contacts, Chat………………if I were to move to Outlook, I would lose all that. Look, I am not going configure Outlook to Google Calendar (or whatever), then I would lose the connection to Keep. I need Google Keep, because I can attach Gmails to it and set reminders, which I can also do with Tasks, which is connected to Google Home Hub (or mini). Google Keep is really really good. In "Microsoftese" it's like Office Lens with OCR functionality. LOL….then there is Google's Contacts which works so well with Gmail. My Email Groups, which in Outlookese means "Distribution List" ….how would I get that to work? I'm sure there is a whole lot more. Overall, going non-Google is just too much work.</p><p><br></p><p>However, from what I have been reading there is a solution on it's way from Google. Basically rumor has it, that Google is testing a number of Inbox's features to Gmail. It's currently being tested. Hopefully among those features will be the ability to mass delete. I hope this is true. However in the meantime,…I just going to adapt.</p>

  • linear2202

    Premium Member
    04 February, 2019 - 12:36 am
  • irfaanwahid

    04 February, 2019 - 12:49 am

    <p>I am curious Paul, can you please elaborate why you hate Outlook on desktop so much?</p><p><br></p><p>I have been using Outlook on desktop since I guess 2007 for Work and personally it is my go-to email client on desktops.</p><p><br></p><p>I use Outlook Mobile on my smartphones, which is not terrible either. </p><p><br></p><p>Please elaborate why you dislike Outlook Desktop.</p>

    • rgelb

      04 February, 2019 - 3:22 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#401641">In reply to irfaanwahid:</a></em></blockquote><p>It's heavy. Takes a while to start once you have lots of mail and calendar entries. Windows Mail app is visibly faster.</p>

      • dontbe evil

        04 February, 2019 - 5:36 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#401664">In reply to rgelb:</a></em></blockquote><p>if you need a professional mail client with a lot of features outlook is fine… if you need just a mail client for personal use in that case you can find outlook heavy</p>

      • wright_is

        Premium Member
        04 February, 2019 - 8:39 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#401664">In reply to rgelb:</a></em></blockquote><p>7 – 8 seconds once a month doesn't bother me. Even if I started my PC daily, those few seconds don't really make much difference.</p>

        • irfaanwahid

          06 February, 2019 - 12:50 am

          <blockquote><em><a href="#401695">In reply to wright_is:</a></em></blockquote><p>I totally agree. </p>

      • Stooks

        04 February, 2019 - 11:10 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#401664">In reply to rgelb:</a></em></blockquote><p>Takes a while to start?</p><p><br></p><p>Put a SSD in that computer….they are cheap these days.</p>

      • irfaanwahid

        06 February, 2019 - 12:51 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#401664">In reply to rgelb:</a></em></blockquote><p>I don't see a problem with those few second delays.</p><p>Besides, on my SP4 it's less than 4sec. </p>

  • BigM72

    04 February, 2019 - 4:23 am

    <p>Paul, I believe there was a recent tease that work is taking place on Outlook.com to make it into an email client web app.</p><p>By this I mean, it will no longer be a front-end for just a particular outlook.com email account but you will be able to use it to pull in different email accounts into a single interface. So like a simplified version of Outlook but web app instead of native.</p><p><br></p><p>I understand Outlook.com has a "connected accounts" feature today but this is not what I mean.</p>

    • wright_is

      Premium Member
      04 February, 2019 - 5:16 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#401666">In reply to BigM72:</a></em></blockquote><p>No, thank you.</p><p>The only way this could be worse, would be if Google or Facepalm were doing it.</p>

      • ejuly

        04 February, 2019 - 4:52 pm

        <blockquote><em>Huh , I don't get your reply. It is just a crack at those two companies, if so why not add Apple?<a href="#401667">In reply to wright_is:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p>

        • wright_is

          Premium Member
          05 February, 2019 - 1:01 am

          <blockquote><em><a href="#401872">In reply to ejuly:</a></em></blockquote><p>Because the two biggest advertising platforms are there to gobble up all and any information they can get their hands on.</p><p>The privacy problems with a website collating email from multiple sources should be obvious.</p>

  • rm

    04 February, 2019 - 7:52 am

    <p>I think with The Outlook Desktop you need to configure the Quick Access Toolbar and the ribbon to only have what you will use and it will make it much easier to use. Also, configure Archives and rules for incoming email.</p>

  • elessar25

    04 February, 2019 - 9:17 am

    <p>What about the calendar portion on desktop? Will you continue using Google calendar via Chrome wrapper?</p>

  • AnOldAmigaUser

    Premium Member
    04 February, 2019 - 10:20 am

    <p>Since <em>Mail and Calendar </em>is a separate app, what prevents Microsoft from releasing this version for 1803 or 1809? Since this has been "a top customer request", one would think they would want to get the feature out to as many users as possible, as soon as possible.</p>

  • RickEveleigh

    Premium Member
    04 February, 2019 - 10:24 am

    <p>Genuinely curious — what is it about Outlook that makes you want to rip your fingernails out? I love it — have work and personal accounts attached with Inbox, Sent Items &amp; Deleted Items for each pinned to Favourites. My wife, who really isn't into tech, uses it with 4 different accounts, no problem.</p>

    • KevinCust

      Premium Member
      05 February, 2019 - 4:26 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#401728">In reply to RickEveleigh:</a></em></blockquote><p>I'm curious too. Such things are subjective/personal, everyone is different or it would be a boring world. I'm guessing a bad experience back in the day and just can't stand to use it again. I have at least 7 work and personal accounts attached and has worked great for my requirements over the last few years. My wife (who is also not techie) has 3 and is also fine with it and understands the workflow fine.</p>

  • woodchuck

    04 February, 2019 - 10:27 am

    <p>I really don't understand why Outlook on Android is so popular. While a lot of it has improved, if you have to use pinch to zoom to read small text its performance is still woeful. It lacks any ability to retain focus of the zoom between the fingers. I've installed and quickly uninstalled again on several different phones. Nine on the other hand seems to get everything right </p>

  • Stooks

    04 February, 2019 - 11:09 am

    <p>"<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Microsoft Outlook, the massive, overbearing, and too-complex desktop application"</span></p><p><br></p><p>Compared to your ludicrous email setup Outlook is easy to use. You can make things more difficult than they need to be.</p><p><br></p><p>Millions upon millions of us in the business world have been living in Outlook for decades now. It is a great tool that is very familiar to many. </p><p><br></p><p>I too have multiple accounts and they forward to my Outlook.com account. I do not care to reply from those accounts. If I do, I will go into those accounts (I forward but save a copy) and reply from them….which is extremely rare. </p><p><br></p><p>For anything I care about, it is using my outlook.com account so I miss nothing important. Last year I stopped forwarding my gmail account because everything from it was trash. It is a great throw away mailbox though when I do not want to give away my primary email address.</p>

  • ebnador

    Premium Member
    04 February, 2019 - 12:42 pm

    <p>Don't move your calendar to outlook.com. I have all kinds of problems keeping my calendar synced between the desktop and my iPhone. I end up with double entries for events, birthdays that move days for no reason, events are sometimes entered on the desktop app don't show up on the iPhone for days.</p><p>I'm looking in to moving to gmail for my calendar.</p>

  • ebraiter

    04 February, 2019 - 3:01 pm

    <p>I have no issues with Outlook. Been using it for 22 years now including at home. 2019 at home, 2016 at work.</p><p>I don't really care for MS Mail because unsure what can import or export from it in case Microsoft changes programs – and they will.</p><p>Importing from the old Windows Mail or even Outlook Express is a mess if you want to use another "fat" client. PST files is what I like.</p><p>Never had corruption issues or lost any email.</p><p>Couldn't get into Outlook on Android. First tried Gmail on android but it sucked the big ones. Surprisingly, Samsung's mail app is quite good.</p><p>Some minor tweaking is what's needed on first use. Don't find it slow or anything.</p><p>Only major part I don't use is tasks.</p><p>Depending on what they decide to do with the expected interface upgrade, Thunderbird could be an alternative.</p>

    • Rob_Wade

      04 February, 2019 - 5:17 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#401852">In reply to ebraiter:</a></em></blockquote><p>I hate the full Outlook program. Always have. I used it for years until Windows 8 came out and gave me a Mail app I could actually enjoy using. It frustrates me that I have to put up with Outlook at work.</p>

      • minke

        04 February, 2019 - 7:12 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#401882">In reply to Rob_Wade:</a></em></blockquote><p>I agree. I have been using Outlook since it became available, through all of its iterations, and I have never liked it. But, it is the default for most businesses and I just installed the latest version of Office 365 at work so I am back in it every day. I still find it less than intuitive and often requires some thought when doing something that should be easy. Try to set up filtering options that do what you want them to do, for example. Gmail's labels are so much more powerful and easy to use, and with Gmail search you don't need many of them. I pretty much just archive everything once I don't need it in my Inbox and use search to find things much more rapidly than searching through endless folders. Outlook search isn't half as good.</p>

  • Michael

    Premium Member
    04 February, 2019 - 3:37 pm

    <p>I have many email accounts with different aliases. My quesiton is if there is a mobile app that would let me SEND utilizing different aliases for one particular email account. Another words, to be able to send from for example [email protected] and [email protected] from the same account as necessary. Something tells me this is the holy grail of email.</p>

    • ejuly

      04 February, 2019 - 4:50 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#401857">In reply to Michael:</a></em></blockquote><p>I have done this with Outlook and Outlook mobile. I have four different email accounts and two others I have send on behalf of permission. I can get an email in one account and send/forward from another at least once a day. </p>

  • jlmerrill

    04 February, 2019 - 3:58 pm

    <p>On the premium comment side, someone mentioned PostBox. After going through the setup it looks very much like a slightly fancier version of Thunderbird. Thunderbird is free.</p>

  • awilisch

    04 February, 2019 - 4:58 pm

    <p>I've been looking for an alternative as well. Unfortunately my company thinks the Outlook mobile client phones home or is insecure or something so they not only say I can't use it for my work account, which interestingly is Exchange, but mobile policies will not let me add my corporate accounts to my phone even if Outlook mobile is installed on my phone. </p><p><br></p><p>I've removed it for the moment, but I'm toying with removing corporate email from my device instead. Even so, not sure if other companies out there have an aversion to the outlook mobile client. Other than it making quite a few of my emails show up in molecular font I like it. </p>

    • William Clark

      04 February, 2019 - 11:25 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#401880">In reply to awilisch:</a></em></blockquote><blockquote><em>Many companies used to have issues with Outlook. At one time it had to do with being able to remotely manage the email, e.g. in case the phone was stolen. Some companies made you use a different email client they could manage remotely. At some point you had the ability to wipe a phone remotely, in the event of theft, so they began to allow access to corporate email. Now many major companies are going to O365 and they seem to have less issue with the remote client. </em></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote><em>I use Outlook for work and personal email. It works for me, I don't really see what Paul's complaints are.</em></blockquote><p><br></p>

  • Rob_Wade

    04 February, 2019 - 5:15 pm

    <p>I don't understand what the beef is with the Windows 10 Mail and Calendar app. I have absolutely no issues with either. I have other accounts that I configured as folders going TO my Outlook.com account, so everything shows up in my one account. Works great on my PC and my Surface Pro. The Mail and Calendar apps work seamlessly on my Lumia, too. And, even with this stupid piece of garbage Android device I'm testing out, the Outlook app there has had no issues giving me the same kind of support (although it LOOKS horrible by comparison and it's just beyond STUPID that there isn't a separate Calendar app). What's the problem?</p>

    • generalprotectionfault

      05 February, 2019 - 8:04 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#401881">In reply to Rob_Wade:</a></em></blockquote><p>Mail is horrifically simplistic. It looks and feels like a mobile app because that's what it is. It makes Outlook Express look like a Swiss Army Knife. That Microsoft actually promotes this app by pinning it to the taskbar baffles me. It couldn't be a worse advertisement for UWP.</p>

  • minke

    04 February, 2019 - 7:07 pm

    <p>I'm not a fan of either desktop email clients, Windows 10 Mail, or Outlook, but to each his own. However, I think a greater simplification in your life would be to consider not worrying about replying to each email using the domain address it was sent to. Why not just reply using a favored email address that you want as your main one? I guess there is the argument that you may not want to share that address widely, but you could always keep a "secret" address you only use for private contacts. Another option is just to utilize a separate email app or desktop client for each major type of email. I do that for work and personal email, utilizing the Gmail app and the Outlook app. I have tried getting multiple email streams delivered to a single app and it is just too confusing. Inevitably, I answer using the wrong address and cause greater confusion. For example, if a personal friend sends an email to your work email you probably don't want to answer using that address. It is better to respond using your personal address. When I get confused about how all the addresses tie together I map it out on paper and it is much easier to grasp, and can help me decide how to improve the flow.</p>

    • minke

      04 February, 2019 - 7:25 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#401893">In reply to Minke:</a></em></blockquote><p>I should have said that depending on your domain service provider it can be very easy to set up your various email addresses there and have them forward directly to whatever address you want them to without having first passed through some email client and its spam filters etc. </p>

  • htbrucem

    05 February, 2019 - 12:28 pm

    <p>For me a key problem with Win 10's built-in Mail, Contacts, People and Calendar apps is their infernal battery drain. After nearly every startup, the services associated with those apps consume 50% CPU for an hour or more. Very repeatable across several systems. I was alerted to it initially by the CPU fan reving up while the system sits IDLE. Maybe something funky with user accounts gets this going… who knows. It also doesn't seem to be on MS's radar – it's been happening to me for well over a year and I've seen complaints over that period too. To me, this behavior is the result of poorly designed cloud synchronization software. You can see it in Task Manager Processes:</p><p>Service Host: Unistack Service Group (4) (expand this to expose the 4 items below)</p><p> User Data Access_nnnn</p><p> User Data Storage_nnnn</p><p> Contact Data_nnnn</p><p> Sync Host_nnnn</p><p>I finally decided to uninstall the associated Win10 built-in apps and the only way to do that is using PowerShell method. Fixes the issue.</p><p><br></p><p>If they ever fix this I would consider using the built-in apps, but meanwhile it's a non-starter for me. I'm using the Google apps (Gmail, Contacts, Mail, Calendar) on the smartphones and web-based Google equivalents for the time being, despite the privacy concerns.</p>

  • colmob

    Premium Member
    07 February, 2019 - 12:56 am

    <p>Hi Paul, have you tried the new simplified view in Outlook? It's in the monthly channel/ring (can't remember the ever-changing terminology) Converging on Outlook.com in a good way, the only thing missing so far is unified inbox, which I would really like also.</p>

  • edboyhan

    07 February, 2019 - 6:33 pm

    <p>I have some email issues, but they're different than yours. I toggle between the "free" W10 email client, and the outlook.com web client. I like some of the features of outllok.com, but (at least in MS Edge) the lags are annoying. The W10 mail client is very responsive, and I like the way it presents all the folders when you want to move an email (as opposed to the last &lt;n&gt; folders in outlook.com). Outlook.com shows you what folder an email is in in search results (very helpful when an email gets misfiled). I use the Outlook app on my Moto X4, and it's fine, but it's UI (and the UI on W10 and outlook.com) are all different — that's very annoying. I wish they all had the identical UI, and feature sets.</p><p>I don't see why they don't just write a single PWA app to span all 3 environments. In speaking to MS at the last Ignite, they indicated that they weren't going to do an email PWA (boo), but they are trying to harmonize features and UI (it'll never happen as long as there are 3 different dev groups).</p><p>I agree that the Outlook desktop client is just too heavy and ponderous (especially for me as I file just about everything in many many folders).</p>

  • grammersolutions

    04 July, 2019 - 4:35 pm

    <p><a href="That Microsoft actually promotes this app by pinning it to the taskbar baffles me" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">That Microsoft actually promotes this app by pinning it to the taskbar baffles me.</a><a href="That Microsoft actually promotes this app by pinning it to the taskbar baffles me" target="_blank"> </a></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><img src=""></p>

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