Does anyone regularly use both Outlook and gmail?

[LindorDoubleChoc]

I have gmail at home and also used it for 11 years in my last job.

Six months ago I moved to a new job where they use Outlook and I still can't get my head around it. The search function is useless. If you've replied to someone you have to open the original email and click "view conversation" to see your reply. I created a folder in Outlook yesterday to move some important stuff I wanted to keep - today that folder has disappeared!

Outlook! Grrr! What is it good for?

Lack of knowledge isn’t anything to be embarrassed about but blaming your tools when it is a user problem is. You need to acknowledge that the issue is your lack of knowledge, and then find a way to address it.

I’ve five different email addresses spread across personal, joint personal, and three voluntary roles (I’m retired), using Outlook, Gmail and iCloud, all delivering to the one Inbox. I really can’t see any issue.

Do you not have a limit of the holding in your work email account? Surely anything of substance should be saved in Sharepoint or similar?

I find it very hard to believe anyone prefers Google sheets to excel 😵

Outlook search is a bit rubbish but I much prefer it to Gmail

Most people in my office use their emails in the same way, we don't have any limit on the number we're allowed to keep. No job I've ever had has done that, is it unusual?

We used to have this 10+ years ago in the early days of outlook and the cloud. Limited to 2Gb inbox. Once you got full you had to backup and delete anything over a certain age. Absolute pain. These days storage is effectively unlimited. Surprised also it’s still a thing at some places of work.

Not really. I mean, there are guidelines/best practice etc but nothing happens if you have loads of emails. SharePoint is strictly audited. Everyone does hate SharePoint.

So if you search for slippers on Outlook, are you saying that you wouldn't find any emails with slippers?

Clearly you do. As you can’t seem to use the search function. Which I’ve explained to you.

You’re making it unnecessarily complicated.

You can indeed search for terms in Outlook just as you describe, but if you’ve a lot of emails, you’ll get a lot of results. That’s why you use AS. Which Gmail also has.

Any tool you use for work will have a lot more emails than the one you use personally.

It’s fine to prefer one tool over another. I use both & prefer Outlook.

It’s true that lack of knowledge isn’t anything to be embarrassed about. But you aren’t saying that’s the issue, you specifically blamed Outlook. 🤷🏻‍♀️

It’s not Outlook, it’s you & there’s plenty of ways to rectify your knowledge gap.

I’m with you. Used Gmail since you had to have an invite to get an account (c.2001/2002). Work used Gmail for a while and then moved over to Outlook. That was a dark day! Still use Gmail personally, and at the charity I am involved it.

Also don’t understand the hate for Google Workspace apps (Docs / Sheets / Slides). They might not be as fully featured as their MS equivalents, but their collaborative editing / working features are so much better!

Gemini notebooks are a great way to use Google’s AI - load all your sources and then question them.

You can absolutely collaborate within Office products, very easily. I can’t imagine why you think it’s not possible. In fact, multiple users working on one document or spreadsheet is much better in Office than Google where it’s easier to corrupt a file.

Gmail launched as invite only in 2004 & ceased the invite requirement in 2007.

I stand corrected. Make that 2004/2005 then…

Certainly in the civil service, you definitely had a limit on the amount of data you were holding, and it was standard practice that anything containing a decision or similar was stored in a shared place - it wasn’t your info, it should have been accessible to all, or under a level of restricted access if sensitive.
Just what would happen if someone had to assume your role after an emergency and no information was available?

I'm not a civil servant and haven't ever worked somewhere so regimented but I actually did once do a temp job where someone was unexpectedly unable to work for a significant period of time.

The IT department just reset the password on the person's email account and the systems I needed to give me access. Isn't that what would happen anywhere?

Why do you consider the CS regimented. Why not of displaying good practice?

Fundamentally, you are just an agent for the information your are handling, and it belongs to your organisation. I don’t see how that could be argued with.

Additionally, I’m no sure there are some lines being crossed by just resetting someone’s password and allowing another access!

Microsoft products are crapissimo but they have market dominance in the public sector sadly.

I've recently moved to a Google classroom school. So refreshing! I did notice Gmail has added Outlook's delayed send function so we can only pray that Outlook will eventually add tags (I have a second job that uses Outlook).

Same, I just delete all the junk and use search whenever I need to find anything, haven't bothered with folders for years. Mine isn't saved into conversations it's all separate. But I have been using Outlook for as long as I can remember so it is second nature.

I have gmail set to separate too, IIRC the default was keeping threads together but I can't work like that.

@JeatherLacket is correct. If someone left standard practice is for IT to extract their emails (and files if necessary) and make it available to their manager /succesor. Work email is entirely the property of your employer. You shouldn’t be doing anything personal on there. GDPR isn’t an issue as the emails remain within the business. I work for an arms length government entity, so one step away for CS, and this is what we do. I’ve been the manager in this situation on several occasions. BTW your Teams messages fall under the same category, and are fully visible to IT, and fully retrievable. So be careful what you write in there.

Same

Each their pros and cons but I have used both forever

One thing bugs the f#£k out of me in Gmail is not being able to sort by sender.

That's what I used it have but hotmail has gone AWOL from my iPad but still comes in to my phone. I have no shame in admitting I am not great at technology at all and would be greatful for help. What I usually do to fix this isn't working. They are saying they can't connect me. It's hard to fix something when you don't know why it has gone wrong in the first place.

Web Outlook is a bit basic, but the Outlook client (i.e. as part of MS Office) is the gold standard. You can do anything with it that an email user would want to do.

Gmail, Google docs etc are terrible. Really terrible. I’ve never understood why people even bother with them. If you want free email basic Outlook is better and for word processing, spreadsheets, slide displays etc, Libre Office is twenty times better than any of the shite that Google offers.

To turn off the conversation grouping in outlook go to the settings (gear icon top right of screen and go to 'message list'. Go to 'message organisation' and turn on 'go not group messages'. Have a look through all the features in 'Settings' and get a bit more familiar with how it all works.

Likewise with gmail.