Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
Last year, I wrote a controversial article about my opinion on the Gmail Android app, backed up by everything I had discovered that the Gmail app can’t do that other Android email apps can. While I was writing that Gmail opinion article, I was bouncing between a few different alternative apps, including my usual go-to, Blue Mail, and a terrific open-source app called FairEmail.
Ultimately, though, I settled on the Microsoft Outlook app for Android. I have since uninstalled all other email apps on my Google Pixel 9 Pro and gone all-in on Outlook — and I couldn’t be happier about it.
Over the past five months of using nothing but Outlook (I also use the new version of Outlook on my Windows laptop), I’ve realized that it unfairly gets a bad rap. This prejudice might be because Outlook has historically been associated with business use, and its clunky, woefully outdated legacy Windows app is the very opposite of appealing. But Outlook has changed quite gracefully with the times, and it’s a shame more people haven’t noticed.
Regardless, many people are so addicted to the Gmail app — both on mobile and the web — that I bet they’ve never even tried the newer versions of Outlook. In my opinion, you’re doing yourself a disservice if you’re taking Gmail at face value. You might not be swayed by what this random stranger on the internet has to say, but I’m still going to try to talk to you about why you should put a pause on using Gmail on Android and start using Outlook as your Gmail client instead.
You can’t imagine everything Outlook can do that Gmail cannot
C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
Obviously, every email app under the sun can send/receive email, allow you to append a custom signature, format text, organize mail into folders, etc. These are all fundamental, so whether you go Gmail or Outlook for your Google email client, you will find these features.
However, Outlook really shines in helping you manage many emails from multiple accounts. This is where Gmail tends to fall flat. Outlook also offers a few quality-of-life improvements that Gmail doesn’t.
Outlook does what Gmail cannot, including defaulting to 'All Accounts,' offering a 'Mark as Read' button in notifications, and pausing notifications on a per-account basis.
... continue reading