I was a die-hard Outlook Express / Outlook user from 1999 onwards. While everyone else was content to use web-based email solutions, I prided myself on figuring out the settings and tweaking Outlook to my liking. I forget when I made the switch from Outlook Express to Outlook, but I think it was somewhere around 2007, when I upgraded to Windows Vista and Office 2007, and found that I liked Outlook better than its more lightweight little brother, Outlook Express (Outlook Express is essentially Outlook stripped of everything but email functionality – but it came with the added functionality of newsgroups – thanks to Patrick for pointing that out. Go figure?).
Keeping all of my data synced between multiple installations of Outlook was a pain, but manageable thanks to a few syncing programs I had found and that worked 99% of the time (occasionally there would be issues with email duplication, but I was able to take care of that issue with a third party duplicate email detection program).
Then I purchased a Macbook, and all of a sudden I was screwed, because there were no third party programs or other workarounds to sync two Microsoft Outlook data files from two different operating systems. So I finally threw in the towel and did what I had been contemplating for several months – I switched all of my email to Gmail.
It really wasn’t that bad. I set up my domains so that all of my blah@domain.com emails forward to x@jenn.nu (my primary email), and then I added that and my work email address to my Gmail account, and set up filters to label and help with email management.
Ultimately, I’m really glad that I switched to Gmail, because I can manage my email from anywhere, with any device, without any troublesome syncing. Gmail is very easy to use, and Google is very good at making things straightforward and super-easy to figure out. Thanks Google. I used to hate you, but I’ve come to love you. ;)
I love my Gmail. I has a .mac account for a long time and just couldn’t afford it last year so I don’t have it anymore, which means my gmail is my primary now. (Also means I have like 1000 business cards with an invalid email address… >_< )
I'd like my .mac back but I'd probably tie it into gmail
I love google. I have most of my emails there and the google calendar is amazing too!!
Danielle’s last blog entry: Dear body get better
I hate to pick a fight, but Outlook Express was not Outlook stripped of everything but email. Outlook Express could do newsgroups, which Outlook TO THIS DAY still can’t do. So give Outlook Express its propers. It was good at what it did.
So there.
Patrick D.’s last blog entry: Let’s Just Throw This Out There…
I stand corrected. It’s been so long that I had forgotten about Outlook Express’s newsgroup feature! Thanks for pointing that out.
I’ve been using Outlook for a few years to manage my horde of e-mail accounts. I switched to it from Thunderbird as I had Office installed and didn’t feel like installing yet another program when I upgraded to Windows 7.
Recently I switched over to Gmail as well after I logged into one of my accounts to clear the archives and saw that while my e-mails displayed normally in Outlook that when it came to gmails view that all my messages had weird formatting and spaces. Quite embarrassing when you’re trying to do business work.
I have to say, switching over has been quite convenient for me and I’m not sure why I didn’t do it sooner!
Dez’s last blog entry: 24 Weeks
Do you use Google Apps, or just a regular Google account?
I love having my Google Apps account, forwarding all my emails to the one address to manage them all, makes life much, much easier than using something like Thunderbird or Outlook. Plus the advantage to accessing it anywhere, including on my mobile.
Bob Brown’s last blog entry: Pregnant
I desperately want to switch from Outlook to Gmail but am worried about email getting and every time I go to the import emails thingy in Google, I get confused.
Do you find that you still get all of the emails forwarded from your domains quickly? It would be so nice to be able to have email on any device instead of just the desktop!