3 ms·

I’ve always used Mail.app with almost no issues, what makes Gmails web app superior?

riobard 9y ago
Search.
0xCMP 9y ago
Mail.app works fine, but doesn't provide the underlying service and quality Gmail does. It's just a client (which I guess is the current topic). I'd say the Mail.app is better than Gmail because of it's design and UX, but it often freaks out on "large" actions like bulk deletes or moves. Gmail the app only reads what it needs, allows easily selecting many emails (>50 at a time), and filtering. You can obviously search, filter, and do bulk actions in Mail.app too, but I find the versions in Gmail to be way better because they're either faster or more reliable. Mail.app also doesn't totally understand Gmail's tags and that an email appears in multiple folders. I'm always afraid of moving emails around in Mail.app.
awalton 9y ago
1) I'm not always on a Mac. In fact, I'm most frequently not on a Mac. And even on my Mac laptop, I spend my day in Linux VMs and interact with few pieces of Apple-native software. An email client I use must be portable, and web software is preferred since, well, nobody wants to write Linux client software anymore (or if they do, it's just an Electron app, which at that point I'm better off using a web version anyway). 2) Filtering and categories are still unparalleled, a decade on. Nobody's even come close to the power of Gmail's tagging and filtering. (Seriously, if you want to see just how bad the competition is, fire up Outlook Web Access and try to create some, even really basic, filters. You'll commonly end up with multiple copies of emails or broken read-state tracking, broken threading, etc. I'm forced to use OWA at work and it's excruciating to the point where I simply don't use their filters at all and deal with Inbox Hell by searching alone.) 3) Searching. Gmail's search engine doesn't seem to have suffered as badly as Google's main search has over the years, and as so it still remains incredibly powerful for "power users" like myself. By comparison, OWA's searching feels like something a CS student would implement in class to check a box on a requirement list.
- y_molodtsov 9y ago
  The first item makes your point clear. But personally I don't understand why people would use web Gmail over something like Airmail, Spark, etc — modern clients with advanced features and search. And you can still set up filters in the web version if you need any additional.
  - baumandm 9y ago
    I got excited and googled the email clients you mentioned...and then learned they are Mac/iPhone/iPad only. And that's why I'm on Gmail.

Search.

Mail.app works fine, but doesn't provide the underlying service and quality Gmail does. It's just a client (which I guess is the current topic). I'd say the Mail.app is better than Gmail because of it's design and UX, but it often freaks out on "large" actions like bulk deletes or moves. Gmail the app only reads what it needs, allows easily selecting many emails (>50 at a time), and filtering. You can obviously search, filter, and do bulk actions in Mail.app too, but I find the versions in Gmail to be way better because they're either faster or more reliable. Mail.app also doesn't totally understand Gmail's tags and that an email appears in multiple folders. I'm always afraid of moving emails around in Mail.app.

awalton 9y ago

1) I'm not always on a Mac. In fact, I'm most frequently not on a Mac. And even on my Mac laptop, I spend my day in Linux VMs and interact with few pieces of Apple-native software. An email client I use must be portable, and web software is preferred since, well, nobody wants to write Linux client software anymore (or if they do, it's just an Electron app, which at that point I'm better off using a web version anyway). 2) Filtering and categories are still unparalleled, a decade on. Nobody's even come close to the power of Gmail's tagging and filtering. (Seriously, if you want to see just how bad the competition is, fire up Outlook Web Access and try to create some, even really basic, filters. You'll commonly end up with multiple copies of emails or broken read-state tracking, broken threading, etc. I'm forced to use OWA at work and it's excruciating to the point where I simply don't use their filters at all and deal with Inbox Hell by searching alone.) 3) Searching. Gmail's search engine doesn't seem to have suffered as badly as Google's main search has over the years, and as so it still remains incredibly powerful for "power users" like myself. By comparison, OWA's searching feels like something a CS student would implement in class to check a box on a requirement list.

y_molodtsov 9y ago
The first item makes your point clear. But personally I don't understand why people would use web Gmail over something like Airmail, Spark, etc — modern clients with advanced features and search. And you can still set up filters in the web version if you need any additional.
- baumandm 9y ago
  I got excited and googled the email clients you mentioned...and then learned they are Mac/iPhone/iPad only. And that's why I'm on Gmail.