Gmail

I came from an Exchange server to Gmail when forced upon me by a new company. At first I wasn't a fan, and after a decade I find it still has its shortcomings, but overall it's still the best service I've used. The spam filters are second to none which is the #1 reason I rate this far and above other email providers.

Surprisingly, Gmail doesn't scale very well. Gmail's "labels" paradigm is similar but different than the folders you'd find in an exchange server, or even a generic IMAP server. Still, they've done an OK job mimicking the IMAP folder setup, although their implementation is woefully slow when using a desktop or mobile client. The native web client, while clunky, is by far the fastest and most efficient way to access a massive mailbox of hundreds of thousands of messages and thousands of labels. My #1 complaint about gmail (for Business) is that it's simply too slow once your mailbox gets too big if you depend on a desktop mail client as I do.

Gmail's search function is what keeps me coming back. Outlook's search function is terrible. I love that I can also have multiple Gmail email addresses and have the email forwarded from them to the main one I use. This is helpful when subcontracting and I get assigned a company email. I have a subcontractor Outlook account that is a pain to use. I also use the labels and email filters which are super helpful. I can't stand that Outlook puts emails in a different subfolder b/c I forget to check it and miss emails. But Gmail keeps it in the inbox and applies the label to it. Gmail also has a free scheduling tool called Koalendar that is just like Calendly but better.

I don't like the ads for personal gmail or the privacy concerns. For business gmail, I don't have any ads and that's helpful. It doesn't integrate with Google meeting as well as I'd like (and Google Meeting isn't that great). I no longer use the chat function, but I used to about 10 years ago.