if you recently stopped using gmail or ms outlook and miss some of the features and layout of your familiar email app, there are a few things you can do to make gmail look more like outlook (or make outlook look more like outlook). more to gmail). ). The interfaces of these two popular email programs are very different, but there are many ways to modify them to make them look and work in a way that works for you.
make gmail look like outlook
If you’ve switched from Microsoft Outlook to Gmail, or if you use Outlook at work and want Gmail for your personal email to look and work more like Outlook, there are several settings you can apply to make Gmail look more like Outlook. . every time you make a change, don’t forget to click “save changes”!
disable threads
gmail’s default is to “thread” conversations by topic. however, this can get confusing because if the thread is long and people are jumping in and out of the conversation, it can be hard to see what’s going on. Also, messages are chained with the oldest ones at the top, instead of the newest ones, just the opposite of the outlook experience, where new messages appear before the oldest ones.
To turn off the email thread in gmail, click the gear icon on the top right to see the quick settings, scroll to the bottom and uncheck “conversation view”. Now each message will appear separately, and you’ll see outlook-like icons to indicate whether you’ve replied to or forwarded a message.
if you don’t care about the thread, but want messages to appear with the most recent on top, you can add the gmail reverse chat browser extension.
disable categories
By default, Gmail applies categories to emails that are displayed at the top of the inbox. these categories include social, updates, promotions and forums. If you don’t want Gmail to automatically sort your inbox by these categories, you can turn them off. go to the gear icon on the right side and click “view all settings”. then go to the inbox and uncheck the boxes next to the categories.
While your inbox will no longer be subdivided into automated categories, if you’d like to take advantage of the feature, you can still search the left rail and expand the categories to view emails that have been identified as belonging to the categories.
turn on priority inbox
If you are a fan of the browser version of ms outlook via ms 365 subscription and you like the focused inbox, you can activate the gmail “priority” inbox. Click the gear icon in the top right corner to view quick settings, scroll down and under inbox type select “priority inbox”. your inbox will default to showing “important and unread”, followed by “starred” and then “everything else”. you can customize this by clicking the “customize” button. A neat option at the bottom allows you to override filters to include important messages in your inbox that may have been filtered (filters are the Outlook equivalent of rules).
enable preview pane
If you are a fan of ms outlook preview pane, you can activate it in gmail. click the gear icon in the top right for quick settings, and in the reading pane, scroll through the options and choose whether to have the pane open to the right of your inbox or below your inbox entry. then you can toggle the preview pane on and off once you’ve enabled it.
use offline data
a benefit of ms outlook is that it is software that is installed on your computer. if you lose internet access, you can still read your email. gmail, on the other hand, is only available when connected to the internet. You can set up offline to have access to read and check email that has already arrived, although you will need some space on your computer’s hard drive. go to gear icon, click to see all settings. go to the offline tab and check the box “enable offline mail”. You can adjust how long email syncs, whether to download attachments, and what to do if you sign out of your Google account.
show labels instead of icons
The Microsoft Office Suite Ribbon displays icons and labels for all the tools at your disposal. Depending on your screen size, some of the labels will be truncated, but you can hover over them to see the label. in gmail, you see icons or labels, even though when you hover over an icon, it provides the label. if you have a lot of screen space and prefer just labels, click the gear icon, choose “all settings” and in the general tab, scroll down to button labels and choose “text” instead of the default “icons”.
move emails to labels like folders
microsoft outlook allows you to organize your emails and maintain a clean inbox by using folders. you can drag the email to the appropriate folder to keep a clean inbox. Gmail uses labels, which are a bit different in that you can apply multiple labels to an email and then search for emails based on the label. however, applying a label will not move an email from your inbox. To do this, you’ll need to open an email and select “move to” and move the email to a label, which appears in the left rail. you can create tags on the fly as appropriate by choosing “create new” when you get the “move to” options. select the emails you want to move by clicking the box to the left of the email and then choose “move to” and select the label. You can set filters that work like Microsoft rules to move emails to a certain label, and you can choose whether or not the email skips the inbox. filters in gmail are as powerful as rules in outlook, so it’s worth exploring all the options.
check your calendar
one frustrating difference between ms outlook and gmail was that in outlook you can easily switch to your calendar, contacts and tasks. in gmail you had to open a new tab to access your calendar. but not anymore! Look in the far right column and click the little calendar icon (or keep, tasks, or contacts) to take a look at your calendar. you can choose to view your day or time and display multiple calendars (if you use multiple calendars). you can easily expand the calendar in a new tab from view view.
There are also many ways to create an event or appointment in your google calendar from an email in your inbox.
There are many more options to make gmail look and work like ms outlook, so feel free to play around with the settings.
make outlook look like gmail
Going from law school to a law firm, many associates are unfamiliar with ms outlook. Or, lawyers transitioning from an individual practice to a larger firm or corporate advisor position may find the switch from Gmail to Outlook quite a different and frustrating change. There are a few things you can do to make MS Outlook look a little more like Gmail. If your company has a Microsoft 365 subscription, it’s possible that unless there’s a legacy add-on or some other reason that requires you to use the installed Outlook software, the browser interface for Outlook will be a much more familiar experience.
add conversation view
If you prefer threaded conversations the way gmail organizes email, you can change the setting in outlook to show your email in this setting as well. go to the view tab and in the message group click the box to “show as conversations”. you can choose to show threaded conversations only in a specific folder or in all your folders. then in the conversation settings you can choose to show emails from other folders (handy!). you will have to double-click on a conversation to expand it. the conversation view is displayed in order from newest to oldest and shows the folder where the email is stored if it is not the inbox.
remove reading pane and taskbar
by default, gmail does not have the reading pane enabled. if you find these extra columns distracting or unnecessary, you can turn them off. in ms outlook go to view tab and in layout group turn off reading pane or to-do bar. similarly, if you don’t like the message preview, look in the fix group and disable that as well.
use categories for tags
gmail labels are great because you can apply multiple labels to a single email. ms outlook has a function similar to labels called categories. Categories are very useful and can allow you to add more intelligence to an email. Unlike gmail, categories are completely different from folders, so you can add categories to an email and store the email in a folder that has a completely different name. here are full instructions on how to take advantage of this powerful feature.
try focus inbox
If you like gmail’s priority inbox, you can try outlook’s focused inbox, which is the default in the browser version of outlook. in the view tab, turn on show focused inbox. once you do this, you’ll see two tabs at the top of your inbox: one focused and “other”. you can move between the two.
Moving from one email interface to another, especially if you’re very familiar with a different product, can be frustrating. take some time to review the settings and dive deeper into the tutorials. Both Gmail and Outlook have a lot to offer to help you stay on top of your emails!