Review: Gmail
After using Yahoo mail for about seven years, I decided to switch to Gmail. First, let me say that switching to a different email provider is an arduous task if you want to transfer all of your existing mail to another account.
Even though Yahoo mail has the best user interface of any web-based email, you cannot access Yahoo mail with a mail client on your computer unless you have the $20 per year Yahoo Mail Plus. And even though I DID have Yahoo mail plus, I still switched to Gmail because Gmail allows you to access your Gmail account with IMAP.
IMAP access allows you to access your GMAIL account with ANY mail client (eg, Outlook, Thunderbird, Apple Mail, etc), but IMAP stores all of the mail on Gmail’s server. That way, you can access all of your email uisng Outlook (or any email client) from any computer. Plus, you can access the Gmail web interface from ANY computer with a web browser. This is very handly when you are traveling and don’t have access to your own computer.
But why do you need a local mail client? Good question. The main reason to have a local mail client, like Outlook or Apple Mail, is that they have a better user interface. For example, if you want to attach a file using a mail client, you can simply drag the file onto the email and you’re done. And with Apple Mail, you can attach images directly from your iPhoto library and Apple Mail automatically resizes them to Small, Medium, or Large images, all of which are reasonable file sizes to send in an email. That is a LOT easier than opening in image editor, resizing each photo, and then attaching each one. And if you’ve ever attached or received an image that hasn’t been resized before attaching it to an email, you’ll know what a pain it is waiting for those 1-2 meg files to upload or download.
And, if IMAP access isn’t enough reason for you to use Gmail, remember: Gmail is FREE.
Now for the bad news. The Gmail web interface is a POS: It’s unnecessarily confusing. Instead of using the standard web / mail client user interface, which consists of an Inbox, and folders for Trash, Send, and user-created folders to organize mail, Gmail had to reinvent a square wheel. Gmail uses Labels to replace Folders and calls emails “Conversations.” My first question is WHY? Here’s how it works. If you want to move a “Conversation” into a “Lable” (you can see instantly why “Conversation” and “Label” don’t make sense), you select the email and then from a menu, you select Move to x Label.
Another problem is that Gmail shows email in the Inbox that simply does not belong there. For example, items that I have deleted still appear in the Inbox. What? If I delete an email, why in the hell does it appear in the Inbox; it should appear ONLY in the Trash.
Fortunately, I rarely have to use the Gmail Web Interface, and your mail client (Outlook, Thunderbird, or Apple Mail) will show the “Conversations” as “Emails” and “Labels” as Folders. And you can drag and drop Email into Folders and the Gmail “Conversation” / “Label” are updated as well.
But if you are someone who would need to use the Gmail web interface a lot, you had better see if you can deal with the interface before notifiying all of the contacts in your address book 
Tags: email, mail client, Technology, webmail