Move From Outlook To Mac Mail App For Business

Sometimes, I find myself wanting to become an Apple fanboy. It would be easier, after all, within the hectic, ever-changing IT industry to just know I can trust what the manufacturer tells me. But years of technology consulting have taught me that vendors are evil.

The Inbox is the main folder all your mail goes into unless you have moved it to a new folder or used a third-party app to filter incoming mail to specific folders.

Yes, it’s true. I’m sorry you had to read it here. But that's the way it is in the real world, where the consulting firm I operate services hundreds of different commercial businesses and organizations. Vendors will promise you the world and assure you its mail client (or other product) is the best. However, your experience may differ.

Even before I began offering IT services to others, family and friends purchasing new Macs would frequently ask which email client is the best on OS X. I’ve always been partial to OS X Mail, which should make Apple developers happy. They’ve earned the accolade. The app is integrated within the OS, loads quickly, boasts a basic but attractive interface, possesses clean and well-laid elements, and proves to be easily navigable. Composing messages, replying to email, and sorting the inbox are painless tasks. Creating rules or email signatures within Mail doesn’t induce knee-knocking anxiety, the way doing so might in, say, Microsoft Outlook. Mail is simple and not that complicated, and the resulting lack of complexity makes it more approachable.

Microsoft’s older Entourage applications, of course, earned little popularity. Rightfully so. Many Entourage users complained of database corruption and slow performance. Microsoft wisely replaced Entourage with Outlook. With Outlook for Mac 2011’s release, I was hopeful that a new standard was in hand. But I’ve been disappointed. Outlook takes longer to open (my scientifically invalid, non-double-blind testing shows Outlook requires 23 seconds to open, whereas Mail requires only five), regularly encounters synchronization delays, and often simply doesn’t update my Exchange mailbox with changes as accurately or rapidly as does Mail, at least in my experience.

Ultimately, I use both Mail and Outlook for Mac, if for no other reason than to stay current with both platforms. I’ve configured the Macs in my home and business to connect to POP3, IMAP, and Exchange accounts, too, and I access mail, contacts, and calendars using Outlook and OS X’s built-in Mail, Contacts, and Calendar. Apple’s unending efforts to improve Mail, including message integration within Notification Center, iCloud reliability improvements, and Conversation views are encouraging and continue to make Mail a favorite application.

Move From Outlook To Mac Mail App For Business

However, Mail isn’t perfect.

Outlook, ultimately, gains an edge due to the clean manner in which it successfully integrates contacts and calendaring. Opening shared calendars, in particular, is easier within Outlook, in my opinion, than within Calendar. And Outlook consistently displays HTML email messages, specifically marketing messages that I’ve requested to receive, properly.

Mail stumbles on that front. Marketing messages that are sent by large, well-known firms you would recognize (ThinkGeek, Barnes & Noble, and NPR are a few examples) and may also receive within your inbox, regularly fail to format properly within Mail. That’s frustrating.

So, it’s a tradeoff. If you want the ease of use and generally acceptable performance Mail provides, you can save hundreds of dollars per Mac leveraging Mail instead of Outlook. But if you operate within an enterprise environment, you may well not have time for workarounds and simply find Outlook the best fit. But if you or your users also need Word, Excel, and/or PowerPoint, Outlook’s almost certainly going to be included with the license your organization purchases, and firing up Outlook becomes a no-brainer. Just be sure to give Outlook time to open and then sync changes with Exchange before exiting the program.

Which do you prefer: Mac Mail or Outlook for Mac? Share your opinion in the discussion thread below.

I will let you know that I have received 100's of emails with questions from folks here on LinkedIn about their issues. This published article has over 124,000 views as of Nov 24, 2018! I offer a lot of great tips but if you are not sure of what you are doing or do not have your data backed up correctly, or not sure...it's best to call me, a professional to do the job right! I'm very fast and responsive and am a preventative technician. I have some marketing content here at the top, read the 5 reasons below. Thanks!! ~Lisa

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💗 Many clients on Gmail/Gsuite and use Outlook should consider moving to Microsoft Exchange, it's a perfect pairing and not as expensive as it used to be in the old days. Check out a demo video I have on my channel here

Update May 23, 2017

Before you read further, please take note of one important thing. If you use Gmail in Outlook and are on IMAP, it's possible that your contacts and calendar entries in Outlook are in a 'cached' OST file in your computer. Most backup programs do not back up this file by default, you must select the directory it's being stored. As well, an OST file cannot be imported into Outlook. OST files need to be converted to PST files to be opened in Outlook again. I have found many clients with years of data in these very unsafe OST files. If you want my help moving your entries to a safe PST file, we can schedule an appointment.

As of Dec 16, 2016 I updated a new blog now about 'How to setup Gmail in Outlook' as there are so many security issues and people having problems getting through the security. People have an 'apps password' and it's causing issues connecting with Outlook. Check it out here http://callthatgirl.biz/how-to-setup-gmail-in-outlook

As an Outlook Expert I get calls all the time from people who are suffering from slow Outlook, Outlook not working right, emails won't send or receive, emails are missing, folders are missing and many times they are using Gmail as their server. These clients are either using the free Gmail account or are paying for Google Apps, but not using the whole program (installing the Google Apps synch tool). Outlook is a great program for email management, but it has limitations and Gmail really doesn't have limitations.

In my opinion, Gmail was never intended for Outlook use, but meant to be a browser based platform and in the past few years...an Android based email platform. Gmail and it's big sister Google Apps was not made for Outlook, and this is why people have problems if they use Outlook. Although Google does offer apps for synching (for the fee)...many of my clients still just use the IMAP settings and this is the cause of their problems.

I'll review with you now the most common issues I get calls to fix, you will see the same pattern here...I move a lot of email out of Outlook to a local PST file. That is the common fix to the common issues. Be sure to read my 'Basic rules' at the bottom of this blog.

#1. Email overload

Even though you are supposed to have a limit of email with Gmail...sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Clients tend to call me when it doesn't and what I find is their local copy of their Gmail in the Outlook profile is very large and corrupted. What that means is that the profile in Outlook doesn't match what Gmail says on the server and I have to fix that to make it match up. What I do is create a new Outlook profile, bring down a good copy of the server and let it synch and then match up. Then the corrupted emails are gone and the client is fresh, but most of the time we have to move mail off the new profile as of course...Gmail hoards email. See #3 below...

#2 IMAP synchronizes constantly

After you start to have email overload, the folders in your Outlook stop synchronizing nice and easy. You may see the 'synchronizing' at the bottom right of Outlook and that is the start of your issues. Gmail uses a platform called 'IMAP' (you can use POP if you want, the platform that does not synchronize) and IMAP is really a great way to have your email synch, but the issue most people has is that the more email you have and the larger your attachments are, the longer synchronizing takes for Outlook to synch with the Gmail server. I can fix this, but how I fix it is by moving out all large emails to a local PST file and remove some IMAP folders from being subscribed by Outlook. This helps immensely!

#3 Hidden Filters/All Mail and Important

If you are using the free Gmail version, your browser may never show you problems with email size as it's intended to just not have problems. But with Outlook, it can download folders in a sub folder of your Gmail account. You have to go look for this as it might appear collapsed. Click on the + sign next to Gmail and you should see a set of folders.•All Mail•Important•Junk•Sent•other folders (not sure what you will have)

The All Mail is a duplicate copy of all of your emails/sent and received. The important folders are emails that Gmail deems as important. I have tried to figure out how this works and I have never really figured it out other than it's probably people you have emailed often and Gmail has it trained.

NEW! This is a new video I created for those with a lot (and I mean a lot!) of Gmail email in their Outlook. This nifty trick will help you remove the All Mail and Important folders.

In this section, I will also add that Gmail and IMAP add on a 'Filters Applied' and it can hide your email in folders. Check out this video to fix that asap!

#4 Your email stops sending or receiving

If you cap out with your email limits, your Outlook Gmail will stop sending or receiving or both. To solve this problem, you have to move a lot of email. I usually start with sent items as those are usually the easiest to move off the server. I move them to a local PST file. Then I move old 'All Mail' and 'Important' to a local PST file. These 3 folders cleaned up puts Outlook back in running shape again.

#5 Not using the Google Apps Sync tool

If you are using Gmail as a server and Outlook as the platform to read the email, the Google Apps synch tool can be downloaded and installed on your computer and then will synchronize your email, contacts and calendar within the Google Apps system. You will have less issues using this tool with email, but if you have issues synchronizing with the Google Apps tools, it's because of conflicts. Yeah, a whole new story. Many of my Google Apps clients just move to Microsoft Exchange as it works perfectly with Outlook and no synch tools.

Basic rules

If you are using a free Gmail account for your business, upgrade to business class email. Not only does it add a level of professionalism, but you will be on a good Microsoft server with almost no problems. Outlook and Microsoft Exchange are meant to be together, like ice cream and cake. Gmail and Outlook is like ice cream and salsa. I can help you set that up, contact me with the form below

If you are using Google Apps and Outlook and are having synch issues, you probably have too many conflicts, be sure to use the details button to find those conflicts and delete them or fix them. If set up right and with no conflicts, Google Apps Synch Tool does work, but it's dang annoying for the end users as it constantly pops up and synchs.

Move From Outlook To Mac Mail App For Business Free

If you are having struggles with your Outlook, feel free to email or give me a call. Lisa@callthatgirl.biz 612-865-4475 or use my online scheduler http://bit.ly/1C2IoEO