Gmail vs Hotmail vs Outlook: Top 10 best free email accounts – Which is best?

Deciding which email service you should use can be tricky with pros and cons to each.

Free email accounts all differ in certain characteristics, from the quantity of data storage, the customisation of its interface and the quality of the advanced features it includes, such as instant messaging, filters, and the ability to import data.

Deciding which service works boils down to a number of factors.

If you use a Windows user then Outlook makes sense because everything works together, but those of us using Google services are better off with Gmail.

Gmail

Google’s free email service Gmail tops this list.

It has a modern interface, integrates well with other Google services, and is effective at blocking spam.

It also boasts clever features like the option to “snooze” emails, send and request money via Google Pay, send emails with expiration dates and others that can only be read with a special code.

And other clever features include the ability to create filters and labels, import email in from other email accounts, use a chat client and even install add-ons to extend Gmail’s functionality.

Outlook

Microsoft’s Outlook Mail is the world’s second most popular email provider.

It has a solid interface that’s easy to work with.

And it is really intuitive, a simple right click, for example, offers further options like moving or deleting messages and searching for every message from a single sender.

You can easy update the page’s colour scheme and what the reading pane displays.

And email rules are supported with Outlook Mail, meaning you can set new messages to automatically move to a specified folder, be categorised, flagged or even forwarded.

Yahoo

Yahoo Mail is the free email account offered by Yahoo.

Each new user receives an impressive 1 terabyte of free storage for email

The compose window offers the ability to switch between online image attachments and normal file attachments.

This means you can switch a file attachment to be embedded in the email and just as easily reverse it to make it a file attachment.

And Yahoo Mail is probably the best email service when it comes to aliases – you can create up to 500 disposable addresses that are linked to your main email address but don’t contain your name or any other personal data.

This is extremely useful if you’re often signing up for web accounts and don’t wish to have your regular inbox spammed or filled with useless email.

AOL Mail

The page where you find your email also shows top stories from AOL.com, which is a nice addition.

You can quickly filter your messages to only show unread or read emails, or flagged or unflagged messages.

And many advanced settings are customisable like changing the spam filter’s sensitivity, controlling who can you send you mail, enabling a reading pane, and blocking mail containing specific words.

It’s mail settings lets you clearly read the IMAP and POP server settings, which is very useful if you’re using your AOL email address with offline email clients.

Many of its competitors don’t display this information.

Yandex

Russia’s Yandex offers many tools in addition to free email accounts, such as 10 GB of cloud storage service, a calendar and a search engine.

Your email account lets users access all of these services from one login.

It has a pleasant interface, with a simple layout making it easy to read.

And it supports email filters, contact importing and exporting, tasks, and hotkeys.

ProtonMail

ProtonMail is centred around encryption, meaning you can send mail without fear that anyone else besides the recipient can read the message.

When you’re ready to send an encrypted message, be sure to click that button before you send the email.

If you choose to encrypt the message, you can also set an expiration time so that the message is destroyed and unreadable after the specified duration.

The maximum expiration time is 28 days but you can choose something sooner.

Zoho Mail

Zoho as a whole is like an online suite of several apps centred around business use.

Zoho Mail has a pleasantly minimal design.

While composing a message you can switch between the new message and the rest of your mail through the small tabs at the top of the page.

Streams is a feature in Zoho Mail that helps create groups where you and your team members can interact with shared messages and attachments.

It works a bit like a private social media site.

Mail.com

Mail.com allows you can choose between over 200 free domains.

Instead of being stuck with one, like @outlook.com or @gmail.com, you can pick from a huge list.

The email domains are categorised into sections so it’s easy to find one that relates to certain jobs, hobbies, tech, and music.

There are also US, world, and spiritual domains.

Some of the top choices include mail.com, email.com, usa.com, myself.com, post.com, dr.com, techie.com, engineer.com, cheerful.com and writeme.com.

Tutanota

Tutanota (Latin for “secure message”) automatically encrypts all your emails, but this feature can be disabled.

One notable feature is that Tutanota requires a really secure password.

The web interface is easy to use and provides nice menu transitions that really bring together the mail folders and email settings.

Its nicest feature is that when the Tutanota user responds back to the user not using Tutanota, the messages are still contained within the temporary account.

This means you can have back and forth communication with any other email service and they can keep the link open the whole time.

iCloud Mail

Apple’s iCloud Mail is one of the better email providers because it can set on up in seconds.

However, iCloud Mail is only accessible to people with an Apple device, making it very restrictive.

Once you’ve made an iCloud account, you can log in from a computer and access a suite of products that have been synced to iCloud from your iOS device.

The iCloud Mail portion of iCloud isn’t super advanced and probably won’t serve you well if you want lots of options in your email.