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iCloud vs Gmail: what is the best?

A

AGX

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 12, 2014
180
3
Hi to all,

I'm a new Mac user and now I'm evaluating the possibility to switch from Gmail to iCLOUD Email.

Do you think that is better gmail or iCloud email as reliability, functionality etc...

I need to decide before register my apple id

Thanks
 
I prefer iCloud but then I'm not a fan of the google services.
 
I used Gmail for many years. It was a good and reliable service too. I switched to iCloud last year, or rather resurrected my original .mac account as my primary account.

I switched because Google's constant changes to everything were bothering me. That went for the new Gmail look to the constant updates that broke things in Chrome. Plus tack on the advertising tracking thing too which I didn't care for.

Since I've been using iCloud as the primary email I've been very happy with its reliability, ease of use and consistency.
 
I have an old @me.com account that I never used in the last 2 years

Do you think that I can use again? Or is expired?
 
Switched to iCloud mail from Gmail here too

----------
AGX said:
I have an old @me.com account that I never used in the last 2 years



Do you think that I can use again? Or is expired?
Click to expand...


Logon to iCloud to check. It's in the setting if you are eligible to use it.
 
AGX said:
I have an old @me.com account that I never used in the last 2 years

Do you think that I can use again? Or is expired?
Click to expand...

You should still be able to use it. I'm using mine and it works great.
 
SandboxGeneral said:
I used Gmail for many years. It was a good and reliable service too. I switched to iCloud last year, or rather resurrected my original .mac account as my primary account.

I switched because Google's constant changes to everything were bothering me. That went for the new Gmail look to the constant updates that broke things in Chrome. Plus tack on the advertising tracking thing too which I didn't care for.

Since I've been using iCloud as the primary email I've been very happy with its reliability, ease of use and consistency.
Click to expand...
I dropped gmail for the same reasons. with them dropping push support for iOS also I didn't like.

My issue was I had my gmail as my Apple ID so I needed a Non-Apple email address for it, so for that I went to @outlook. I really like how clean and easy outlook is on the web also.

How I do things is my iCloud is for friends and family and my outlook is for my other things.
 
At the end it is a matter of preferences:
- How you want to access it?
Web browser, iOS/Mac Mail App, Google App, other email client?
- What other features of the email are you looking to have? Integration with iCloud? Google calendar? Contacts? Maps? Notes? Tasks?
- Security and antispam filtering is an important
Factor
I use both and my opinion is that Google is selling your data to 3rd parties, while Apple is using it to create better products, totally different main goals.

You can always have various email accounts and with Mail App you can manage all of them very easily.
 
I have both and while, at one point in time, I was a crazed iCloud fan, I grew out of it because of the updates Gmail pulled out. Initially, I wasn't a fan of Gmail, but I like the multi-account login thing gmail has (I have a lot of google email addresses). But above all, I love (and honestly don't think I can live without) the separate tabs Gmail has (Inbox, Promotions, Social, Forums, etc.).
 
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I think that the big problem of Gmail is the privacy invasion that they do... I confess that I don't like Android and all the Google ecosystem for this problem.

In every aspect of your life, Google want to spy you, not directly but in aggregate form, but for me a software that read mail for sell advertise... is not very good.

For that i'm asking if iCloud or other mail service are good.
 
AGX said:
I think that the big problem of Gmail is the privacy invasion that they do... I confess that I don't like Android and all the Google ecosystem for this problem.

In every aspect of your life, Google want to spy you, not directly but in aggregate form, but for me a software that read mail for sell advertise... is not very good.

For that i'm asking if iCloud or other mail service are good.
Click to expand...

I also use outlook and I kind of like it. I been using it for over a year now and so far no issue. I like my iCloud, but I don't like putting all eggs in one basket just using one email provider.




shyam09 said:
I have both and while, at one point in time, I was a crazed iCloud fan, I grew out of it because of the updates Gmail pulled out. Initially, I wasn't a fan of Gmail, but I like the multi-account login thing gmail has (I have a lot of google email addresses). But above all, I love (and honestly don't think I can live without) the separate tabs Gmail has (Inbox, Promotions, Social, Forums, etc.).
Click to expand...
This is one of the many reasons I dropped gmail. The websites looks so busy and I just like a clean look.
 
SandboxGeneral said:
I used Gmail for many years. It was a good and reliable service too. I switched to iCloud last year, or rather resurrected my original .mac account as my primary account.

I switched because Google's constant changes to everything were bothering me. That went for the new Gmail look to the constant updates that broke things in Chrome. Plus tack on the advertising tracking thing too which I didn't care for.

Since I've been using iCloud as the primary email I've been very happy with its reliability, ease of use and consistency.
Click to expand...

This. I got tired of google dropping and adding services while we had to jump through burning hoops to keep our services running the way we needed them to.
 
AGX said:
For that i'm asking if iCloud or other mail service are good.
Click to expand...
Why don't you set Gmail to forward your mail to iCloud and try it out for a while? Everybody has different requirements ...

Personally, I switched to Outlook.com last year and am still happy with the choice. My primary reasons were:

- Gmail doesn't support push email with the native iOS mail client anymore; the only free choices left are iCloud and Outlook
- Just like you, I didn't like Google scanning my email for marketing purposes (MS doesn't do that)
- Gmail has no real aliases without having to manage multiple accounts (Outlook has up to 10 aliases per account, iCloud up to 3)
- iCloud mail at the time was not protected by 2-factor authentication for the web interface (it now is)
- Outlook has more powerful filtering rules than iCloud

There have also been reports that sometimes mails that iCloud classifies as spam simply vanish (rather than being stored in a junk folder), which seems dangerous to me in case of false positives.
 
I like Outlook, a very good service.

But I don't use it, because they policy of "recycling" username is not very good for privacy.

After 270 days, if you don't logon, they close the account and reassign the username... and this is a risky practice
 
Rigby said:
Why don't you set Gmail to forward your mail to iCloud and try it out for a while? Everybody has different requirements ...

Personally, I switched to Outlook.com last year and am still happy with the choice. My primary reasons were:

- Gmail doesn't support push email with the native iOS mail client anymore; the only free choices left are iCloud and Outlook
- Just like you, I didn't like Google scanning my email for marketing purposes (MS doesn't do that)
- Gmail has no real aliases without having to manage multiple accounts (Outlook has up to 10 aliases per account, iCloud up to 3)
- iCloud mail at the time was not protected by 2-factor authentication for the web interface (it now is)
- Outlook has more powerful filtering rules than iCloud

There have also been reports that sometimes mails that iCloud classifies as spam simply vanish (rather than being stored in a junk folder), which seems dangerous to me in case of false positives.
Click to expand...
Same reasons as me why I went to outlook.com. My Apple ID had to have a different email address so I can drop gmail, so I went to outlook. Like you, I like outlook has 2 step verification that I liked for my banking and other sensitive stuff. I'm happy to see iCloud finally did this, but I think I'll keep this set up for now. Very few people know my outlook anyways, all my friends and family email to my iCloud email address.
 
AGX said:
But I don't use it, because they policy of "recycling" username is not very good for privacy.

After 270 days, if you don't logon, they close the account and reassign the username... and this is a risky practice
Click to expand...
To be more precise, they may release the mail address one year after the account has been closed. Seems like a minor issue to me, since it doesn't cost anything to keep the account alive. Should I decide to abandon the account, there is plenty of time to change all linked accounts so the address cannot be used to reset passwords later. But yeah, I agree it would be better from a privacy perspective if they didn't do that.

Do you know what Apple's policy is regarding the reuse of iCloud email addresses?
 
Into the contrat they don't tali about expiring but they exploit that if a provole don't acces for long time to an account ir can be deleted.

I had contacted the customer support and they tell me that a AppleId will never expire or recycled.

Someone can ask to the Apple support the dame question?

Thabks
 
AGX said:
Into the contrat they don't tali about expiring but they exploit that if a provole don't acces for long time to an account ir can be deleted.

I had contacted the customer support and they tell me that a AppleId will never expire or recycled.

Someone can ask to the Apple support the dame question?

Thabks
Click to expand...

did your account get hacked or something?
 
Chalk another one up in the Outlook.com camp. I dropped GMail for Outlook.com 3 months ago and could not be happier with my decision. iCloud's web interface is way too slow and clunky plus there are too many question marks surrounding iCloud drive. Outlook.com email and OneDrive storage for me!
 
reese2147 said:
Chalk another one up in the Outlook.com camp. I dropped GMail for Outlook.com 3 months ago and could not be happier with my decision. iCloud's web interface is way too slow and clunky plus there are too many question marks surrounding iCloud drive. Outlook.com email and OneDrive storage for me!
Click to expand...

I must agree with you on the web interface to iCloud.com. It is slow and clunky. I don't much care for it. Thankfully, I only use it when I am at the office on a PC. Otherwise it's the Mail app on the Mac and iDevices that I use it with.
 
SandboxGeneral said:
I must agree with you on the web interface to iCloud.com. It is slow and clunky. I don't much care for it. Thankfully, I only use it when I am at the office on a PC. Otherwise it's the Mail app on the Mac and iDevices that I use it with.
Click to expand...

Oh I have no problem using the mail app on Mac and iOS. However, when 8+ hours of my day is spent on a PC at work and I'm forced to use the web interface..... it's just not conducive for email and downright nearly unusable if you email fairly heavy during the day (as I do at times)
 
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