# Gmail vs Hotmail vs Yahoo **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 15, 2006, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-vs-hotmail-vs-yahoo/356843 "2006-05-15T16:24:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Renee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/renee/32/287_2.png) [@Renee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renee)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2006, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-vs-hotmail-vs-yahoo/356843/41 "2006-05-17T15:35:07Z")
I like G-mail and Yahoo, haven’t tried Hotmail. The only problem I am having with Gmail is that I can’t figure out how to insert contacts into the _To_: box after an e-mail has been written. With Yahoo there is a button to insert contacts from your address book. I am sure it’s obvious and I am just missing it, but will someone clue me in? Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Man\_With\_a\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cab0a1/32.png) [@Man\_With\_a\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Man_With_a_Cat)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2006, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-vs-hotmail-vs-yahoo/356843/42 "2006-05-17T15:56:39Z")
Here’s another Hotmail beef: Before I switched to gmail, my main personal e-mail address was with Hotmail. After giving everyone time to get the new address, I disabled the e-mail. But that frigging “passport” thing for MSN? The one that lets you sign in to their other sites? Try finding how to cancel that without going through 14 “Help” pages. Screw MSN. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2006, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-vs-hotmail-vs-yahoo/356843/43 "2006-05-17T16:02:28Z")
> [@Renee](#): > > I like G-mail and Yahoo, haven’t tried Hotmail. The only problem I am having with Gmail is that I can’t figure out how to insert contacts into the _To_: box after an e-mail has been written. With Yahoo there is a button to insert contacts from your address book. I am sure it’s obvious and I am just missing it, but will someone clue me in? Thanks! Gmail memorizes your whole address book. So if you have 5 e-mail adresses that start with ‘a’, just type a in the address box. It should pop up with all your a names. You can either click on the one you want or continue typing - aaron, for example - and the e-mail should auto-select. Does that help? ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2006, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-vs-hotmail-vs-yahoo/356843/44 "2006-05-17T19:55:05Z")
> [@jackelope](#): > > Another Gmail devotee here. I think my favorite feature of Gmail, day-to-day, is that it groups e-mails into “conversations.” No more having your inbox get cluttered up because you write back and forth with someone all day! Hooray! This is indeed wonderful. But it also constitutes my only beef about the whole system: it does it by conversation title, so if you have three email conversations about “Re: No subject” or “Hello!” it groups _them_ together, which is a pain. And has anyone else seen the cool feature that you can use it as a proxy email account? You enter the email address you want to use as your “From” address (in Options), and it sends a confirmation email. As long as you own the email account, you reply to it, and it adds that email address as one that you can send from within your Gmail account. Thus I have my old personal mail forwarding to my Gmail, and if I want to preserve that mail address (as I do for business reasons), I can just change the “From” in my Gmail account. Keeps it all in one place, and handy because I have a filter set up to label anything coming in from that account as “old address”. Brilliant idea. ---
**Author:** ![Renee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/renee/32/287_2.png) [@Renee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renee)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-vs-hotmail-vs-yahoo/356843/45 "2006-05-18T14:36:29Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > Gmail memorizes your whole address book. So if you have 5 e-mail adresses that start with ‘a’, just type a in the address box. It should pop up with all your a names. You can either click on the one you want or continue typing - aaron, for example - and the e-mail should auto-select. > > Does that help? Yes, it does. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![spinky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@spinky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spinky)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2006, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-vs-hotmail-vs-yahoo/356843/46 "2006-06-03T19:31:58Z")
I just wanted to throw in there that the new Yahoo mail interface that is currently in beta totally rocks. I’ve been using it for a month or two now, and am looking forward to it no longer being in beta so everyone can see what a real web-based mail UI should look like. Here’s a blog that talks about what’s so great about it: [http://yahoo.weblogsinc.com/2005/09/14/review-new-yahoo-mail-beta/](http://yahoo.weblogsinc.com/2005/09/14/review-new-yahoo-mail-beta/) ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2006, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-vs-hotmail-vs-yahoo/356843/47 "2006-06-04T17:00:41Z")
> [@Yahoo blogger](#): > > Gmail is suddenly looking a little clunky. The new Yahoo! Mail is a sleek, finely wrought piece of interface design. The **overall look is an Outlook-styled, three-pane window** … _pees self with mirth_ _Onward! To the past!_ ---
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2006, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-vs-hotmail-vs-yahoo/356843/48 "2006-06-05T16:15:56Z")
> [@SpaceDog](#): > > I dunno if you can do this via Yahoo/Hotmail but you can get GMail to send using different ‘From:’ addresses. The [Plus](http://mailplus.mail.yahoo.com/) version of Yahoo Mail lets you do that, and it’s one of my favorite features. 🙂 It’s good to know that GMail offers that now, because it didn’t use to. I’ve had a Yahoo Mail Plus account for a couple of years – since before GMail existed – and I like it so much that I’d rather keep paying $20/year than move all of my mail to a new service and change my primary e-mail address. I’m not terribly impressed with the beta of the new interface, which is disappointing because I’ve been with Yahoo Mail for 8 years and have always liked their GUI changes before. The only thing I _don’t_ like about Yahoo Mail is the lack of subfolders, but GMail doesn’t offer it, either, and that’s the only other web mail I’d ever consider using. ---
**Author:** ![spinky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@spinky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spinky)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2006, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-vs-hotmail-vs-yahoo/356843/49 "2006-06-05T16:49:59Z")
> [@Larry Mudd](#): > > _pees self with mirth_ > > _Onward! To the past!_ Hey, if your idea of “the future” is having your inbox disappear every time you read a message, so you have to click the “back” link to see it, more power to you. I want my web-based mail to behave like a real app, not like a web page. ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2006, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-vs-hotmail-vs-yahoo/356843/50 "2006-06-05T16:50:46Z")
> [@Misnomer](#): > > The only thing I _don’t_ like about Yahoo Mail is the lack of subfolders, but GMail doesn’t offer it, either, and that’s the only other web mail I’d ever consider using. What can subfolders do that labels can’t? ---
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2006, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-vs-hotmail-vs-yahoo/356843/51 "2006-06-05T17:10:06Z")
> [@Garfield226](#): > > What can subfolders do that labels can’t? My understanding is that a label is the same as a folder. So you see a list of labels in GMail just like I see a list of folders in Yahoo Mail. Subfolders (or sublabels) would make that list smaller: for example, instead of seeing 5 folders/labels associated with school I could see just one top folder/label and then choose when to see the subfolders/sublables. It may not be a significant distinction to people who don’t have a lot of folders/labels, but I do. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2006, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-vs-hotmail-vs-yahoo/356843/52 "2006-06-05T17:14:45Z")
> [@Misnomer](#): > > My understanding is that a label is the same as a folder. So you see a list of labels in GMail just like I see a list of folders in Yahoo Mail. Subfolders (or sublabels) would make that list smaller: for example, instead of seeing 5 folders/labels associated with school I could see just one top folder/label and then choose when to see the subfolders/sublables. > > It may not be a significant distinction to people who don’t have a lot of folders/labels, but I do. 🙂 Ah, so it’s not so much the organization of the emails themselves, but of the display OF the organization. That makes sense. I have quite a long list as well. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-vs-hotmail-vs-yahoo/356843.md?page=2)