Gmail in the test (2023): Strong email service with typical Google problems

GMAIL

January 01, 2023 at 8:00 p.m

Gmail is Google’s in-house email service. In our test, we were impressed by the scope and functions. If only it weren’t for the typical Google problems.

1. furnishings

2. functions

3. Connection to Google Drive

4. Platforms and Synchronization

5. security

6. Support

7. Reliability and server stability

8. Conclusion
   

When the online giant like Google wants to conquer a new market, the competition has nothing to smile about. This was also the case in 2004, when Google launched its own e-mail service, Gmail. It’s now called Gmail, but it’s still a serious player among freemailers today, just as it was then.

This is not least due to the fact that Gmail has always been a good step ahead of other email services when it comes to storage space. You won’t find the 15 gigabytes of memory that the freemailer offers you for free with almost any other e-mail provider. But storage space isn’t everything. Is the rest correct? Our test gives you the answer.

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Gmail Inbox: Easy to Use and Plenty to Explore

With Gmail, Google mainly relies on a freemailer model. That means: You can use the e-mail service for free. All you have to do is log in with your data and create an account with Gmail. Conveniently, Gmail is part of Google Workspace and is therefore linked to numerous other well-known Google services such as Google Drive, Google Docs or Google Photos.

Once you have logged in, a tidy user interface awaits you. In the center is the mailbox with your e-mails. Compared to services like Telekom Mail, the menus still seem very lavish. Two sidebars on the left, a small menu in the corner, links to the other Google services at the top of the screen. Newcomers have to get used to it first.

But there is a lot to discover. As with most e-mail services, you can use the central menu in the top left to find your sent messages, drafts, the trash and the spam area. In addition, you can access your deferred, scheduled and important mails here. In order to assign your mails to these areas, you have the appropriate options when writing and viewing your mails.

Google Mailer as part of Google Workspace

To keep things organized, you categorize your emails into folders called “labels” in Gmail. Gmail also offers a wealth of settings: adjust the menus, create a signature, write an out-of-office message, configure your labels and your inbox or take care of the spam settings. You will look in vain for the competition to have the same scope as Gmail.

You can use messages quickly and easily via the mailer and thanks to the search function you will always find the message you are looking for immediately, even if there are many incoming mails. You can use a star icon to mark and highlight particularly important messages. In addition to this comprehensive mail area, you will also find three other submenus in the left menu bar: Chat, Spaces and Meet.

These menus basically do what you would expect. In the chat you can chat with other Gmail users, in Spaces you can create group areas that you can use for joint mail management in work teams, and Meet is the interface to Google’s video conference software Google Meet, which we will get to later in more detail in this review.

Direct connection to the Google cloud

With a whopping 15 gigabytes of free e-mail storage, Google offers you significantly more than most other e-mail providers at first glance. However, there is a catch: This storage space is shared between your individual Google applications, including Google Photos or Google Drive. For example, if you have 14 GB on Google Drive, you only have 1 GB of storage space left for your emails.

If you use other email addresses, you can easily add them to your Gmail account via the settings. The advantage: you manage all your addresses via a single client. However, we were particularly impressed by the advantages of connecting to Google Drive in the test.

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No need to download attachments

Thanks to the connected cloud storage, you can access files such as documents or spreadsheets directly in the email client without having to download them. It’s fitting that Gmail gives you editing tools for word processing and spreadsheets right at your fingertips. It’s little conveniences like these that make Gmail much faster and easier to use than the competition.

This is shown again when we try to send larger attachments in our test. Actually, Gmail attachments are limited to 25 megabytes. But as soon as we want to send more, we can easily use the automatic upload to Google Drive and can increase the maximum limit to 10 gigabytes. Quickly add the associated release link to the e-mail and you’re done.

For comparison: With other e-mail services, 50 megabytes is usually the limit. For more information about Google Drive and the storage space functions there, we advise you to take a look at our Google Drive review.

Fast access thanks to the app and e-mail client

Thanks to its widespread use, numerous e-mail clients already have ready-made Gmail profiles, so that you can set up a mailbox quickly and easily. Mobile Gmail apps are also available for Android and iOS devices. But whether you’re using this app, a PC app, or the browser version, your email account will be synced at lightning speed between all the devices and versions you sign up on.

Integrated chats but no domain

Another connection is to the Google Hangouts service, which is known worldwide for free or particularly cheap calls to landline and mobile networks. Fortunately, thanks to the integration of the service, there are no duplications of contacts or conversations.

Video calls via Gmail are possible with up to ten participants, which means that the e-mail client is also suitable for quick office meetings in between. Apart from small effects, the video calls via Google Meet don’t offer much. Gmail struggles to compete with other video calling programs.

You don’t get your own domain with your Gmail account, such as the one included with the provider 1&1. In a direct comparison a small shortcoming. Unfortunately, Gmail does not always show its best side when it comes to data protection and security.

Security: There is still room for improvement

Your Gmail mailbox as well as the login are secured by https standard by default, the encryption is done by SSL. Encryption is also possible when receiving and sending via e-mail software; in the test with Apple Mail, SSL protection was automatically recognized and adopted. However, the data is unencrypted on the servers, which is typical for the industry.

It is also unclear to what extent Google processes user data, because since the servers are located in the USA, your data is not subject to German data protection, but to US data protection, which has been criticized in some cases. Google has been working on building data centers in Germany for a few months, but the process is still in progress. According to its own statements, Google no longer reads user emails in order to present personalized advertisements, as was the case in the past.

For more security against hacker attacks and attempted account theft, you can use two-factor authentication.

However, Gmail protects you effectively against the flood of annoying spam e-mails. Google’s free mailer has a reliable and powerful spam filter that learns as you use it. But the free e-mail address from Google does not only have advantages. We explain further informative details about protection against spam and viruses in Gmail in the linked article.

Gmail Support: Who to contact? none

If you have questions about the e-mail service or if something is not working properly, good support from the operator is important. What does Gmail offer in this area? On the one hand you will find a comprehensive FAQ on the Google website with the most common errors and suitable solutions.

On the other hand, you can Gmail Hilfeforum access, where users can ask their questions and, ideally, have them answered by a Google employee or another user. However, since the German forum is rather moderately active, we recommend you – if you have basic knowledge of English – to the much busier one English speaking forum access.

There is no direct contact address that we can use to contact an employee. A live chat is also missing on the help page. Other email services offer more personalized support here. We can understand the decision in view of the number of Google customers to be managed, but we are still disappointed.

Malfunction with Gmail: More of an exception

The servers of Google and thus also the servers of the service Gmail usually run error-free and crashes or other problems only rarely occur. Should there be any difficulties on the part of the provider, these are usually remedied in a few minutes. During our test phase, which lasted several weeks, there was not a single failure.