Gmail, Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo Mail Comparison
Have you ever asked yourself how you did end up with the email account that you are currently using? Chance is that you have at least one account at one of the three most popular web based email service providers Gmail, Yahoo Mail or Windows Live Hotmail (now known as Outlook).
Update: We have updated the information in this comparison article to reflect changes as of March 2017.
This question might have become insignificant in recent years as all three email providers have started to follow suite if one of them improved a limit, or introduced a new service. But not everything is equal, and some email users might be surprised if they take a look at the differences between these email providers.
Did you for instance know that a free Yahoo Mail account expires after four twelve months of inactivity but is the only one to offer 1 Terabyte of storage space for emails?
Gmail on the other hand is the only email service that is not expiring the account after a certain time of inactivity.
It is on the other hand the email service that is offering the least amount of free storage space if you take Microsoft by the word that they increase the Windows Live Hotmail storage space automatically if the limit of 5000 Megabytes is reached (update no longer true).
Take a look at the following chart to see how the three email providers compare.
The chart should be up to date. If you spot an error let me know and I fix it asap.
Update: Below is an updated chart (as of March 2017).
| Feature | Gmail | Outlook.com | Yahoo Mail |
| storage space | 15 GB | 15 GB | 1 TB |
| additional storage | yes, paid | yes, paid | no |
| message limits | 50 MB, Google Drive for larger files | 25 MB (option to add storage accounts) | 25 MB (100 MB attach large files feature) |
| custom from address | yes | yes, paid only | yes, paid only |
| domain name customization | yes | yes, paid only | yes, paid only |
| access options | POP3, IMAP, WEB | POP, IMAP, WEB | POP, IMAP, WEB |
| ads | yes | yes | yes |
| virus scanning | yes | yes | yes |
| account expiration | no | 12 months | 12 months |
| mobile apps | Android, iOS | Android, iOS, Windows 10 | Android, iOS |
| remarks | crawls emails for ads | paid version, without ads, extra features | paid version, without ads, extra features |
Back to the original question: Which email provider are you using primarily and why? Here is my answer..
I mainly use email accounts that have been created for my web projects. I also use a Gmail account; Primarily because it is linked to other Google services that I need to use. I do have a Yahoo Mail and Microsoft Live Hotmail account but I barely use them. Mostly for services that require such an account.
You said that Outlook isn’t your main email client, so which is your main one?
I think its thunderbird
It is Mozilla Thunderbird.
Awesome! This actually solved my problem… what a stupid bug.
If this is the same bug that I’ve encountered, there may be another fix: (1) hover over open Outlook item in Taskbar, cursor up to hover over Outlook window item, and right-click; (2) this should give you Restore / Move / Size / Minimize / Maximize — choose Move or Size; (3) use your cursor keys, going arbitrarily N/S/E/W, to try to move or size the Outlook window back into view. Basically, the app behaves as though it were open in a 0x0 window, or at a location that’s offscreen, and this will frequently work to resize and/or move the window. Don’t forget to close while resized/moved, so that Outlook remembers the size/position for next time.
THANK YOU Claude!!! I could get the main window to launch but could not get any other message window to show on the desktop. You are my hero!!!!
Solved my issue! 6 years later and this is still problem…
Fantastic. Thank you. Size did the trick.
This solved my Outlook problem, too. Thank you. :)
Thank you so much, this started happening to me today and was causing big problems. You are a life saver, I hope I can help you in some way some day.
You are a god – thank you!
thanks a lot…. work like charm.. :-)
Yah…thanks Claude. I’ve been having the same problem and tried all the suggestions…your solution was the answer. It had resized itself to a 0/0 box. Cheers
Excellent post. This had me baffled even trying to accurately describe the problem. This fixed it for me.
Thank you
Thanks a lot for the article. Don’t know why it happenend, don’t know how it got fixed, but it was really annoying and now it works :-)
Thanks a lot. I was facing this issue from past 3 week. I tried everything but no resolution. The issue was happening intermittently and mainly when I was changing the display of screen ( as i use 2 monitors). The only option i had was to do system restore. But thanks to you.
I’ve been tried to sole this problem for 12hours. Your comment about changing the display of screen helped me a lot!! Thanks!!
Thank you…don’t know why this happened but your instructions helped me fix it. Running Windows 10 and office pro 2007
Great tip! Thanks!
Worked for me, too – thank you!!!
It’s Worked for me, too
thank you very much!
I had a similar issue with Outlook 2013 on Windows 10 and this helped me to fix it. Thank you very much!
Thank you so much. Solved!
Considering you published this in 2012, incredible not been debugged by Microsoft.
Thank you again. M
This problem was faced by only one user logging to TS 2008 r2 using outlook 2010.The issue was resolved.
Thanks.
Great tip. Thank you!!!! If it helps, I had to use the Control Key and the arrow keys at the same time to bring my window back into view. Worked like a charm.
Thank you, this worked !!!!
Man, you are a fucking god. Thanks a lot, what an annoying bug!!
Awesome, this post solved the issue. Many thanks!