It’s really easy to complain about webmail. After all, no email is perfect. However it’s rare that anyone says anything good about it, and said honestly it really is. Here are some of the better features of the major webmail providers out there. Who knows? There might be features mentioned here in the webmail you use below you didn’t even know about.

Gmail

Moving conversations

The 8 dots to the left of each conversation when in list view can be grabbed with the mouse and moved vertically anywhere in the list. Only Gmail does this, and it’s great.

Works in 800×600 window

It genuinely impresses me that Gmail can be used in a window this small. This is an advantage to both small-screen and big-screen users. Small-screeners can easily use Gmail with large fonts without fear of horizontal scroll, and big-screeners can resize browser windows to smaller apps to fit more on their screens.

Excellent color coding to know where you are easily

A good color scheme can sometimes make all the difference, and Gmail has this down to a science. Things like Search Options and Settings are distinctively colored so you’re never confused where you are in the system when using those features.

Hotmail

Quick Views, Shipping updates

Every email should have this. When Hotmail sees an update from FedEx, UPS, other carrier in an email, you have super-quick access to it with just one click. Fantastic feature.

Phishing scam option

This is an extra level of control when it comes to spam, and it’s a good one. Marking junk mail that arrives in your inbox as spam as good, but marking as phishing scam is even better because it allows MIcrosoft’s Hotmail team to better study phishing scam patterns and deal with them appropriately.

From Bing

Bing is a great web service packed with tons of useful stuff. With the tight integration of Bing into Hotmail, it’s easy to email things to others that are actually, y’know, useful, such as map locations, images from search and so on. This allows you to include content that would otherwise force you out of your webmail into another tab temporarily just to get it.

Yahoo! Mail

Best way to SMS from email, period

When you want to send a quick text message to a friend or family member’s phone, Yahoo! Mail does this in fine style and in addition is ridiculously easy to use.

It even counts the characters while typing so you never send too much text in a single message:

Apps that are actually useful

When it comes to apps and email, Yahoo! has tight integration with major service providers for things you would actually use.

Spell checker on steroids

Available in Yahoo! Mail Beta, this is the type of spell check options you’d expect to see in Microsoft Word – but it’s directly integrated into Y! Mail. (Note the easy scrolling and English (CA), which Gmail doesn’t have.)

AOL Project Phoenix

Delete or reply to a message with one click from any message list

To the best of my knowledge, only Project Phoenix has this, and I’m surprised didn’t happen in webmail sooner. One click to reply or delete. Very convenient.

Compose new email direct from tab

Nobody does webmail tabs better than Project Phoenix, and this seemingly insignificant way of composing a new message becomes very significant when you find you start using it all the time.

Arrow navigation done right

This is another feature that’s easy to miss but is actually very good. When looking at a message list, the order of buttons from left to right is first page, previous page, next page, last page. It’s very cool that it’s above the message list (meaning not slammed to the right or left) for easy access, and the symbols make perfect sense as to what they do without the need for text labels. If for whatever reason you forgot what they do, just hover over the button with your mouse and a small tooltip message appears explaining the function.

In.com Mail

This one deserves a mention because it has a feature none of the other majors do:

Future Mail

This is yet another example of a feature that should be in every webmail. It is a true mail scheduler.

When composing a message, you have this option:

On click of that button, it does this:

The only other ways to get this capability in your email is by either by using Send Later for the Mozilla Thunderbird email client or using the full paid version of Microsoft Outlook. Future Mail is one seriously awesome feature, and only In.com mail has it for webmail.

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