Comparison

Microsoft Outlook vs Mail

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Microsoft Outlook

Consolidate all your email accounts and calendars into one streamlined application. Manage your inbox, schedule meetings, and access files from various cloud services. Enhance productivity with AI-powered writing assistance and smart inbox features.

Highlights
  • Unified inbox for multiple email accounts
  • Smart inbox sorting
  • Quick swipe actions
  • Meeting scheduling and availability sharing
  • File access from cloud storage
  • AI-powered email summarization and drafting
  • Editing of Office documents
Features
Read full description

Outlook lets you bring all your email accounts and calendars in one convenient spot. Whether it’s staying on top of your inbox or scheduling the next big thing, we make it easy to be your most productive, organised and connected self. Here's what you'll love about Outlook for iOS: - Focus on the right things with our smart inbox - we help you sort between messages you need to act on straight away and everything else. - Swipe to quickly schedule, delete and archive messages. - Share your meeting availability with just a tap and easily find times to meet with others. - Find everything you're looking for, including files, contacts, and your forthcoming trips. - View and attach any file from your email, OneDrive, Dropbox, and more, without having to download them to your phone. - Open Word, Excel, or PowerPoint attachments to edit them directly in the corresponding app and attach them back to an email. - Recap extra-long email threads in an instant with Summarise with Copilot* - Type a few words to have Copilot* jump-start your writing with an outline or draft - Before sending off your email, use Coaching with Copilot* to get tips and suggestions that help improve the overall tone, sentiment, and clarity *Microsoft 365 Personal/Family subscription or business account enabled with Copilot required to use Copilot features -- Outlook for iOS works with Microsoft Exchange, Office 365, Outlook.com (including Hotmail and MSN), Gmail, Yahoo Email, and iCloud. -- To make an in-app purchase of a Microsoft 365 Family or Personal subscription, open the app, go to Settings, and tap on Upgrade next to your Outlook.com or Hotmail.com account. Subscriptions begin at $6.99 a month in the US, and can vary by region. With a Microsoft 365 subscription, you get 1TB of storage for each user, access to all features in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, and you can install Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote on PCs or Macs. Microsoft 365 subscriptions purchased from the app will be charged to your iTunes account and will automatically renew within 24 hours prior to the end of the current subscription period, unless auto-renewal is disabled beforehand. To manage your subscriptions or to disable auto-renewal, after purchase, go to your iTunes account settings. A subscription cannot be cancelled during the active subscription period. Any unused portion of a free trial period, if offered will be forfeited when the user purchases a subscription to that publication, where applicable. Privacy and Cookies: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=521839 Terms of Use: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=530144 Contract Summary: https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-365/outlook/contract-summary Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2259814

About

Mail

Consolidate all your email accounts into a single, organized inbox. Prioritize important messages, quickly respond with smart replies, and manage your inbox efficiently with features like scheduling and snoozing. Enjoy enhanced privacy with IP address hiding and read receipt prevention.

Highlights
  • Unified inbox for multiple accounts
  • Automatic message categorization
  • Priority Messages and summarization
  • Schedule send, snooze, and unsend emails
  • Smart Reply for quick responses
  • Mail Privacy Protection
Features
Read full description

Access, view and manage messages from all your email accounts in one place. Categorize your messages into easy to browse categories. Catch up on email easily with Apple Intelligence powered Priority Messages and summarizations. Manage your inbox by scheduling emails to send later, snoozing emails you want to get back to later and unsend an email in one tap. Features • Access email from iCloud, Gmail, Exchange, Yahoo, and Outlook as well as many other email providers - all in one place. • View all of your accounts in a single inbox, choose a specific mailbox or filter to see just Unread or Flagged messages. • Automatically organize your messages in to Primary, Transactions, Updates and Promotions categories and focus on the messages that matter most. • Stay on top of emails with Priority Messages, a new section at the top of your inbox that shows urgent emails. • Use Smart Reply to quickly respond to messages with a few taps. • Catch up on email quickly with summarization of messages and threads. • Find messages by sender, recipient or subject. Top hits make it easy to find what you’re looking for. • Manage your inbox by blocking a sender or muting notifications from an overly active thread. • Flag important contacts as VIPs to receive notifications when their emails arrive. • Triage email messages using swipe gestures that help you quickly archive, delete, flag, or mark messages as read or unread. • Use Mail Drop to send large attachments from any account through iCloud. • Hide your IP address with Mail Privacy Protection so senders can’t link it to your other online activity or determine your locations, and prevent senders from seeing if you’ve opened their email. • App Keywords (do not to exceed 70 characters): Mail, email, email app, productivity email, intelligent email

Screenshots

Microsoft Outlook4 screens
Mail3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Mail at none against Microsoft Outlook's 4. Mail also leads on ads (none vs shown) and device support (5 vs 3). Microsoft Outlook's advantage is review sentiment (64% vs 34%) and update cadence (weekly vs every 11 months). On price and ratings volume there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Microsoft Outlook sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. Mail asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Microsoft Outlook holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.6. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 9.3M and 4.4M respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 64% of Microsoft Outlook's written reviews are positive against 34% of Mail's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Microsoft Outlook ships an update weekly, Mail every 11 months. Both last shipped on September 24, 2026.

Scorecard9 real differences · 2 level
Microsoft Outlook versus Mail: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterMicrosoft OutlookMail
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.8 (9.3M ratings) — better4.6 (4.4M ratings)
Positive reviews64.4% of reviews — better33.9% of reviews
Number of ratings9.3M — better4.4M
Update frequencyWeekly — betterEvery 11 months
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
Best chart rank#12 — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Apple WatchiPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch, Vision Pro — better
Requires iOS26.010.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size464 MB8 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperMicrosoft CorporationApple

Customer experience

Microsoft Outlook

All ratings9,258,706 ratings
Positive96.6%
Neutral2.5%
Negative0.9%
Written reviews7,248 reviews
Positive64.4%
Neutral7.9%
Negative27.7%

Mail

All ratings4,444,576 ratings
Positive90.8%
Neutral2.7%
Negative6.5%
Written reviews8,358 reviews
Positive33.9%
Neutral8.1%
Negative58.0%

User reviews

Microsoft Outlook

From 9.3M App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Great for corporate email
  • 👍 Customizable and user-friendly
  • 🚀 Seamless integration with Microsoft 365
  • 👍 Solid email and calendar functionality

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Buggy and unstable at times
  • 🔋 High battery consumption
  • 🔒 Security issues with password resets
  • 👎 Limited file attachment options

Mail

From 4.4M App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Efficient email management
  • 🔒 Secure and private
  • 👍 Simple and intuitive interface
  • 💡 Useful categorization of emails

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Inconsistent swipe gestures
  • 🐛 Unreliable search function
  • 🐛 Emails disappearing or not syncing properly
  • 🐛 Slow email download and loading times
  • 🐛 Buggy performance after updates

Bugs and requests

Microsoft Outlook

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Frequent crashes when adding accounts
  • Delayed email notifications and syncing issues
  • Inability to delete emails in bulk
  • Calendar reminders not working as expected

Requested features

4 requests
  • Dark mode option
  • Improved search and filtering capabilities
  • Better integration with native iOS apps and services
  • Enhanced calendar management features

Mail

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Emails not downloading from server
  • Inconsistent behavior when deleting emails
  • Notifications not working as expected
  • Drafts and sent emails disappearing

Requested features

4 requests
  • Add snooze functionality
  • Improve email organization and filtering options
  • Provide more customization options
  • Integrate better with other Apple apps and services

In-app purchases

4 purchases

Microsoft Outlook

Subscriptions4
  • Microsoft 365 Basic$1.991 Month
  • Microsoft 365 Personal$9.991 Month
  • Microsoft 365 Family$12.991 Month
Show 1 more
  • Microsoft Copilot Pro$20.001 Month
None

Mail

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Microsoft Outlook free?
Microsoft Outlook is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Mail free?
Mail is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Microsoft Outlook or Mail?
Microsoft Outlook is rated higher. Microsoft Outlook averages 4.8 out of 5 from 9.3M ratings, while Mail averages 4.6 from 4.4M ratings.
Do Microsoft Outlook or Mail have ads?
Microsoft Outlook shows ads; Mail does not.
Which is updated more often, Microsoft Outlook or Mail?
Microsoft Outlook ships an update weekly, and Mail every 11 months. Most recently, Microsoft Outlook was updated on September 24, 2026 and Mail on September 24, 2026.

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