Microsoft Outlook.com service hits 25 million active users

Microsoft revealed on its Outlook Blog that the new Outlook.com launched in July has hit a new milestone by reaching 25 million active users. The software giant claims its new e-mail service among Gmail users, Microsoft says a third of Outlook.com users are active Gmail users trying Outlook.com for the first time. Microsoft commissioned a study to discover how well Gmail users like Outlook.com and found that after spending just five days with it, four out of five Gmail users said they would switch to Outlook.com.

We asked the Gmail users to sign-up for Outlook.com addresses, forward email from Gmail to Outlook.com, and try Outlook.com's best features. The Gmail users loved it. Specifically, they shared the following opinions with us:

They prefer Outlook.com's clean user design

Outlook.com does a better job of blocking spam and it outperforms Gmail when it comes to helping manage unwanted messages like newsletters and daily deals

Outlook.com makes it easier to share photos and Office documents

The best part was, after spending just five days with it, 4 out of 5 of these Gmail users said they would switch to Outlook.com.

As millions of people have made the switch to Outlook.com, they've told us about the features that made the transition easier:

Keyboard Shortcuts: customers can choose to set up keyboard shortcuts in Outlook.com to mirror the shortcuts in the Outlook desktop app, Gmail and others.

Quick access to search operators: quickly find mail by clicking "/" and then using "To:", "Subj:", etc.

Tab/Send: rapidly send messages by clicking the "tab" key from the compose window to automatically shifts focus to the "Send" button

Conversation threading: you can also optionally turn on conversation threading (i.e. the ability to see all responses in a conversation via just one view).

Over the news couple of weeks, Microsoft will add new features to Outlook.com including more keyboard shortcuts, one-click archiving, and a higher level of customization. Also new is an updated Outlook app for Android.