Features of Outlook.com

   Just like other mail services, Outlook .com uses Ajax programming and supports various browsers. It also allows keyboard controls that can help users navigate around the mailbox without the inconvenience of using a mouse. For  more techsavvy users, query syntaxes help retrieve search indexes, apply message filters, organize mails by folder and sender and prompt of e-mail addresses while typing.  Now users can export contacts to CSV files, rich text formatting, make rich text signatures, scan for spam and viruses and use the mailbox in different languages.

Privacy and Security

   Outlook.com wanted to challenge privacy settings and hence doesn’t scan users’ attachments and use them for advertisement purposes, unlike gmail. E-mails are safe and personal conversations are ad-free. This is a great relief to those who get annoyed by gmail’s constant ads with information taken from user e-mails. DMARC specifications are used to provide better security and transmissions happen using the Extended Validation Certificate. Now, Microsoft has added a two step validation to make it more secure.

App Integration

   Outlook.com now integrates the mailbox with Office Web Apps to allow viewing and editing important applications such as Microsoft Word, Powerpoint and Excel. This feature can be applied to documents that are attached in the E-mail messages. SkyDrive can be used to save these documents and they can be directly sent to senders. SkyDrive lets Outlook.com users to save documents upto 25 GB at 50 MB each. These documents can be shared between other outlook.com users. This feature is similar to that of Google Docs.

Sweep and Filters

   Outlook.com offers a ‘virtual broom’ that allows users to delete or move large number of conversations into any folder based on the sender’s information. Once the sweep occurs, users can save the settings so that each time the particular sender’s e-mail goes directly to a particular folder. Custom sweep rules can be set up using not only sender’s or recipient’s information, also subject and attachments in the mail. Outlook.com also features a one-click filter, which allows users to filter all e-mails based on various rules, whether they are unread, from People Service list, from mailing lists or Windows Live groups. Categories will be formed for quick views so users can access these groups of filtered mail easily.

Categories and Quick Views

   Users can set up different labels to create categories and using quick view, access them easily. Multiple categories can be selected for each piece of e-mail and new ones can be created now and then, when the user wishes so.

Instant Messaging and Skype Integration

    Users can send IMs to other contacts and also make Skype calls. The Skype calls can be made within outlook.com using the Skype desktop client.