While the Tabs feature isn’t used by everyone, it’s still a factor you need to keep in mind when planning for better deliverability. About half of Gmail users (53.3%) use Tabs to sort their mail, and the other half leave their mail unsorted.
In both mobile and desktop formats, users can choose to enable or disable the Tabs feature. 76.3% of our American respondents use it, and its lowest showing in Europe was a 52.9% share in Germany – still over half of respondents. As we’ve mentioned, a whopping 65.3% of global email users use Gmail, and it’s the leading client across all of our surveyed countries. Unsurprisingly, the ubiquitous Gmail is still the king of the email clients (you may even have it pulled up via app or browser right now). Let’s explore how each email client displays mail, and look at a few tips for sending to each. While the main email clients have many similarities, it’s important to remember that they all have differences in layout and message rendering that can affect your emails. You might be wondering: Does it really matter whether or not you follow certain practices for each email client? After all, they’re mostly the same, right? What to remember when sending to the main email clients Okay, now that we all know a little more about general email usage, let’s take a look at the top three email providers, how they organize mail, and some best practices for each. If you’re sending to European countries, you won’t find many Yahoo addresses in your lists: Yahoo is a distant third in all European countries, with a single-digit presence in each location. It’s third in Germany (12.6%), just behind Germany’s Web.de client. In Europe, Outlook is the more popular second choice in France, Spain, and the UK (with 19.7%, 20%, and 30.6% of users respectively). Outlook takes a healthy third place (6.5%), and Comcast is last with a barely-there 0.7% of users. In the United States, Yahoo is the second-choice option for personal emails (14.2% of users). When it comes to second-choice providers, different locations had different favorites. On the other hand, it’s least popular in Germany, capturing “only” 52.9% of users. 76.3% of American respondents and 74.6% of Spanish respondents reported using Gmail. It’s most popular in the United States (its country of origin, so not too surprising) and Spain. Our research revealed that, overall, Gmail remained the most popular email client – 65.3% of our global respondents reported using it. This means that, when sending, you should be aware of which providers your audience is using the most. The popularity of email clients and platforms differs by location, and many people have more than one email address. However, there are useful trends that offer us insight into global user habits. Like most things email, there is no one-size-fits-all answer (i.e., everyone uses AOL Mail!) that we can pinpoint. To begin our email client journey, let’s take a look at the most popular email clients and platforms. The most popular email clients and platforms of 2021