Gmail and Outlook are two of the biggest names in the world of email. Tens of millions of people use one or the other of them, and millions of us use both. If you are one of those millions of Gmail and Outlook users, or if you are an Outlook user who wants an additional free email account for some reason, you should seriously consider setting up what I call the Gmail Outlook connection.

It is easy to configure Outlook for Gmail access, and once you do, you'll save time and effort by getting all your email in one place. Working with your mail in two separate places seems so old-fashioned when you can do everything right inside Outlook.

Gmail is the free email service from Google. As of October, 2011, Gmail provides over 7.6GB of storage to each Gmail account. That's enough for many thousands of messages. In addition, it gives you Google-style searching of messages, and the ability to group your messages by conversation, or view them chronologically. Gmail is a quality service and one of the most popular in the world.

As I mentioned already, Gmail is free. The service is supported by ads. These ads appear on the page when you read your messages using the Gmail web interface. But when you set up your Gmail Outlook connection, you read (and write) your Gmail messages in Outlook. You don't see the ads at all. This is definitely the way to go.

Another great thing about using Gmail with Outlook is that you get to take advantage of Outlook's powerful mail handling and personal information management tools. Life can only become easier and more efficient when you can manage your messages and personal information all in one place.

Of course, we also shouldn't forget that using Gmail and Outlook together is free. Unlike some other services, you don't need to pay a monthly or yearly fee to be able to see your Gmail in Outlook.

Gmail is also reliable. I've been using Gmail accounts, including ones connected to Outlook, for years now, with no significant issues at all. The mail comes in, the mail goes out. Everything works just as you would expect it to, with no unexplained outages or lost messages like some other services are know for.

Before we wrap up, I want to clear up one more thing. I teach people how to use Outlook, and there is a common misunderstanding out there. Many people believe (or at least fear) that you can only use one email account with Outlook, and that adding a Gmail account will somehow mess up their existing account.

That's just not the case. The copy of Outlook 2007 running on one of the computers in my lab has 8 email accounts connected to it, including 3 Gmail accounts! Outlook is designed to work with multiple accounts simultaneously, and will have no trouble handling your Gmail account on top of whatever else you are doing with it.

In short, Gmail is a great service and works great with Outlook. Now all you need is instructions that tell you how to configure Outlook for Gmail (and how to get a Gmail account if you need one). I've provided you with links to well-tested directions on doing exactly that. I urge you to set up your Gmail Outlook connection right now.