Microsoft is providing its 16-year-old Web-email service a total overhaul and a brand-new name. And the results are impressive.

Beginning this week, it will certainly be called Outlook.com. This is part of a new Microsoft technique to utilize “ Outlook ” as the name for all its e-mail providings.

I ’ ve been utilizing a pre-release version of this brand-new e-mail service for the past 7 days and it consists of dozens of smart characteristics that streamline the otherwise-exasperating process of handling your e-mail inbox. Instances include optional one-click set clean-ups of mail that erase all however the last message you got from an individual; a safe, built-in means to unsubscribe from newsletters; and uncomplicated methods for creating e-mail sorting guidelines for new and old messages. I cut the number of e-mails in my inbox in half after the first day of making use of Outlook.com.

The new Web-email service additionally integrates social networks like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, showing profile photos and status updates alongside e-mail messages. And yes, you ’ ll have the possibility of getting a new, @Outlook.com address, though you can easily additionally decide to stick with your @hotmail.com address. Though Hotmail is still the leading Web email service world-wide with over 325 million individuals, according to comScore Inc., Yahoo and Google ’ s Gmail prevail over in the U.S.

The address book in Microsoft ’ s brand-new Outlook.com shows individuals ’ s photos with their names.

This is merely one of many dramatic moves at Microsoft this summer time. The company is readying for the large fall launch of Windows 8, which will historically meld the pc COMPUTER and tablet operating systems in one spot. It even simply announced a brand-new variation of Office 2013, which updates the computer software program to work smarter with the Web. If that wasn ’ t enough, in June the company revealed its forthcoming iPad challenger, Area, which favors Apple ’ s style of creating and manufacturing hardware in lieu of Microsoft ’ s conventional software-only philosophy.

Not all of the attributes in Outlook.com will work as you anticipate. Just half of my email contacts ’ names appeared with profile pics instantly pulled in from Facebook. This was due to the fact that those friends either weren ’ t on Facebook or had actually signed up for Facebook with an e-mail beyond the one they were making use of to communicate with me. I only saw a couple pals ’ Twitter updates. Facebook chat is additionally developed in, but I rarely use this.

When Outlook.com ’ s automatic linking to social networks did work, the result was sensational. Dull, text-only contact names were unexpectedly enhanced by pics, some from people I didn ’ t understand were on Facebook.

I didn ’ t have to leave email to see my good friends ’ most current standing updates. I can click a thumbs-up icon to “ like ” the status right in Outlook.com, or click a word bubble to comment, though this sent me off to Facebook.com. If somebody was subscribed on Facebook but we weren ’ t pals, I saw that individual ’ s profile photo and a link to include the person as a pal. I did this with one of my longtime tennis teammates.

The general appearance of Outlook.com is much cleaner and more refined contrasted to Hotmail. Fonts are larger and easier to check out, and it has built-in, spirited animations that made me wish to deliver emails: Each time I hit Send, the whole message appeared to instantly shrink and be sent off away from me.

Instead of cramming Mail, Individuals, Calendar and SkyDrive (Microsoft ’ s cloud storage space service) into one screen, Outlook.com lets you toggle between these groups using four huge tiles. And these tiles just appear when you tap a drop-down arrow, so they don ’ t take up space on your screen.

The old Hotmail did a wonderful job managing pics. Outlook.com takes that an action further by seamlessly integrating SkyDrive. When I connected images to e-mails, a message appeared in the composing screen prompting me to, as an alternative, share the pics using SkyDrive, which delivers thumbnail pictures in emails and links friends to the Internet to see actual images, rather than plugging my friends ’ inboxes with big accessories.

Also in this email-composing screen, I could name the brand-new SkyDrive folder that would certainly hold my pics. People who obtained these emails were pleased, like my sister, who stated it was simple to scroll with images– and she enjoyed that there wasn ’ t a challenging sign-in.

Outlook.com sends thumbnail pictures in emails and links friends to the Web to see actual images.

However what if you make use of another Web mail service and all of your pals already know that address and email you there? Outlook.com is only too pleased to import your contacts from additional services, and it supplies a way to receive email from additional accounts. You can easily also deliver mail from Outlook.com on part of your other accounts, like Gmail. Outlook.com is technically in a “ preview ” phase, but Microsoft stated it will certainly take out the “ on account of ” later this year and merely send emails as if they were from your other account.

Outlook.com doesn ’ t have a wise way of immediately categorizing important e-mails, like Google ’ s Gmail Top priority Inbox, which is my favorite feature in Gmail.

Microsoft ’ s brand-new Outlook.com looks classy and has an extremely user-friendly interface. If you ’ re overwhelmed by a chaotic inbox, want a far better method to sort emails or require a much simpler method to share images and information, Outlook.com is a winner.

Compose to Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com

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