I stumble upon this topic and couldn't resist writing an answer.

My name is Daniel, and I am CEO of email startup. But I don't want to promote here, let me just tell you how I email.

I receive more than 150 messages every day and I have to reply to most of them. It's tedious. If I open email only once or twice a day I will miss too much information and I can't afford that as a CEO. So I check email whenever I can and manage it on the go. I snooze it, set reminders, archive, delete or reply on the spot if I can.

I am often in meetings or on the way, and I don't have laptop with me. But I have my phone and I can say that I email from my phone more than from my laptop. I use Gmail web interface when I am at my laptop though. Hate Outlook and Microsoft stuff.

One great thing (and bad thing) is that email is de-facto standard for business correspondence. And it has some rules, like say hi, compost long sentences, and have a signature. I hate those rules and hope they change in the coming years to resemble normal messaging (like WhatsApp). I try to stay sharp and reply in 5 sentences or less. I even wrote a blogpost about best rules for email if you want to improve your productivity.

I've been working in email field for many years now and know almost everything about human behavior, best practices and worst cases. Just ask away if you need any tips or want to know how many emails are sent everyday (190 billion emails of non-spam btw).

PS - if that post helped you, take a look at email client we created to help business people be more effective with email - Mailburn. Thanks.

I also use gmail, Outlook is just too weird, although that account is my social/online email and the gmail is the one I use for friends and family.

I had no idea 190 billion emails were sent in a day, that's insane.

I have all my mail fused into a single gmail inbox - normally/historically I'd keep work mail separate, but no point in my particular situation. My gmail tab is permanently open, and pops up desktop notifications. That's basically all there is to it. I don't get enough day-to-day email traffic to do more than auto-assign labels and auto-archive some mailing list stuff.

As far as security and privacy goes, I would love to be off the grid and on private encrypted channels only, without government and Google looming. Unfortunately it's not realistic at this point in time, so I'm conscious of what I write in emails in the case that these things are ever leaked/stolen/spied on.

I have all my mail fused into a single gmail inbox - normally/historically I'd keep work mail separate, but no point in my particular situation. My gmail tab is permanently open, and pops up desktop notifications. That's basically all there is to it. I don't get enough day-to-day email traffic to do more than auto-assign labels and auto-archive some mailing list stuff.

Even though Outlook is historically is the most exploited Email program by malware, folks STILL use it ?

What do you use to read and write emails? Firefox client

Do you check for emails every now and then or do you keep a client open for instant notification? Every 24 hours unless something important is happening.

Do you use an email client or a web service (which client/service)? For security I use pure web based applications.

Do you care about google reading your emails (even business ones) when you use gmail? Every email site "reads" your email .

What's your favorite device for your email needs? Firefox client

Well, the most used is obviously the most exploited one.

I always have my email client open, and check every now and then. I do use the company phone sometimes to check for emails, but usually only answer from my work PC.

Typing text on any touch phone is teh crap.

I don't have a smart phone :(

I have recently become convinced that email belongs in the web (for a PC user at least). Like Promit said, having a tab open and receiving desktop popup notification is practical enough for most cases. GMail is the standard, but I just don't feel comfortable with google trying to know everything about me - they already know what I search for and what I watch on youtube. As mentioned earlier, it probably wouldn't make much practical difference if they can read my emails; I already know extra sensitive and private things don't belong in emails, but I can't help but want to stay away from google whenever possible.

Outlook.com (not outlook the application) is an alternative. Microsoft basically says they care about our privacy more than google, but outlook.com works with external email accounts (like the ones on my domain) in a suboptimal way if my understanding is correct: you'll have to set your accounts to forward all received emails to your outlook inbox instead of outlook checking for messages itself. Also, I've noticed outlook.com failing to display emails correctly (or at all) on a few occasions.

I'm still researching for the best solution, although I'm starting to feel I should just pick something and go with it as long as it works and stop making a big deal out of the small inconveniences.

Outlook is a standard because people are stuck with Microsoft ecosystem. And they work in those industries that are less advanced than IT - hence they are slow to change. And I know people who still use Lotus Notes lol.

Google will always spy on you because they don't make money on email. They money on advertising and this is why they need to know what you email about and that will never change.

I confess, on Windows 8.1 I'm using the Mail application to handle multiple addresses (gmail, hotmail+outlook, my isp mail, my uni mail which is actually mapped to gmail..)

I still do not like office outlook, maybe I'll give it a try with the next office since they are gonna to fix the color of the gui at least... (or I hope that).