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Email Thread: What Is It & Best Practices
Blog →
by
Ludovic Armand
October 27, 2022
· Updated on
February 14, 2025
You’re probably already familiar with the concept of an email thread or email chain. They certainly have been part of your email inbox at some point, or maybe you still use them for your business communication.
Email threading allows you to trace the history of your emails easily, but it comes with certain disadvantages.
In this blog, we’ll look at email threads' advantages and disadvantages, unspoken email etiquette around email chains, and how you can use Missive to take advantage of the future of email conversations.
An email thread is the chain of messages and replies between you and other people, grouped together in a conversation. When you click "Reply" to a message, your new message is added to the end of the thread so that everyone can follow the conversation.
This way, you can see the whole conversation that has taken place between you and other people. Unless someone is removed from the copy, all recipients will receive all the group messages with their replies.
Email thread replies are typically arranged in chronological order starting from the first reply to the most recent one. This arrangement is helpful for recipients who are following the conversation because it’s organized the discussion in a simple structure.
Email threading can be helpful when you need to refer to a previous conversation.
With email threading enabled in your email client, all replies will automatically use the "RE:" preposition in the subject line and will be grouped in one discussion.
An email thread can be extremely beneficial in several ways for your business communications. Here are some reasons why email threading can be helpful:
First, email chains can help reduce the amount of time you spend managing your inbox. By keeping all messages in one place, you can quickly scan through a thread and get the information you need without having to search through your entire inbox.
A conversation view can help improve communication with your team. By using a group email, you can avoid miscommunication and ensure that everyone is on the same page.
Email threads allow you to keep track of an entire conversation in one place by organizing related emails into one group. This can be very helpful when trying to resolve an issue or follow up on a task.
While an email thread can be a helpful way to keep track of related messages, it can also have some drawbacks. Here are some of the disadvantages of email threading:
It can be difficult to follow a thread if it gets too long or if there are too many messages in it. When email threading is enabled, each reply to an email is grouped with the original email and any previous replies.
Additionally, if you delete an email in a thread, it can delete all emails in the thread, which can be frustrating if you only wanted to delete one email.
When an email thread is shared with both people from your organization and people externally, there are high risk of sharing internal communication with the people in the thread outside of your organization.
This happens when people communicate internally about a specific thread and forget to remove the external recipients from the message.
Some email providers do not support email threading, which can make it difficult to keep track of conversations if you switch between providers. If you’re using an email provider that does not support email threading.
Some recipients of email threads may receive irrelevant emails. This is because when someone replies to an email thread, everyone who was originally included in the thread will receive the reply.
This can be a problem if the original email was not relevant to everyone in the conversation or if the reply is not for all the recipients of the emails and is only for internal communication.
Now that we covered the advantages and disadvantages of email chains, here are some unspoken rules to maintain proper "reply all" etiquette.
Email threads are great for a historical log of decision making, it is not good for discussion and even worse for discussion that doesn't involve or require the entire group. By doing the latter, you are stealing attention and time from everyone who has to open that email.
This is obvious but often forgotten, so we wanted to remind you explicitly. Sensitive or private information should always be sent as a separate individual email.
Missive is a collaboration tool for teams built around emails. It’s a great way to communicate with your team and collaborate on emails and other types of communication mediums.
With Missive, you can take advantage of the best email threading practices to make while avoiding all its disadvantages. It’s easy to collaborate and discuss with your team members privately in an email thread with people from outside your organization.
Communications with your colleagues are sent as chat messages directly in the conversation with the emails. It ensures that you don’t send confidential information accidentally to the wrong people.
This way there is no data leak possible, internal communication happens via chat messages, and external communication happens via emails.
Missive also lets you easily share emails with other team members without having to send them a copy of the email. You can either link to an email in a new conversation, mention them in a chat inside the email conversation, or assign a team or someone personally.
Best of all, you can merge all types of messages in one conversation, let it be emails, chats, SMS, social media messages, call logs, voicemail, etc.
The most popular email clients support email threads and enable them by default. However, here’s how to activate it in the most popular email clients:
By default, Email threading is enabled in Google’s email client. Here’s how to manage email thread setting in Gmail.
Email thread is turned on by default in Microsoft’s email client. Here’s how to manage email thread settings in Outlook.
Email thread is turned on by default on Apple’s email client. Here’s how to manage email thread setting in Apple Mail.
In Missive, email threading is always on. As a collaborative app, we think that threading is part of the core experience. However, we do offer an alternative for people who prefer each email to have its conversation.
You can move an email out of its original conversation and into a new one with just one click. This is a great way to keep important emails separate from the rest of the conversation, which can be noisy and overwhelming.
If you decide that you prefer to stick with email threads for your professional discussions, no worries.
Here are a few etiquettes in mind to keep email threads effective.
First, always include a clear and concise subject line that accurately reflects the content of the email. This will help recipients quickly understand what the email is about and whether or not they need to read it.
Even if this rule doesn’t only apply to email strings, it is really important in a thread to be sure the subject line accurately reflects the content of the conversation.
When using a thread to reply to messages, always make sure to stay on topic. If the conversation veers off course, start a new email thread. This will help to keep the discussion focused and avoid getting lost in the messages when trying to follow the conversation.
Email threads are a great way to communicate in emails and organize replies in a nice and sorted conversation. However, if an email thread becomes too long or convoluted, consider moving the discussion to another medium, such as a phone call or in-person meeting.
Emails are not a chat. Other tools like Missive will be best suited for chatting and exchanging with your colleagues.
An email thread can quickly become confusing if people are not clear about what they are replying to. When replying to an email, always include a reference to the original message so that the recipient knows which part of the conversation you are replying to.
If the original message is no longer visible in the thread, quote it in your reply so that everyone can see what you are referring to. This will help to keep the conversation flowing smoothly and prevent misunderstandings.
Threads can quickly become confusing and difficult to follow when too many people are in CC (carbon copy) or BCC (blind carbon copy).
Only use cc and bcc when absolutely necessary to avoid overwhelming recipients and cluttering up the thread. When in doubt, it’s usually best to leave people off the cc or bcc list.
Email threading can be a useful tool, but it’s not for everyone. Some people prefer to keep their messages separate, and others find that email threading makes it harder to find the messages they’re looking for. Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide whether email threading is a helpful feature or a hindrance.
An email thread is a sequence of messages with the same subject organized into a conversation. When you reply to a message, the new message is added to the end of the thread.
You usually can "reply" or "reply all" in most email clients. The first option replies just to the form, and reply all replies to From + TO + CC.
To remove someone from an email thread simply remove their email address from the CC or BCC section of the email.
There’s no doubt that email threading is a convenient way to keep track of conversations, especially when multiple people are involved. But threads are actually a hindrance to productivity, as it can be difficult to follow a conversation. It also poses a security risk as it can be easy to accidentally share internal communication outside the organization.
With new tools, like Missive, that enable teams to collaborate outside the regular emails there is no doubt that a collaborative inbox will soon replace the traditional email thread.
March 25, 2025
Outlook vs Gmail for Business: Which is better?
Welcome to the great business email debate—Gmail or Outlook?
Welcome to the great business email debate—Gmail or Outlook?
Emails are the lifeblood of many businesses. They’re how people inquire about your services, it's how you communicate with clients and vendors, and maybe it's even how you communicate internally with your team.
We'll be doing an in-depth analysis of the two big email providers (Gmail vs Outlook). And give you the information you need to make a decision on which email service you'd like to build your communication system from.
We'll be going over:
There are two ways to create an email with Google.
You can either have a free, personal email address that ends in @gmail.com, with limited storage (15gb across your Google Suite), or you can pay for Google Workspace (Gmail for business) and create an email address with your business domain: @yourcompany.com, have more storage, and more admin/security controls over your email service.
The Google Workspace business plans vary:
Whether you have a Gmail account or a Google Workspace account, your inbox will look similar.
This is where Google shines. Their real-time collaborative documents were a game changer when they launched back in 2006 and has become the preferred tools for many organizations since.
When looking at Gmail's security measures for Google Workspace accounts, here are two that stand out:
Gmail uses TLS for email transit and has encryption at rest and in transit.
With over 1.8 billion Gmail users worldwide, there are some very well known issues and tradeoffs within the Gmail's functionality. Here are three common ones:
Like Gmail, Outlook is Microsoft's free, personal email service; Microsoft 365 is essentially Outlook for business, equivalent to Google Workspace.
Here's an overview of the Microsoft 365 plans (assuming an annual payment, as of April 1, 2025):
With thousands of enterprise customers, Outlook's security and privacy are tuned for those standards.
And just like Gmail, Outlook uses TLS encryption for email in transit. And data at rest is also encrypted.
As with most decisions in life, it depends.
Google Workspace is collaborative at its core, though its shared inbox and email automation options are more limited.
Microsoft Outlook is more robust in it's DNA overall, but can feel overly complex and lacking in modern design.
If your business prioritizes simplicity and collaboration with clients, team members, and vendors—I would err on the side of Gmail and Google Workspace.
If you work in a field with a lot of sensitive information (i.e. law, accounting, etc), then I would err on the side of Outlook and their very high standard for security controls.
Whether you choose Gmail or Outlook, there are some business email hygiene factors to follow:
Neither Outlook or Gmail was really designed for teams. They added on some lightweight features (shared mailboxes), but if you truly live in your inbox everyday, replying to clients, team members, and vendors—you'll want something designed specifically for team collaboration and shared inboxes.
That would be us—Missive!
Missive is an email client that sits on top of your chosen email service—whether that's Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo Mail, or Apple Mail.
It has all the features that are loved in Gmail and Outlook—labels, rules, snoozing, but supercharged with more functionality. Including AI powered rules that allow for auto-translation, auto-labeling, and so much more.
But don't just take our word for it, here's Arif, a lawyer and long time Outlook user, who recently signed up for Missive:
When I open Missive, I can hit Inbox Zero quickly. I never had that feeling with Outlook.
And here's Pat, a property manager and Gmail user, who recently signed up for Missive:
We’ve tried so many shared inbox solutions. Missive was unexpectedly powerful. Suddenly, we weren’t scrambling over lost emails or letting days slip by.
So whether you're Team Gmail for business or Team Outlook for business—you can try Missive today and get the best collaborative email client for businesses.
March 17, 2025
What Is the Best Email Client for Outlook? Our Top 6 Picks
Looking for the best email client for Outlook? We compare the top 6 Outlook alternatives based on collaboration, AI features, security, and pricing. Discover the best option for teams and individuals—whether you need shared inboxes, AI automation, or a unified email experience.
Email is the medium of business. It's how requests, deals, hires, are started and made.
Most businesses live in their inbox, whether they like it or not. And that inbox is likely an Outlook inbox — over 3.7 million companies use Microsoft Outlook for email management.
The are two main reasons for that:
However, like Word or Excel, Outlook was made mostly for enterprise solo use. It wasn't made for collaboration, even as the world of business and email moved towards needing more and more collaboration.
In 2025, several tools meet the security and control standards of Outlook while offering far more powerful inbox collaboration and coordination features suited for modern businesses.
We'll cover what to look for in an Outlook email client, introduce the six most popular third-party options, and break down their key differences.
All options have desktop and mobile email apps and support IMAP, MAPI, and POP3.
Plus, we'll cover a range of price points for the best Outlook alternatives—including ones that are free email clients.
Missive is a collaborative inbox for teams that run on email. This means it is designed with collaboration as a priority, featuring contextual in-email chat using @mentions—eliminating the need for forwarding.
You can assign or watch emails, and every action is logged—giving you visibility into emails and tracking who did what and when.
On top of that, Missive supports all email providers (Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, Apple Mail, etc) and you can have multiple accounts (personal and business).
Under the hood, Missive has a powerful automation engine, allowing you to do things like:
From a security perspective, Missive meets the same gold standard as Outlook. They have an SOC 2 Type II report, encryption of data at rest and in transit, and they are GDPR compliant.
For pricing, Missive plans start at $14/user/month on an annual plan.
One thing to note, if you use folders in Outlook, they are called labels in Missive.
In the same way that some teams prefer Google Docs to Word because of their collaboration functionality (commenting, multi-player drafting, etc) — you may prefer Missive as your email app to Outlook, if you find yourself hitting reply all and forward all the time.
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Thunderbird stands out as the only open-source email client.
It's a community-driven, free email client, that has been around for nearly two decades. With a thriving online community and an ecosystem of 1200+ add-ons (including AI-powered ones to help you draft replies), it's considered one of the best email apps for those prioritizing a free and open sourced solution.
If you're looking for an email client that has more collaboration functionality, Thunderbird's collaboration features come mostly from its third-party add-ons—things like mail merging and adding notes/comments to emails. Which makes collaboration possible, but likely a little unreliable given the nature of third-party connections failing from time to time.
From an organization perspective, Thunderbird calls their version of "folders", tags. Functionally, they are the same.
Thunderbird is a very privacy forward email app with built-in filters for phishing/spam and remote image blocking.
Though, it doesn't have the same compliance certifications (i.e. SOC or ISO) due to it's free and open-source nature.
Mailbird is for those of you who have way too many email accounts. It's known for it's unified inbox, where you're able to flow multiple accounts into the same consolidated inbox view.
Mailbird doesn't offer any features related to collaboration or coordination. It's more of a productivity improvement for Outlook power users who would like to integrate a few popular apps into their email workflow and see all emails in one place.
From an AI perspective, Mailbird offers simple AI drafting through ChatGPT.
Of all the Outlook alternatives on this list, Mailbird has the most similar user experience to Outlook—for example, their naming conversions are the same (folders are folders, and not labels or tags).
For security and compliance, Mailbird is only GDPR compliant and does not have any external audits or certifications.
For pricing, Mailbird has a free version as well as a premium version that's $4.99/user/month. There is also a pay once option to buy the product outright at $49.50 (standard) or $99.75 (premium).
If you manage multiple Outlook accounts and need a unified inbox for all your emails, Mailbird might be the perfect solution.
eM Client is a very similar email client to Mailbird. Most of their features are productivity focused for individuals—shortcuts, watch/snooze, configurable layout.
The most unique and powerful feature for eM Client is their search. Not only does the search cover all messages in your inbox, it can also search within certain types of attached files—think PDFs, Word docs, etc.
On the collaboration front, they don't have much beyond the ability to share folders (aka. labels), calendars, and accounts.
Like Mailbird, eM Client offers basic AI drafting to assist with typos and tone in your replies.
On security and compliance, eM Client is GDPR compliant (though possibly outdated with 2018 references) and does not have any external audits or certifications.
For pricing, eM Client has a sharp distinction between personal and business plans. There is a free plan for non-commercial use. The paid plans can be an annual subscription or a one-time payment.
The personal plan (without AI features) is $39.95/year or $49.95 as a one-time payment.
The business plan (with AI features) is $49.95/year or a one-time payment of $188.95.
Both one-time payment options do not include future feature updates. You can purchase lifetime upgrades separately at $90 per license.
If you're looking for a slightly more productive version of Outlook and you want a free email app because you're not using it for commercial purposes—then eM Client might be a good option.
If you're a Mac user and you really don't want to download another email client. Does the out-of-the-inbox (get it?) mail app from Apple work well for Outlook?
Well, compared to Thunderbird, Mailbird, and eM Client—Apple Mail isn't going to give you any increased functionality.
If you use Apple Mail as your Outlook email client, you won't have the integrated calendar or task management, and you'll have to remember that folders are "labels" in Apple Mail.
The good news is that Apple Mail can support multiple accounts from multiple providers (via IMAP and SMTP standards), so if you have a Gmail account and an Outlook account that you would like to unify into one very well designed, simple inbox—Apple Mail can do that.
If you want a free email client with a cleaner design than Outlook and don’t require advanced features, Apple Mail might be your best option.
When Superhuman first came out, it was solely focused on Gmail and Google email users. As of May 2022, they also support Outlook users.
From a user interface perspective, Superhuman is the most distinct of this list. It looks nothing like an Outlook inbox, so if familiarity is a requirement, this might not be a good fit.
Superhuman offers several AI-powered features, the most notable being its ability to answer questions about your inbox.
Instead of traditional search (even as powerful as eM Client's), you can ask your inbox direct questions. Instead of needing to remember a file's name to look for a specific piece of information, you could say: What was the price that John from ACME quoted me?
On the collaboration front, Superhuman offers the ability to @mention your colleagues through Team Comments.
From a security and compliance perspective, they are compliant with SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, CCPA, and GDPR.
For pricing, Superhuman is on the higher end of these email clients, starting at $25/user/month on an annual plan.
To summarize our options for the best email client for Outlook users, we sorted them into two categories:
We hope this has been a helpful overview of the types of email clients that are out there for Outlook users. If you're interested in Missive, continue on and we'll get into some tactical information.
Stephanie at Lighting Dynamics, manages 100+ email quotes a day. Her team used to use Outlook for email management:
With traditional Outlook forwarding, once an email was out of the shared inbox, there was no visibility. We never knew if it had been handled. It was chaotic.
And now, with Missive: "Missive checked all our boxes. It was a huge relief to see we could maintain the shared inbox model—without building custom software from scratch."
Or Kason, from i-SOLIDS, who grew his sales team beyond himself:
We got to a point where we weren't providing the same level of communication, response, and service that allowed us to get to this point. We were relying on Outlook email and it was like 'are you responding to that or am I?'
And after a month with Missive, Kason recommends: "Don't think about just choosing a tool for today but this tool needs to work for scale too—that's a major decision factor."
Get a detailed walk through of how to configure Outlook to Missive, including terminology differences to get you acclimated to your new inbox.
Well like most things, it depends. If you're a team who lives in their inbox day and day out, and you're looking a collaboration-first inbox—we hope you'll give Missive a try.
