Thoroughly confuzzled by email since Win8

If you're sure you're sitting comfortably, I'll begin ...

I have principally used Gmail for yonks to send/receive but, having preferred the Outlook 2010 screen presentation, I had linked Gmail into Outlook. That's been running OK for yonks under the infamous Vista. However since moving over to Win8 I have encountered probs.

By some strange means I have finished up with three tiles on my Start screen, namely Mail, Gmail and Outlook 2010. But none of them is totally satisfactory.

Clicking on the Mail tile gives a link to both Outlook and Gmail. However Gmail doesn't display my Sent emails, and neither of them lists access to my Contacts.

Clicking on the Gmail tile does turn up my Sent emails but the screen doesn't show a Forward button.

Clicking on the Outlook 2010 tile displays my much preferred option. It gives both Outlook and Gmail content n(separately) but Gmail doesn't list a folder button for my Sent emails.

How, please, can I resolve this dog's breakfast? 99% of folks use my Gmail address, but I'd still prefer to drop the Gmail stuff into Outlook. Obviously I want to retain my Contacts and numerous emails I've got filed away for future reference., so am reluctant to start again from scratch.

Thanks all.

Hi, not really an answer as such as I know very little about email programmes and don't use GMail or Outllook 2010 but, I'll share my experience with you.

With XP I used an older version of Outlook which was dumped when I moved across to Win 8/8.1. As I don't like the default Outllok Mail software with the new windows, I chose Thunderbird - nice and easy to set up for my Freeserve email account (just had to enter the pop3 details etc) and the Outlook.com email account was a doddle to set up.

So like you, I have a outlook mail icon/app on the start screen and a Thunderbird one on both the start screen & desktop.

I had a look at both email programmes and noticed that neither was displaying the sent folder - most probably because I never send emails (nobody loves me). So from within Thunderbird, I sent myself an email to my Outlook email and a sent folder automatically appeared. I responded to myself and a sent folder automatically appeared against the Outlook account. If you want to know the content of the email, it was simply "Test". Boring I know but hey, I've actually sent an email

So, I went into Outlook - the big blue app on the start screen and I can see my incoming test email but no sent folder. The Inbox was there by default so I clicked on Folders and clicked on sent so that the star beside it was highlighted. This puts the sent folder on the menu bar.

So, it looks like its just a matter setting things up correctly. To add a new account i.e GMail to Outlook, side swipe on settings to the right of the screen and choose account and enter your details under other.

Sorry, I waffled but at least now I've learn't a few things myself.