Google email – aka: Gmail – You have to get it!
A few years ago I heard abut Gmail and I like many got my free account. At this writing anyone can get a free Gmail account with free storage up to 8GB which is likely more than you’ll ever use!
So my Gmail account sat there and I occasionally checked it because I had my “primary” work and personal email accounts. I had my Blackberry email service setup to POP into or check/pull my email to my Blackberry every 5 minutes. It was great as I could see email when I wanted to away from my computer and I didn’t have to worry about wireless WiFi Internet access.
Problem was when I’d view or reply to the email on the Blackberry, I’d see the email again when I later opened up Outlook and it downloaded my email again! I had to set my Blackberry to “leave mail on server” so I could get a copy of the email on my laptop for history. So I was wasting a lot of time looking at emails twice!
I put up with this time waster for a couple years not knowing there was a better solution!
(Today I use Gmail to pull all my email and I can send email from my email address. Plus I can access full Gmail on my Blackberry or iTouch and when I respond/reply or read and email it’s in sync with all my devices! Read more below to learn how!)
So who knows how I learned or found out that you can have Gmail check your email similar to the Blackberry but keep all devices in sync! Plus I was able to eliminate using Outlook as well! (You can keep Outlook if you like) Let me explain:
If you haven’t already first go to www.gmail.com and get your free account. You’ll have to pick a unique name or you can use your existing email as you Gmail login but in case that ever changed I create a unique Gmail account so I had another email address @Gmail.com.
Next step is to login and in the upper right corner click on “Settings” and the page changes. Now near the top middle/leftish click “Accounts” and look for two items:
“Send mail as” and “Get mail from other accounts”
Ok so at this point we’ll assume you have your work or personal email address you want to keep and move the email over to Gmail. We’ll call this You@YourEmail.com and you also have your new Gmail account You@Gmail.com
When you look at the area “Send mail as” you can add an email and here you add You@YourEmail.com and Gmail sends a confirmation to your email and you click on it in your OLD email program. Now in Gmail “Settings” you’ll see your email has been verified and you can make this your default email so when you create a new email it’s sent from Gmail but they use your email You@YourEmail.com Pretty cool huh!
Next step go down to “Get mail from other accounts” and here you’ll need to enter your email You@YourEmail.com and your account password. It may ask for your email server names if the system can’t figure it out. You can choose to “Leave mail on server” so a copy is kept on your old server and you can go back to using your old Outlook or POP mail client. I did this for a couple days and once I knew I wasn’t going back I went in and changed this!
So I’ve covered a lot but let me now summarize: Just like you use Outlook or some POP3 email client to check your email and send your email, you can get a free Gmail account to do the same. You might think so what but the power here is you can now access your Gmail account via any computer with a web browser and Internet access! You can access via any Smartphones like Blackberry or iPhone/iTouch. Now when you view/reply/delete or read an email on one device, the account is updated on all devices!
Gmail has made my life so much easier and let me leave you with a couple final tips:
Gmail doesn’t have “folders” but they use labels so it’s weird at first but once you get your brain around it, labels work just as good!
I actually have two Gmail accounts, one for personal and one for business. I can check both accounts from any connected
device and stay up to date!
If you cannot give up Outlook you can do all the above and then enable POP access for Outlook to check Gmail. You’ll see emails twice but I know it’s hard for some to give up Outlook!
Any comments or suggestions? Leave them here!
Bob
Leave a Comment