Today I discovered a new feature added to the already fabulous creation that is Gmail. Not sure how long this has been available, but that doesn’t really matter I suppose. What does matter is now you can add other email accounts to your Gmail and therefore not have to have one tab open for Gmail, another for Yahoo, another for ::insert obscure email address here:: Nope! Now you add them all together with full Gmail functionality (cascading conversations, labeling, filters, etc.) Oh and by the way, you can now retroactively label messages, another new addition I just noticed. Can it get any better??
Here’s my personal scenerio: I have a RiseUp.net account, and though I have nothing but love for them and their support of progressive activism, their webmail understandably doesn’t come close to Gmail. I also have two email accounts for Columbus911Truth.org (using GoDaddy’s email server), and again— its webmail doesn’t even compare. And I have another account for work— and, you guessed it, the webmail interface can’t compete. But now they don’t have to feel inferior because they’re all together in Gmail!
It was a little overwhelming and disorganized at first as it imported all the Inbox messages from the newly added accounts (something to pay close attention to, I suggest making sure the “Leave a copy of retrieved message on the server.” box is checked until you’re positive you want to make the switch, that way none of your messages are permanently moved from the original account.) After I got everything sorted out, marked as “read”, etc., I set up filters so that only emails sent to my actual Gmail address go to the Inbox. Everything else skips the Inbox and goes to its corresponding folder (“label” in Gmail-speak.) So for example, when I’m at work I just click on the work label and it only shows those messages. It really is possible to have 5 emails accounts totally organized and living together peacefully!
Something worth mentioning, when you send emails from the newly added accounts, it actually sends it through that email’s SMTP server, so it’s not just masking the “From:” address. (So they say anyway, but I tested it and it sure looked real to me!)
Gmail Notifier is another bonus. I didn’t have that option for any of my other accounts, but this way it covers them all.
A couple things to watch out for: make sure you understand the “leave copy of message on server” setting, and make sure you have the right POP settings. Gmail will try to guess what the settings are based on the address you enter, but it’s not psychic so you may need to do some Googling to get the right server address and port number. And it has to be POP, no support for IMAP yet. “Yet”, I hope, is the key word. :-)
To sum up: Gmail rules. And I have reaffirmed my geekiness by how excited I was about this today. Oh— there’s a prize for whoever counts how many times I said “Gmail” in this post. That last one doesn’t count.
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