If you have already set up email address using Gmail, you may not know it but it also provides you access to another fantastic free product called Google Docs. The very clever team at Common Craft created an “in plain english video” explanation of how Google Docs works. It is an excellent video, running for only 2′ 50″ and has been viewed more than 1 million times already.
If you for any reason need to have more than one person inputting into a document, spreadsheet or presentation, Google Docs is the way to go. Check out the video and next week I will show you how it can even be effectively and productively used for family purposes.
I had a reader email me and ask if it was possible to remove the From yourusername@gmail.com on behalf of customaddress@mydomain.com.
When I researched this issue to see if it was possible to change the way the “from” address is displayed, I came across numerous discussions on the “behalf of” component. I agree also that it is not the perfect way to display your email address.
It does appear to be an issue that cannot be changed within Gmail. In summary it appears to be an issue with the way Microsoft Outlook displays the “from” field.
..when you’re sending with a different ‘From:’ address, your Gmail address will still be included in your email header’s sender field, to help prevent your mail from being marked as spam. Most email clients don’t display the sender field, though some versions of Microsoft Outlook may display “From yourusername@gmail.com on behalf of customaddress@mydomain.com.”
One of the biggest advantages of using Gmail for me has been having the capacity to have all my email accounts coming into the one spot, which I can access from anywhere that has internet access!
Gmail’s Mail Fetcher can download messages from up to five other email accounts, centralising all your email in Gmail. I have created some step by step instructions with screen images to take you through how you can set up Gmail to fetch email from your other email accounts.
Step 1
Once you have logged into your Gmail account, click on Settings in the top right hand corner.
Step 2
In the Settings menu you have a number of options to choose from. Click on Accounts.
Step 3
From the options in Accounts, select Add another email address.
Step 4
Enter the email address that you want Gmail to fetch mail from.
Step 5
You will need to enter the password to your other email account where the green arrow is pointing. Gmail will fill in most of the information for you on this screen. Depending on what type of email account you are fetching email from, you may need to change the information highlighted with the red arrow.
Step 5
The next screen should say that your mail account has been added. If you want to send emails as well from this account. It is essential that you click yes as indicated by the green arrow and follow the next steps.
Step 6
Enter the name that you would you would like to appear when you send emails from this account.
Step 7
Gmail will need to verify that you own the account which you are adding. Click on Send verification. This will send an email to the account that you are trying to add to Gmail.
Step 8
Check your email account for the verification email. Once received you will have two options:
(1). Click on link in email.
(2). Enter code from email. (In the image above I have entered the code.)
Step 9
Gmail should then take you back to the Accounts tab under the Setting options as illustrated above.
If you have set up Gmail address to move your email account on line and want to still use your other email account as your main email account, you will need to change the default settings.
The green arrow above is pointing to the Make default function. Click that option to make your added account the default email address from which you will send email.
Step 10
If you have multiple email accounts that you use regularly, I recommend checking the radio button highlighted by the green arrow. This will ensure that replies that you send to people will come from the same address the message was sent to.
And that is it! You now have your emails coming into the same place, have a fantastic spam filter in operation and have massive amounts of storage space.
So you set up email address in Gmail and are now thinking, but what about all the email addresses I had in my address book - do I have to type these into Gmail? No! Thankfully Gmail makes it very easy to import your contacts from Outlook, Hotmail, Yahoo!, orkut, and other services into your new Google Mail account.
STEP 1
Create a CSV file of your contacts. CSV stand for comma separated values and the format of the data in the file - it is separated by commas!
I will use the example of Outlook to show how to create this a CSV file:
Click on File, then Import and Export.
This will start the Import and Export Wizard. Click on Export to a file. Next.
Select Comma Separated Values (Windows). Next.
Highlight Contacts. Next
Click on browse to select the location and the name of the CSV file. OK. Next. Finish.
STEP 2
Log into your Gmail account and then follow these steps:
Click Contacts on the left side of any Google Mail page.
Click Import in the bottom left corner.
Click Browse to locate the CSV file that you want to upload.
Select the file and click Import.
You can then click on Contacts and will be able to view your recently imported contacts, along with any contacts that you have created in your Gmail account already.
Before I set up email address with Gmail, I really struggled containing my inbox. I would have week/month old emails sitting in my inbox waiting for me to action them.
There was a great inefficiency in the way that I was handling my emails. When I was in my inbox and I could see the emails sitting there, I found that I was often reading them multiple times, deliberating on what to do with them and generally getting sidetracked by non urgent emails.
I went away last week and decided to have an online holiday as well. I did not check my email for six days! When I had been using Outlook, such behaviour would have seen me most likely exceed my mail box storage and a massively overflowing inbox.
Using Gmail effectively though means that my return scenario was very different for the following reasons:
STORAGE
Gmail allows you over 7000MB (and continually growing), so the chances of me exceeding this storage limit are almost impossible.
SKIPPING THE INBOX
I receive email from so many sources on a regular basis that I do like to read, but they do not need my immediate attention. The types of emails that fall into this category are statistic reports, monthly newsletters, subscriptions to my own blogs, etc.
By setting up filters within the settings function of Gmail, I can choose to apply a label to the email and have it skip the inbox completely and be archived under this label. This is a fantastic way to reduce distractions that can arrive in your inbox.
LABELS
As most people do, I receive regular emails from particular friends or groups that I am working with. In the filters section I can apply a filter to a particular email address, so that it labels the email with that name.
For example I have set up a website for the occasional care centre that my youngest child goes to. Every time I receive an email from my contact person at the centre, it is automatically lablelled “Occassional Care”. Once I have actioned the email, I then simply click on archive button to remove it from my inbox and keep it filed appropriately under “Occassional Care” if I need to recall it later.
SPAM
Dealing with spam can be a big time waster. The spam filters are so smart on Gmail. Over a week in Outlook, I would receive at least 30 - 40 spam emails in my inbox. In my six day absence, there was no spam in my inbox and only eight in my spam folder.
CONVERSATIONS
Gmail groups all replies with their original message, creating a single conversation or thread. Replies to replies (and replies to those replies) are displayed in one place and in order. So when you have been away for multiple days like I had, it made it so much easier to follow the “conversation” of some of my emails. It also reduces the total volume of emails that you see initially in your inbox.
These factors, combined with a more disciplined approach by myself, meant that it took less than an hour to action and tame by inbox back to zero again.
So if you are having trouble managing your inbox and have not yet set up email address with Gmail, I can highly recommend doing so as the first step to effectively managing your inbox to zero.
Common Craft, whose videos I have used previously on this blog, were hired by the team at Google to make a short video on their Google Reader. The video runs for just over a minute and as is Common Craft’s unique style, is in plain english and very easy to understand.
My step by step instructions on adding blogs to Google Reader includes screen shots if you are looking for more information on how to use Google Reader.
When I first set up email address with Gmail, initially I couldn’t find where my Address Book was. Having been operating email from only Outlook for years, I had become programmed to look for particular terms and had become used to the way the Address Book function operated in Outlook.
CONTACTS
The first difference is that in Gmail, Contacts is where you will find all your email addresses. Contacts can be found on the left hand side on any page once you have logged into Gmail, just above the Chat box.
It is worth having a look at some of the nifty functions in Gmail Contacts:
When entering addresses in the appropriate fields, you need only type the first letter of the name of your contact, using predictive text Gmail then brings up the contacts that match your input. Simply click on the right one and add more addresses the same way if you need to.
It is very easy to create groups in contacts, for people that you email regularly together. For example I have a Family contact group, so when I want to send a message to all of the members of my family, I only have to put one name in the “To” box.
Email addresses are automatically added to your Contacts list each time you use the Reply or Forward functions to send messages to addresses not previously stored in your Contacts list.
Each time you unmark a message as Spam, your Contacts list is automatically updated so that future messages from that sender are received in your inbox.
When you are in your Contacts, you can click on a particular person and not only do their details come up, but with one more click, you can see all your recent email coversations with them. It will even let you know if you have any messages from them in “Trash” and you can recover them if needed.
You can import your contacts from Outlook, Hotmail, Yahoo!, orkut, and other services into Gmail. Gmail requires this to be in CSV format and most email services will export contacts in this way.
Now that I have adjusted to my new surroundings in Contact Manager, I am really enjoying the simple interface and efficiency that this feature of Gmail offers.
How does Google promote its own free online email service as the best place to set up email address? Take 4:21 to watch this video and they will explain the following for benefits of Gmail:
I have written of my own personal positive experience with Gmail, but I thought I would collate for you other reviews of the Gmail service.
This information should help in you if you are making a decision about setting up email address or if you are considering to moving to an online email service.
Check them out and they should convince you that Gmail is the best place to set up email address.
Darren Rowse is the force behind Problogger. He is a full time professional blogger with a subscribed readership of over 45,000 people.
In April Rowse lamented on Twitter about his exploding email inbox. Many of his followers sent him advice an tips to help him manage the 10,000 emails he had in his inbox.
So how did he get his email under control? He set up a Gmail address!
“Within 24 hours I had an inbox with no items in it (well momentarily) and have been able to maintain that ever since (OK, so it’s only three days, but it’s been a very busy three days).”
