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Consolidate Multiple Email Addresses with Gmail
Posted by Gina Trapani at 3:30 AM on April 7, 2008
The following post was originally published in Chapter 1 of our new book, Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, Better.
You've finally decided to move all your email online to Google's web-based service, Gmail. Great! But what about messages still going to your old email address(es)? You don't have to notify all your contacts that your email address has changed—again. Gmail is not only an email host, it's an email client, which can fetch mail from any number of external services and consolidate it all right there in your Gmail inbox. Here's how to move your email to Gmail without missing a single message from an existing account.
Receive messages for other addresses in your Gmail inbox
There are two ways to receive email from other addresses in Gmail: using Gmail's Mail Fetcher feature or by forwarding your other addresses' mail to Gmail automatically.Option 1: Set Up Gmail's POP Mail Fetcher
Most likely your former email provider offers POP (Post Office Protocol) access for retrieving messages for it. Gmail's Mail Fetcher feature can retrieve those messages via POP and display them in your inbox alongside messages that come directly your Gmail address, too. You can fetch email from up to five other email addresses via POP in Gmail.To use Gmail's Mail Fetcher, your old email account must offer POP access. Not all free addresses offer POP, but most do. Check the other account's settings or contact customer support to find out if POP access is available on your non-Gmail account. You'll need three settings: the POP server address, port, your username and password. Also, if you haven't already, you'll need to sign up for a free Gmail account at http://gmail.com.
Once you're logged into your Gmail account, configure Mail Fetcher to retrieve messages from your old account. Here's how.
- From the top of any page within Gmail, click Settings.
- Click Accounts.
- In the Get mail from other accounts section, click Add another mail account.
- Enter the full email address of the account you'd like to access, then click Next Step.
- Gmail will fill in the username, POP server and port fields when possible, based on the email address, as shown. Enter your password.
- If Gmail will be the single place you check mail, uncheck the box labelled "Leave a copy of retrieved messages on the server." If you want to access the other mail from other software (or if you're just using Gmail as a backup), do check this box. You can also set options to use SSL (a secure connection) to retrieve mail (some servers support this, others don't) and whether or not to label or archive incoming messages.
- Once your options are set, click Add Account. Gmail will issue an error if your username, password or other settings are incorrect. Once Gmail can fetch messages successfully, it will give you the option to set up a custom From: address. (See the section below for more on that.)
Note: Gmail checks for new messages at different rate, depending on previous mail fetch attempts. You can't customise the default frequency of mail fetches.
Option 2: Forward messages to Gmail automatically
If your old address doesn't offer POP access—or you have more than 5 addresses you'd like to consolidate in Gmail—you can set your former address to automatically forward messages to Gmail instead. The exact way to do this will differ depending on your email account, but if your provider offers auto-forwarding, it will most likely be listed in your account options area.For example, to auto-forward email from your Hotmail email (which does not offer POP access), click on your account options, and under "Manage Your Account" click on "Forward mail to another email account." There you can set your new Gmail account as the destination address, as shown.
Write messages from non-Gmail addresses
Now that you've got email addressed to several different accounts arriving in your single Gmail inbox, you may want to use those various From: addresses when replying to those messages. For someone who maintains several different online personas - but accesses them all in Gmail - the option to use various From: addresses when sending mail is crucial. Here's how to set up multiple From: addresses once you're logged into Gmail:- Click Settings along the top of any page, and then select the Accounts tab.
- Click Add another email address in the Send mail as section.
- Enter your full name in the Name field, and the email address you'd like to send messages from in the Email address field.
- Click Next Step >> and then click Send Verification to complete the process. Gmail will send a verification message to your other email address to confirm that you'd like to add it to your Gmail account. If you are already receiving this mail in Gmail, it will appear in your inbox. Click the link in that message, or enter the confirmation code in the Accounts section of your Gmail account, to complete the process.
You can add several possible From: addresses to your Gmail account, as shown.
Set one as your default for new messages, and you can also set the From: name and a different reply-to address if you'd like (by clicking "edit info.")
Once you've verified that you'd like to add the address to your account, you can start sending messages using your custom 'From:' address. When you click Compose, you can choose the From: address to use from the dropdown list, as shown.
Note: Your Gmail address will be included in the email headers of your message in the sender field, to help prevent your mail from being marked as spam. Most email clients do not display the sender field, though some versions of Microsoft Outlook may display "From customaddress@domain.com on behalf of yourusername@gmail.com"—unless you're using Gmail for your domain.
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
Chan
Posted November 17, 2008 3:20 PM
When you try forwarding to gmail from hotmail it gives the error "You're only able to forward mail to a custom domain or an e-mail address that ends in hotmail.com, msn.com, or live.com. Please try again."
Brian
Posted 3:28 AM 7/4/08
The hotmail forwarding works about 9% of the time. Some accounts it won't let you forward to any domain that isnt microsoft (even though it says you can). I am one of the lucky ones and hotmail lets me forward to gmail, but many get shafted by the fantastic Windows Live service.
Brian
SenorDunda
Posted 3:05 AM 7/4/08
I set my other addresses to forward to Gmail because I don't like waiting 20 minutes for Gmail to check the POP server for new messages. But I also have those addresses in my account so I can send from them, which is necessary sometimes and useful all the time.
SenorDunda
SMSDHubbard
Posted 3:36 AM 7/4/08
This is one of the more useful features in GMail. Really helps people who have been around for a long time and have email addresses all over the 'net.
BTW, Step 6 under Option 1 looks messed up. IE(the number doesn't appear) & Firefox(The text of the step appears as a tall skinny column to the right of the picture.)
SMSDHubbard
thelouisguy
Posted 3:34 AM 7/4/08
@Gina:
How are you able to forward Hotmail to your Gmail? When I try it gives me:
It's not a big deal, my Hotmail is mostly spam, but once in a while, someone with an outdated contact list will send me an email there.
thelouisguy
BlogsOfSteel
Posted 4:18 AM 7/4/08
Yes, I turned to GMail when Yahoo came up with their slow and sucky "new look" for email and now forward all of my Yahoo accounts to GMail. I do like the way Yahoo allows for the creation of alias accounts tied to you main account but with completely different names. It's easy to delete one you've used to subscribe to a site that doesn't play nice with your confidentiality. I'm slowly adopting GMail's "+something" technique, but I really like discrete anonymous accounts better.
If it were up to me everyone would get a Google account at birth, we'll all have one anyway...
BlogsOfSteel
rdldr1
Posted 4:07 AM 7/4/08
I use Mozilla Thunderbird to consolidate three of my e-mail addresses. It was pretty easy to set up since Google provides idiot proof instructions on how to forward mail. Im sure G-Mail for mail consolidation is even easier.
rdldr1
Fox Mulder
Posted 4:02 AM 7/4/08
I wonder if that Hack is like Peanut Butter and this one [lifehacker.com]
is like Jelly. "Woman, get back here and make me a sandwich!" - From the Arcadia Episode.
Fox Mulder
kvenlander
Posted 4:32 AM 7/4/08
When I need anonymous or pseudonymous emails, I create another Gmail account that forwards to my mail Gmail account.
OK, so it's not anonymous for Google or law enforcement or three letter agencies...
kvenlander
kvenlander
Posted 4:29 AM 7/4/08
An annoying thing with Gmail for domains is that it sticks that Sender field in even if you use aliases within your domain. "Joe1@example.com on behalf of Joe@example.com" confuses the heck out of stupid people (and I seem to spend most of my time nowadays dealing with recruiters and middle managers in midsize corporations...).
This contradicts what you write in your last para, I think.
kvenlander
freddybob
Posted 4:26 AM 7/4/08
Does Gmail have a way to set a different signature for each email address?
freddybob
kobewan
Posted 4:22 AM 7/4/08
Hotmail forwarded just fine for me. I'm not sure what to do with my Yahoo mailbox though. Does it support auto-forwarding?
kobewan
kekil
Posted 4:22 AM 7/4/08
Actually, Outlook says the opposite .. e.g. from xyz@gmail.com on behalf of abc@yahoo.com ...
kekil
Alex Gutiérrez
Posted 4:19 AM 7/4/08
I'm having the same trouble thelouisguy is having. Apparently Hotmail doesn't like to be forwarded to a direct competitor, I guess...
Alex Gutiérrez
jacob.s
Posted 5:30 AM 7/4/08
the "On Behalf Of" thing is a complete showstopper. It would be nice if they'd let you send through another SMTP server.
jacob.s
Charli Wag
Posted 5:52 AM 7/4/08
Ahh the formating it burns. Where are the html tags ahhh.
Running Firefox Beta 4 Mac os x tiger.
Anyway nice post :)
Charli Wag
klumsy
Posted 6:21 AM 7/4/08
@Gina: the send email as feature is missing the feature that would make it a KILLER feature. - For professional emails the "send on behalf of" type of email sending just doesn't cut it. I keep another email client around JUST TO SEND email. If gmail allowed the option to specify a SMTP server and credentials for some of these, and actually used that to send out, THEN IT WOULD BE A KILLER FEATURE. it would round out the POP features. I suppose i should suggest this to google, and i also wonder if anybody has made a greasemonkey script that can do this. hmmm
-Karl
klumsy
pixelstuff
Posted 6:21 AM 7/4/08
I was going to ask (and noticed that a few already have), does Option #2 actually work? Did you actually try it? It says right there in the screen capture that
"You can forward your mail to one other address that ends in hotmail.com, msn ..."
and the rest says ".com, live.com, or custom domains". That is the problem I have with trying to foward anything from my hotmail or live accounts to Gmail.
pixelstuff
Blaenk Denum
Posted 6:08 AM 7/4/08
When doing this with my new Gmail address with my old Gmail address, my new email address' emails come in really late, sometimes hours after they were originally sent.
Blaenk Denum
squirrel
Posted 6:02 AM 7/4/08
@jacob.s: Agreed. I don't understand why Google don't provide real aliases for their own accounts and gather the emails just in one container. That's even worse for Googla-Apps user...
squirrel
KRIPPeR
Posted 6:42 AM 7/4/08
@Brian: I'm having that trouble, I can't set my Gmail account as a forward address of my Hotmail account.
Someone has any ideas why and how to change it?
I only get 3 or 4 mails weekly to this address, but still, I would love stop checking it.
KRIPPeR
xxdesmus
Posted 6:46 AM 7/4/08
The Gmail pop fetcher can definitely be quite slow sometimes. Sometimes I need to manually check the pop mail 2 or 3 times before it'll correctly grab the mail that I know is there. All in all though it still makes life easier most of the time.
xxdesmus
4ster
Posted 7:28 AM 7/4/08
I'm with jacob.s, squirrel and klumsy. That "on behalf of" crap is a dealbreaker for me.
4ster
trmentry
Posted 8:07 AM 7/4/08
I get the same thing with my old first.last@msn.com email addy. Won't let me forward to anything. My error did say that I could forward to a custom domain or one of the MS domains listed, but my custom domain was nixed. Wonder if it was b/c its on gmail apps?
Also the "on behalf of" for me was a deal breaker as well. But when they made google apps have more than the 2g of mail for a free account, I jumped at it.
Now I have my 2 domains flowing into the 1 gmail apps account and couldn't be happier. 1.5g of mail and growing. :)
trmentry
Dronak
Posted 8:12 AM 7/4/08
@thelouisguy: I got the same message when I tried forwarding my Hotmail account to my Gmail account. It wouldn't let me do it. That's a little annoying, but since the Hotmail forward set-up page also says that they will delete accounts after 120 days of inactivity, it may not be such a bad thing to be forced to go there every now and then.
As a general response, I did this a few months ago, mainly because of the amount of spam Yahoo was allowing into my inbox. Consolidating most of my mail into one Gmail account has made it easier to deal with it, and one account in particular that gets almost nothing but spam highly benefits from Gmail's filtering. I think there are some minor issues with this mail consolidation though.
As some people noted, it would be better if the sending "on behalf of" could be removed. Since we have to verify that we own the accounts we want to send from, I'm not sure why they have to say Gmail sent it for another account. I've rarely noticed this, but the first time I saw it, I realized what everyone was talking about.
The other thing that's a little annoying is when I get messages from mailing lists on another account forwarded through. Gmail doesn't seem to associate that forwarded mail with the other account, so when I reply, it defaults to being sent from Gmail. Since a mailing list doesn't address mail directly to me, I can understand this behavior. But since Gmail is fetching it from another account, I think it would be good if it could still associate that mail with this other account (already set up to send from).
From my experience so far, consolidating my different mail accounts in Gmail has worked well, but it would be better if they could eliminate the sending "on behalf of" and mails fetched from another account got automatically associated with that account for replies.
Dronak
Digabyte
Posted 9:07 AM 7/4/08
I went with the Gmail-as-main-account route for quite a while, but in the end became fed up with the set-up's short comings. For one thing, when you're trying to send from one of your -other- addresses in Gmail, the recipient usually still sees that the message was sent from your Gmail account, not necessarily the address you selected as your "send" address. That's annoying when you're using your Gmail account for different entities (business, etc...). I understand that there's actually a Business Gmail that eliminates this particular problem, but I made the switch to a Thunderbird Portable/Gmail hybrid setup before I heard about it.
So now I'm on Thunderbird with my main Gmail account as an online "safety," and it's been working really well.
You can read about the specifics at [danbeahm.blogspot.com]
Digabyte
goodywitch
Posted 11:26 AM 7/4/08
You can force gmail to fetch mail if you're expecting an important email if you go into settings.
Gmail doesn't tell you it failed to fetch unless you go to settings (I was forced to change my pw and forgot to change in gmail, my fault, but it'd be nice if gmail would tell me if multiple fetches fail).
I was so confused at work when someone emailed me to ask me to tell me to do something. On behalf of needs to go.
goodywitch
aj_robins
Posted 11:51 AM 7/4/08
Gina, you really need to mention how, for those people that use Thunderbird, you can simply click-and-drag messages from one Thunderbird account to another (the gmail-accessed-via-IMAP account). Many people download their email via pop3, and do not keep a copy on the server. These people can simply use this method to transfer their local email (the downloaded email stored on a single PC/Mac) to gmail (via IMAP). It's a great way of migrating one's electronic life to gmail (assuming, of course, that you trust google).
aj_robins
Puleen
Posted 12:13 PM 7/4/08
Great article for those who didn't know this already.
Puleen
homerjay
Posted 1:16 PM 7/4/08
I didn't know about this but set it up tonight. Its pretty cool though it would be nice to know what the interval is between mail checks.
homerjay
trueguy
Posted 12:30 PM 7/4/08
I am one of those people. Thanks for the tip. I am a bit put off from that "on behalf of" stuff. It defeats the purpose of an alias.
trueguy
AdrianGo
Posted 11:08 AM 7/4/08
I had the same problem with an @msn.com account. The hotmail account was forwarded with no issues. I resolved the issue by forwarding the @msn.com to hotmail.com which then gets forwarded to gmail.
Does anyone know of a greasemonkey script that will ask you what address you want to use after you click send? I find my self sending emails from my gmail account to my school professors sometimes. They dont like that :p.
AdrianGo
MyEasyTV
Posted 1:57 PM 7/4/08
will have to check it out.
MyEasyTV
Sonance
Posted 7:48 AM 7/4/08
@rdldr1: If you want to use Gmail and Thunderbird interchangeably for all your email accounts, I found the best thing to do is to set up Gmail to collect email for all your accounts (or set up your custom domain to redirect/forward to a single Gmail address), and then access that single Gmail account in Thunderbird via IMAP.
Sonance
kpsnyder
Posted 4:55 AM 7/4/08
I love the ability to use Gmail as my total email solution.
Unfortunately, recently my university (Ball State) has began checking the sent from SMTP server against the sent from address. If they don't match, the message won't be delivered to any addresses hosted within the university.
This practice started last week here, and has caused many many people who use Gmail countless hours of aggravation. My point being that if you have a university provided email address, there's a good chance this either won't work or may cause you grief down the road.
kpsnyder
writersmind
Posted 4:31 AM 7/4/08
while this is pretty smart and I love your book, btw, it has changed my way of thinking about email, I do not trust the privacy of my mails with gmail, which is why I wouldn't use this for anything significant. I still miss PGP encrypting and I dont want to scan and keep googgle all of my mail, I'm afraid.
But it works quite well as an email spam filter proxy if you want to aggregate non-critical stuff for, say, the mailaccount on an ipod touch
writersmind
nick7er
Posted 2:45 AM 7/4/08
Hotmail actually does not allow forwarding unless it is to a custom domain address, or an address that ends in @live.com, @msn.com, or @hotmail.com .
nick7er
nick7er
Posted 2:43 AM 7/4/08
Hi, Actually I tried to set-up forwarding from my hotmail account to my gmail address, but hotmail only allows forwarding to a custom domain address, or an address that ends in live.com, hotmail.com, or msn.com .
nick7er
Torley
Posted 2:59 PM 7/4/08
Useful to consolidate! I'll note tho that step #6's formatting appears very weird (I'm on Firefox 2)... the "Add a mail account" image is pushing it all the way to the right. :(
Torley
LastVigilante
Posted 2:36 PM 7/4/08
I did this a while ago because I have a handful of domains with emails attached to them. I needed to be able to access my account from work, home, etc, so this is really helpful. At first, I was planning on setting up IMAP accounts with Thunderbird, which I also love, but it turns out that I'm finding myself solely using GMail as my email client, only occasionally firing up Thunderbird at my home computer to download local backups of all my messages. At first, the "sent courtesy of zzz@gmail.com" outgoing message kind of annoyed me, but no one seems to notice it. Also, the mobile GMail allows me to check my mail conveniently on my iPod Touch... bonus!
LastVigilante
quikboy
Posted 4:42 PM 7/4/08
Live Hotmail has already done this for quite awhile to be honest.
quikboy
OmniSwami
Posted 12:12 AM 8/4/08
The single greatest reason I use gmail!
OmniSwami
Bing
Posted 12:09 AM 8/4/08
Myway allows neither POP or auto-forwarding. If you have that, you're stuck, unfortunately. That's why I've moved off of it, though I still have to check in on it occasionally.
Bing
lisact
Posted 2:00 AM 8/4/08
Get rid of "on behalf of" and my gmail setup would be perfect!
lisact
radio1
Posted 1:54 AM 8/4/08
@BlogsOfSteel: How do you do that? I can't figure out how? Do you have Yahoo Mail Plus? (which does allow for forwarding)
radio1
Porree
Posted 7:32 AM 8/4/08
Be aware of gmail. Just an advice...
Porree
Tamar Weinberg
Posted 10:40 AM 8/4/08
@ali_bob: Yeah, but isn't IzyMail not completely free?
Tamar Weinberg
ali_bob
Posted 3:01 AM 8/4/08
IzyMail anyone? [v3.izymail.com]
you can forward emails from your hotmail to your gmail... :)
ali_bob
ali_bob
Posted 2:58 AM 8/4/08
to transfer/forward the emails in your hotmail account to your gmail, you can use IzyMail!
[v3.izymail.com]
ali_bob
markerpen
Posted 12:44 AM 8/4/08
To everyone who can't forward from Hotmail/Live Mail...
It might be something to do with using a + sign in the forward address. At first I tried "firstnamesurname+hotmail@gmail.com" so I could tag it when it arrives, but Hotmail didn't accept that, giving the error some people mentioned. So I just tried firstnamesurname@gmail.com and it's forwarding fine! [=
markerpen
thezak
Posted 2:44 PM 7/4/08
What workarounds, kludges are there for sorting gmail messages alphabetically by subject, alphabetically by author or by size?...
thezak
joeyjellydonut
Posted 6:13 AM 7/4/08
My solution for getting mail in one place is Thunderbird [www.mozilla.com] Using the Webmail extension [webmail.mozdev.org] I get all my Gmail, Yahoo (for FREE), Hotmail, SW Bell, and other accounts in one place- sorted by account with individual tag lines for each. Some of my accounts are for work and some are for play. With Thunderbird you can keep your accounts sorted by mail account and easily send mail from any one of them. And it pops some accounts which don't support POP.
Bonus points: In Thunderbird I created four folders 1.ACTION, 2.WAITING, 3.SOMEDAY MAYBE, 4.REFERENCE. The idea for this came from a Podcast presented by David Allen Co- [www.davidco.com] and [www.43folders.com] If it is going to be quick I handle the actions right away- if not, drag them to the ACTION folder - and if needed make a note in my to do list (another T-bird calendar add-on called Lightening) WAITING is waiting on a resource or somebody else to do something. SOMEDAY, MAYBE is just that. And REFERENCE is stuff I want to keep- which I am VERY judicious about. Standard rules apply: Be sure to set each account to leave messages on server. I love this tip because it works and I am getting things done.
The Thunderbird solution is not portable like the G-mail one- meaning you can use a web app to get to it. There is a portable version of Thunderbird for USB thumb drives [portableapps.com] but it does not know how to handle the Webmail extensions so it will only work with normal pop accounts. But this is another useful tool to keep your stuff with you when your laptop isn't. Check out the rest of the apps for your thumb drive or under resourced computers.
joeyjellydonut
bluenile
Posted 2:45 AM 7/4/08
For further consolidation of your emails from your desktop: It is now possible to upload all your old mail from your desktop clients such as Outlook, Outlook Express and ThunderBird using the official Gmail Tool called Google Email Uploader available for download from [mail.google.com]
bluenile
Bloodshed
Posted 6:17 PM 8/4/08
@all: the "on behalf of" appears on Outlook, Gmail do the right thing to send email from another address. It's not gmail which add this "on behalf of" so blame Microsoft (or not, it's a security feature I think).
@quikboy: Gmail too, it's just now that lifehacker post this old well-known feature.
Bloodshed
freddiefenster
Posted 1:56 AM 9/4/08
I really don't know how people are managing to forward their hotmail.com mail to gmail.com. I've tried all the suggestions above and none work. It's pretty explicit where it states: "You can forward your mail to one other e-mail address that ends in hotmail.com, msn.com, live.com, or custom domains" Custom domains here are domains registered through MSN/Live Custom Domains.
The The possible reasons I see that it might have worked are:
1. People have paid for hotmail plus which allows POP and therefore may allow this
2. People have paid for hotmail plus in the past and this feature has not been turned off
3. They are somehow very lucky, according to the documentation it shouldn't be working.
@Gina, if you could shed light on how you get this working I think we would all appreciate it.
freddiefenster
voyage2k
Posted 9:31 AM 11/4/08
I can't get it to forward on my Hotmail or my Yahoo mail. :\ I wish MSN and Yahoo would look at this as something positive -- they can still get people who want accounts with them, people just want to use the ease and convenience of Gmail to manage all the accounts.
(Well, *I* went along with that line of BS for a little bit.... :) )
voyage2k