At this time, I’ve managed somehow to accumulate 6 personal email addresses.
That many email inboxes can be a nightmare to handle, especially if you are actively receiving email at every address.
For me, it was Gmail to the rescue. Gmail was the start of my love affair with Google. I jumped on that bandwagon when it was still in closed beta and it has only gotten better over the years. With more storage than I could ever use (I have 5 active email accounts funneling into my main inbox and I’m only at 18% capacity – and I save everything) plus a plethora of critical integration options, it’s a hands-down no brainer why so many leave Hotmail and Yahoo to join the dark side – err – Gmail.
How to Do It Yourself
Prepare for the move:
- Figure out which email addresses you want to eliminate completely – if any – and which ones you want to keep active.
- Get yourself a Gmail account if you don’t already have one.
- Add a footer to all your outgoing mail at the accounts you plan to eliminate to alert people of your new email address. Ask them to update their records. Consider sending a bulk email – but remember to BCC all the email addresses for privacy!
Get your mail in one place:
You have two choices, depending on what’s easiest for you, where your accounts are and what you’re keeping.
- Import your mail into Gmail using the POP3 feature. Gmail will allow you to download email from other sources as long as you have POP3 access. No IMAP for this yet.
- Forward your mail to Gmail using automated email filters or forwarders on the original account.
For some services — such as Yahoo! — you might be SOL; Yahoo! requires you to buy their premium service in order to either forward messages or allow POP3 access. Hotmail and MSN will allow POP3 access, though, so you’re good there. I would suggest that you simply take the plunge and get rid of any Yahoo! mail accounts that you have and alert your contacts that you are moving to Gmail. The good news is that Gmail offers you a simple solution to import your mail and contacts from other services such as Yahoo!, MSN, Hotmail, AOL and more. Just go to your Gmail account –> Settings –> Accounts and Import and click the “Import Mail and Contacts” button to start the process.
Send email from your other accounts within Gmail:
Now that your email is all flowing to your new Gmail inbox, and you’ve eliminated unnecessary and/or outdated and closed email systems like Yahoo!, you’re ready to set your Gmail account to send email from your other addresses when necessary.
- For each email that you want to configure to send email from within your shiny new single inbox, go to your Gmail account –> Settings –> Accounts and Import –>Send Mail As and click “Send Mail from Another Address.”
- Gmail will ask you for the necessary information and send an authentication email to the account in question.
- Once you click the link in the email, you can choose that email address in a drop-down when you are composing new messages. (Find it in the “from” area on the top of the email editor area)
- Lather, Rinse, Repeat until all of your email addresses are added.
When someone sends you an email to your Hotmail address, and it is imported via POP3 into your Gmail account, if you click “reply” on that message? Gmail is smart enough to know that you want to reply from the address the original email was sent to — so if you set up that Hotmail account as an additional account that you own, Gmail will choose that account automatically. Seamless.
Do you have too many emails, or do you need help with this? Contact me to discuss getting your inboxes in order.
