Manage Multiple Emails with Gmail

The majority of people these days has more than one email address, many even have more than three emails that they use regularly for different purposes. It takes time to check each email account with all the logins and there is also the high chance of forgetting your passwords.

To manage multiple emails you could use a desktop client but it gets complicated when you use two or more computers regularly (work and home computer) and want to check your multiple email accounts on all computers. One great option we have today is Gmail with its feature of accessing multiple email addresses on one gmail account via POP3.

The best part of Gmail’s multiple email possibility is that it can be enabled to access emails from 3rd party providers (your isp email, hotmail, yahoo, etc), not just limited to other gmail accounts. At first you would think it’s complicated to set up each email account but here we show you a step by step tutorial on how to do it. The great thing is you only set it up once and then be prepared to save time by only opening one account to check all your email from different accounts.

Step by Step

Following are the steps to import mail from another email account to manage multiple emails with gmail:

1. On your Google Email Account, click wheel shaped icon at top right of your screen and select “Settings” from drop-down menu.
2. At the top of Gmail settings, click on the “Accounts and Import” tab.
3. Under the header for Check mail from other account (POP3) click on “Add a POP3 mail account you own”.
4. Fill in the email address(your own domain, yahoo, hotmail, other gmail, etc) you want to add and click “Next Step”.
5. In the next step (see image below), add the add the pop server, password and port (if the email is from hotmail, yahoo, it will automatically appear; if the email is from your own domain like in the image below you get the POP server and port information from your cpanel or the control panel your hosting provider uses), check the boxes as they appear on the image below, and click “Add Account”.

Note: we recommend to check the option “Label incoming messages:” to keep incoming mails from the two accounts separate. By checking this option you label the added account with the email address to separate it from your gmail inbox. The last option “Archive incoming messages (Skip the inbox)” should be checked too, this way the emails sent to the added account(s) go directly to the labeled account, so not to mix emails.

After the email is added successfully, it is recommended to add the email as an alias so that you can send emails from the new accounts address.  To do this follow this steps:

1. On your Google Email Account, click the wheel shaped icon at top right of screen and select “Settings” from drop-down menu.
2. At the top of Gmail settings, click on the “Accounts and Import” tab.
3. Under the header for Send mail as: click on “Add another email address you own”.
4. Fill in the email address you want to add and click “Next Step”.
5. In the next step (see image below), add the SMTP server and port (if the email is from hotmail, yahoo, it will automatically appear; if the email is from your own domain like in the image below you can get the SMTP server and port information from your cpanel or control panel your hosting provider uses), username and password for the email account, next click “Add Account”.
6. After you add the account, an email will be sent to the email address being added, this is used to confirm that you can use this address to send email from your gmail account. Enter the code and email is confirmed. Go ahead an send emails from the newly added accounts.

Important Note: Gmail can only import mail that is in the inbox of your other email accounts. To import emails from other folders you have to move them to the inbox and then label them as they are imported to your gmail account. This takes time but the good news is that you only have to do it once.

In the next image you can see how I have my gmail account with 5 other email accounts added. This way I can have all my emails in one account and I can check them wether I am at my work, home or any computer.

Conclusion

Gmail is one of the most user-friendly email service provider, if you follow the steps detailed in this tutorial you can manage all of your email accounts in one platform. This helps you either if you want to have all your accounts in one account or send emails from different addresses without having to keep switching email service providers.