Yesterday, I provided a video to show you how to forward a hosting account e-mail to G-mail. Today, I want to show you how to combine multiple G-mail accounts.
The idea is to gather all your G-mail accounts so they forward mail to your primary G-mail account and still allow you to answer all e-mails as if they were delivered to the original inbox – a real time saver!
The video is the quickest and easiest way to learn how to do this, but if you don’t care for video – read the text below. 🙂
Watch the Video:
How to Combine Multiple G-mail Accounts from Bonnie Gean
Instructions
First, login to your primary G-mail account. This will be the account you want all the G-mail accounts forwarded to. After you login, search for the gear box on the right side of the page and click Settings.
STEP #1: Locate the Settings Tab
- Click on Accounts and Important information from the file menu.
- Go down to “Send mail as” and click the “Add another email address you own” link.
- Enter the name you want to associate with the new e-mail address.
Next, enter the G-mail address you want to forward mail from into the box. Checkmark “Treat as an alias” and click the Next Step button.
You will get a new box that requires you to send verification to your secondary G-mail account to verify that you do in fact want to forward e-mail from this account to your primary one.
Click the Send Verification button to proceed to the next step. We’re going to verify through e-mail so we won’t need the verification box that pops up, so just close it; click the X in the upper right hand corner of the box.
Sign out of your primary G-mail account.
STEP #2: Check for Verification on Your Secondary Account
- Login to your secondary G-mail account.
- Find the verification e-mail and click the link inside to verify.
After clicking the verification link, Google will display a message on the screen that says “The Gmail user may now send mail as whatever-email-address-you-chose. Click here to return to your Gmail account.”
STEP #3: Add Forwarding and POP/IMAP
Staying inside your secondary G-mail account, go back to the gear box on the right side of the page and click Settings. Next, click on the Forwarding and POP/IMAP link from the menu.
Under the Forwarding section, click the “Add a forwarding address” button. In the next box, enter a new forwarding e-mail address, which should be your PRIMARY G-mail account and click the Next button.
Click the Proceed button. You’ll get another on-screen notice that tells you a confirmation code was sent to verify permission. Click the OK button.
STEP #4: Check for Verification on Your Primary Account
You’ll receive this new confirmation in your primary G-mail account. Log out of your secondary account and go check your primary G-mail account for the confirmation.
Once you find the confirmation e-mail, do the same thing as before and click the verification link inside the e-mail, which will produce another on-screen notice from Google that you were successful.
Update Your Reply Settings
As a precaution, make sure that your primary account is set to reply from the same address the message was sent to.
Go to the gear box on the right of the page and click Settings. Click the Accounts and Import link. Look under the section where you added the secondary G-mail account (Send mail as field) for the line that says, When replying to a message and check the radio box to activate it.
You’ll want to click that radio box so when you respond to e-mails coming in from various G-mail accounts, you’ll answer with the correct FROM name and e-mail address.
This is especially important if you’re sharing hats of a PLR writer, an affiliate marketer, a coach, etc. This way you’ll keep the various branches of your business separated from each other so you don’t confuse people. 🙂
STEP #5: Check Your Secondary G-mail Account
Log out of your primary G-mail account and log back into your secondary G-mail account. You’ll need to make one last change before the forwarding is completely ready.
Update Your Forwarding Settings
- Find the gear box on the right side of the page and click Settings.
- Click on the Forwarding and POP/IMAP link.
- Turn on forwarding; choose forward a copy of incoming mail.
Decide how you want Google to handle the e-mail that’s left on the secondary account. Google gives you the following choices:
- Keep Gmail’s copy in the inbox
- Mark Gmail’s copy as read
- Archive Gmail’s copy
- Delete Gmail’s copy
As soon as someone sends an e-mail to your secondary account, and it’s forwarded to your primary G-mail account, what do you want Google to do with the e-mail left on the second account? Do you want to keep it or delete it?
I choose to delete mine, but you can choose whatever you want. After making your choice, remember to scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click the Save changes button.
You should now see a notice at the top of your secondary G-mail account from Google, which reads: “You are forwarding your email to…” the address you assigned.”
Once you get this notice, you’ll know you’re done. That is, until you start the process over again for your other G-mail accounts. 🙂
Your turn! Got any questions? Leave a comment below and let me know!
Thanks for reading,
– Bonnie
P.S. Did you enjoy this message? If so, please share it with your friends so they can benefit from schmoozing. Then, if you want to get more messages like this one, connect with me via my social links below or hop aboard my notification list. I would like to keep in touch.
How to Forward a Hosting Account E-mail to G-mail
At last!! I’ve done it 🙂 Helped having 2 computers operating so I could have the primary email open on one and the secondary on the other so I wasn’t forever logging in and out of emails.
Just about got the hang of the process when I ran out of emails to add 😉 lol
Thanks Bonnie – it was good to know I could come back here for the instructions!
You’re welcome, Tamsin! Glad I’m useful. 🙂 hehe
Hello Bonnie,
Very well done video instruction. So I have my old(secondary) gmail be forwarded to my new(primary) gmail. But I want to import all the old/saved/archived emails from secondary account to the new/primary? Along with my old labels etc. Can that be done?
There are instructions online to show you how to get this done. If you point your browser over to http://lifehacker.com/352401/migrate-all-your-old-gmail-to-a-new-gmail-address, the websites gives you instructions on how to migrate all your old Gmail to a new account.
Gmail also has instructions to help you do this with “fetching” too. Here’s the instructions: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/56283?hl=en
If you have your multiple gmail accounts going to one gmail account, can you still access your G+ account for your primary address with all of this going on?
You can still access G+ with the email associated with that account. There shouldn’t be any problem with it. I don’t seem to have any! 🙂
Hi Bonnie. Love the video!
The thing that bugs me about the way Google sets this up is when an email is sent from the primary account but using the secondary account email address, the receiver sees both email addresses, the primary and then it says sending on behalf of the secondary. Maybe it’s me but I think this looks unprofessional.
Great website, keep up the good work!!! 🙂
Truthfully, I don’t think many people look at the from: field all that much. Even if they did, I think they would appreciate the fact that their mail was answered and not care where it was answered from.
Don’t you?
I have 4 mail accounts and I do the same. But It’ll keep a copy on the other accounts.
Do you ever have the need to refer back to the other accounts since you feel it’s necessary to save the mail?
Hi Bonnie, I don’t have gmail but want to commend your this exceptional video. I certainly won’t have a problem implementing when the need arises. Thank you.
I think 90% of Internet marketers have at least attempted or have used G-mail. When the time comes, I’m sure this tutorial will help you, too!
you can actually combine multiple pop3 email into 1 gmail account. yahoo + hotmail + webhost email all to gmail.After you set it up all incoming emails will be flag differently so you can tell which inbox it’s from.also, you will be able to choice which of your email address to reply. here’s a tutorial i found:
howtogeek.com/106034/how-to-combine-all-your-email-addresses-into-one-gmail-inbox/
This is good to know, thanks for sharing!
Hey Bonnie
Would this same thing work to add my hotmail accounts to go to my main gmail account too?
Mary Kathan
I don’t use Hotmail, but if they allow e-mail forwarding you can forward Hotmail to G-mail.
I’m not certain the aliasing would work the same way since you’re using 2 different services, but it’s worth a shot to try it.
Thanks Bonnie, that’s useful – and also the comments that followed.
I’ve unfortunately managed to get myself two Google profiles and wonder if it’s advisable to try and merge them? At the moment I’m just using one and leaving the other to wither. But there’s stuff connected to both 🙁
Time is scarce at the moment, but one day …..
Joy
Jan Kearney is the Google-go-to gal. You should ask her as she can help you better than I care regarding Google services. 🙂
Thanks for the reply. Yeah it leaves me crossed-eyed every time I think about it. Everything I have set up now the “alias” isn’t checked. So it doesn’t seem to make a difference. Heh go figure. 🙂
With the alias checked, it’s supposed to make it look as if you’re answering with the true account. That’s why you’re asked to provide a “from name” in step #1.
The alias works for me with all the accounts I’ve set up this way. I’m not sure why it doesn’t make a difference for you.
I always thought that checking the “treat as alias” box caused a problem when you hit reply. Instead of it showing the email address the mail was sent to, it automatically defaults to the main email account.
So in the case of the emails in the video, if you received mail to bonniegean2012 and clicked reply with the “treat as alias” checked, your reply email defaults to turnplrintocash.
That’s what I got from the info at Google which is about as clear as mud. Have you seen that happening?
Also, did you know you can log into 3 gmail addresses at a time?
Go to the drop down arrow beside the email address. Choose Add Account and log into another gmail account.
The downside, you can’t access anything other than the emails of the “added” accounts but you don’t have to log in and out if you’re setting up a forward.
I’ve tested this multiple times and I’ve never had a problem. In fact, I just went in and checked again after your inquiry.
I used a third account to send mail to the secondary account, which forwarded to the primary account. I logged into the primary account and hit reply and typed a response.
I went back to the third account and received the email. The email “from address” did in fact state the secondary email even though it was responded to using the primary account.
So no – it did not default to the turnplrtocash account. The reply was sent as if it had been mailed from the bonniegean2012 secondary.
My tutorial is as it should be. 🙂
All the forwards can be done at once, Minna. If you have 20 G-mail accounts, add all 20 email addresses (and send the confirmations) at the same time. However, even if you did it in this fashion, you would still need to log in 20 times to verify the forwards for each of those 20 accounts.
If you used the add account function, naturally you would remain opened in the browser window for that primary account; though, you would still need to approve 20 confirmations on the other accounts.
I certainly didn’t want to do more than 1 for the instructions. LOL
Ok, even I’m getting a headache just thinking about it! ROFL
Thanks for stopping by. Good to see you again!
One note from my own experience. When you forward to one account, all works well UNLESS something went into the spam bucket in the original account. I went looking for something someone swore they sent me one day and finally opened the original account manually. There were 700 messages in the spam folder, including the one I was looking for!
What happens when you tell G-mail to delete all the forwarded e-mail? Does the spam still remain?
I haven’t tested it thoroughly (my perfectionist streak showing) and as far as I can tell, yes. Since the spam didn’t get forwarded it sits there all nice and purty.
Hmm, I might have to contact Google about that. If you forward mail, it should forward ALL of it regardless of whether it landed in a spam folder are not.
I would love to hear what you learn about that Bonnie. What I’ve done, for the moment, is review the items I want to make sure land in my centralized account, then I create a rule for them so they never go to the spam folder.
I check the source accounts about 1x every 2 weeks or so unless I know I’m expecting something I need to act on.
Not perfect, and definitely does NOT fit my idea of a systematized hands off approach!
Well, it would help if Google actually made it so things work the way they should, right?
Ya think! Geez
LMAO
You don’t have to log out of one gmail account to log into another one. I have three accounts open right now. You just click on the little down arrow beside your photo in the upper right hand corner.
Then, I click on Add Account in the lower left hand corner. That brings up another Google mail sign-in page. Put your info in there and boom, you have another account open.
Now, it does slow the machine down to have so many browser tabs open at once, so I can then close any window I don’t need anymore.
Great tutorial. You do explains things so clearly. I didn’t watch the video, I read.
Ah, but there’s the magic explanation – you need to Add Account in order to have multiple G-mail accounts open in the same browser. If you have 20 G-mail accounts (and I know some people who do), why would you want to swap between 20 browser windows?
I know I wouldn’t. Plus, this means 20 instances of your browser are loaded into your PC task manager, too. If you have limited memory, this will definitely slow down the computer. 🙁
You’re on a roll, Bonnie 🙂 I’m logged into 3-4 google accounts at a time when I am working with clients. I use different browsers for each so I’m not logging in and out.
But Google is pretty nifty too, you can access multiple accounts for several services right in the same browser – gmail is one of them
Another tutorial coming up? I have no mic, Muppet pup ate my headset 🙁
I can’t login to two G-mail accounts at the same time. Google kicks one of them off every time!
Go doggy go… Next up is her easy chair! 🙂
I must be special 🙂 I have both jansmailagain and mylocalbusinessonline gmails logged in on Firefox.
Muppet started on the desk leg and the chair wheel too… Gutted!
Will see later how reasonable the sound is on this laptop mic and video it – the gmail accounts, not the destroyed desk leg.
You named your new doggy Muppet? ROFL
Does he look like Kermie? 🙂
I have at least 5-6 active gmail accounts open at the same time (that’s from a Google Apps account tho). Wonder why you can’t Bonnie?
Because I refuse to “Add Account” 6 times. 🙂
Every instance of the browser that’s open helps bog down your computer. The more browser windows, the harsher the load on your computer.
Same thing for “tabbed” pages in the browser. For every page you “pinned” to the browser window, it loads it into your task manager. If you ever wondered why your system is slow – close some of the browser tabs to free up memory.
Is that why my computer goes slow when I have 30 tabs open? LMAO 😀
Ya think? 🙂 hehe
This saves my bucket (you beat me to the post…grin). By the way, if you happen to like screen shots with instructions, you might want to check out ScreenSteps.
I love instructions with screenshots and I have taken your advice and downloaded (and installed) ScreenSteps. They offer a 2 week trial period. If I like it, I just might buy it.
Thanks MRK!
I’ve been doing that kind of instructions (not the video/screencasting that is currently popular!) for 30 years. This tool is the slickest thing I’ve found for creating a series of them. Glad to hear you’re checking it out. I created a Gravatar instruction booklet (even tho’ Gravatar is pretty simple, I wrote instructions for several tasks) and it was neat. The native formatting isn’t my favorite, of course I’m pickeeeeeee. And it does a great job of turning the instructions into a blog post and it was designed for online instructions that grow and are updated.
Have fun! If you have questions, let me know. Still learning my way through it and it’s sister product (clarify-it).
One of the things I didn’t like about the program is how it exports to Word. it places the instructions after the graphic, whereas I believe they are better before the graphic. It just makes more sense.
So even though I exported to Word, I still had to sit here and fiddle with changing the text around.
Plus, I’m not too fond of their formatting or colors. It could be due to my using the trial for 14 days, but I doubt it.
I did make this tutorial with it, but as I said, I had to copy and paste the instructions to place them before the graphic rather than after. Not sure if that saved me much time. 🙂
Hello Bonnie,
I’m Alex and joined to Tiff’s challenge recently. I read your posts there, and that encouraged me to ask you something.
If you visit my site, you can perceive an author’s resource box beneath every post. But I don’t like the automatically generated text and want to change them.
I’m curious, is there a way to do that? If yes, then how?
Anyway, I’d like to thank you for your post about making gravatar picture and due to your tutorial, I could manage that. 🙂
I appreciate your trouble in advance.
Alex
I would imagine so, Alex. Most WordPress themes come with the ability to changes things right from the customize menu of the theme. Of course, there are other ways to change a theme, such as changing the CSS through the styles, too.
Each theme is different and while I would love to help everyone, I don’t (at the moment) have the Gazette theme from WooThemes, as you do so I am unable to provide you with a step by step.
I would ask WooThemes for the answer or I would hire a quick designer who can go in there and make the change for you.
Thank you for your kindness Bonnie. I’m heading to the designer now.
Alex
Let me know how it works out for you Alex. 🙂
Awesome! Thanks Bonnie – I would have never had the patience to figure all that out on my own…
Your tutorials are very easy to follow along with and go at a nice even pace.
Tweeted!
Mary Kathan
Thanks Mary for the Tweet. Did you get your accounts finished? 🙂
Bonnie – I like the photo image on your video. Can you tell me how to do that – with the white photo frame thing.
OK – so I have had done the forwarding of my gmail emails to my hotmail account. Can I then respond to these emails from my hotmail account?
You can easily do the white frame thing using PowerPoint or the equivalent program with Open Office.
If you forwarded the G-mail accounts to your hotmail account, there should be no reason why you couldn’t respond using your hotmail account. I’m not certain though, if you can answer using the original name attached to the G-mail account. I don’t use Hotmail at all, so I have no knowledge how it works.