How to Run Your Own Email Through Gmail

Google’s email service, Gmail, is pretty much ubiquitous, and for good reason. It’s relatively easy to use, most email software is designed for it, and it does the best job of spam filtering of any email solution I’ve seen. And, it’s free. How cool is that?

I’ve had so many clients ask how to do this, I figured it’d be easiest to put a post up that describes the process. I’m assuming you have an email address you want to use already, which I’ll refer to as you@yourdomain.com, and a google account, which we’ll call you@gmail.com. If you don’t yet, both are easy to set up; for the purposes of this article, I’ll assume you have your email settings already from wherever the you@yourdomain.com is set up (and if you don’t, log into your hosting account’s cPanel, or if it’s set up with the domain registrar, then log in there, and you’ll find your settings there. (And if that fails, google “bluehost email settings” or whatever hosting you use, and let Google provide.)

Log into Gmail…

… and go into the Settings menu. Look for the gear icon in the upper right corner.

Settings › Accounts and Import

Add your POP3 account

Don’t get confused about what a POP3 account is; if you have a you@yourdomain.com email address, chances are super high that it’s a POP3 account.

In the Check mail from other accounts section, click the Add a POP3 mail account you own.

It’ll ask you for your mail server settings next. If you have your email set up through your hosting account or your domain name registrar, you’ll be able to find your settings there without much trouble.

Next, Configure The Send Mail As

With the steps above, you’ll be able to check your email using gmail. It’s this next step that’ll allow you to send email without it looking like you’re using gmail. If you want to get email from you@yourdomain.com, but send it out as you@gmail.com, you don’t need to complete this step. But if you want people to continue to see you@yourdomain.com, then keep on following along…

If you’re still in the previous screen, you might see a message telling you your mail account has been added, and under that, the option to send mail as you@yourdomain.com.

If you’re back out at the menu again, just click the “Add another email address you own” in the “Send mail as” section.

Enter Your Name and Email Address

Easy enough…

Choose “Send through Gmail”

The last step is where you can choose to use gmail’s servers to send the email, or if you want to connect back to your old servers. If you have a reason to do the latter, go for it… otherwise, keep life easy, and stick with Gmail.

And there you go.

You should be all set; now all you have to do is access your you@gmail.com gmail account, however you want to do that (directly in a browser, through Outlook, Apple Mail, Postbox, or whatever, and your you@yourdomain.com email will be right there.

 

photo credit: AZRainman via photopin cc