Want to use Gmail instead of MS Outlook?

Did you know you can use Gmail to manage all your email accounts? Maybe you’ve got a personal Gmail email address and you’re using Outlook for your separate work email address. You can, if you want, manage everything through Gmail - ideal if you prefer Gmail’s browser interface and its iOS and Android mail client apps.

What are the benefits? The Gmail interface is fast- no more waiting for Outlook to start up on an older PC. You get Gmail/Google super fast searching, Gmail’s labels (worth getting the hang of and better than Outlook folders I think) and Gmail’s superior management of spam email. Setting up rules in Gmail for automatically labelling and filing emails also seems easier.

The caveats are that POP3 must be enabled on the other accounts (it usually is) and that this works best in a non MS Exchange environment - things become more difficult if you’re using Exchange to integrate emails and calendars.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Go into Gmail, click the Gear symbol at top right, then ‘Settings’, then the ‘Accounts and Imports’ tab.


2. Find the "Check mail from other accounts (using POP3)" section and then click ‘Add a POP3 mail account you own’.


3. Enter the email address you want to add, then click ‘Next Steps’ and then enter your password.


4. Choose some settings. The Google recommendations are:
   
   
   • Leave a copy of retrieved messages on the server - keep checked.
   • Always use a secure connection (SSL) when retrieving mail - keep checked.
   • Label incoming messages - Check this one. Gmail automatically labels the emails coming in from the other account - it’s really useful.
   • Archive incoming messages - Don’t check this one.


5. Click ‘Add Account’.


6. You can also then get Gmail to send emails on behalf of the other account.

Google tells you more about how to do it here https://support.google.com/mail/answer/21289?hl=en

Gmail will check your email account periodically and copy over any new emails it finds. How often it checks depends on how many emails you get - it could be every 20 minutes but it’ll be more frequent if you get email throughout the day. You can manually get an update anytime - just click the refresh icon at the top of your Gmail page in your browser.