Official Gmail Blog: Send mail from another address without "on behalf of"

If you use more than one email account in Gmail, you can now change a setting to have Gmail use the other account’s outgoing mail server instead of Google’s. I’m sort of surprised they weren’t doing this all along, and it’s just another annoying part of how everyone else has to cope with Outlook being a crappy product.

Official Gmail Blog: Import your mail and contacts from other accounts

Official Gmail Blog: Import your mail and contacts from other accounts

It’s hard to believe one could have still been stuck with mail in different accounts.

Gmail Adds AIM to Chat

Gmail is adding integration with AIM into its chat setup. What’s with the Lazy Sunday reference though?

Google Adds IMAP Access to Gmail

After lagging behind Yahoo!, Google has added IMAP support to Gmail. This means that if you want to read your mail using a client like Thunderbird, Apple’s Mail, or MobileMail on the iPhone, any messages that you read on the client will be marked as read on Gmail’s web interface. It was annoying previously that whenever I opened up my email on my iPhone, all the mail that I’d already read during the day would pop up as new. Here’s the announcement from Google, and here’s a list of instructions on how to set it up. The iPhone gets its own page, and a video showing you how to set it up. There’s also a page explaining how they’ve translated Gmail’s Labels to IMAP folders. I don’t use labels too much—my mail needs are pretty simple—but this is a big deal because Gmail lets you apply multiple labels to the same message, while most mail systems tend to only allow a message be in one folder.

You can check to see if your account has had IMAP access turned on yet by going to Settings → Forwarding and POP. If it has a section for IMAP access, you’re set. If not, you’ll have to wait until Gmail upgrades your account. It doesn’t seem that Google Apps accounts have been upgraded. Mine hasn’t at least.

Update

Seems Google Apps accounts are being upgraded, too, so I’ll just have to wait until mine gets switched on. Also, you can reportedly use this to upload old mail to Gmail, if you have any stuff sitting around from other accounts.

Update 2

Here’s the post on the Gmail blog.

Update 3

My account’s active now. Here are some tips on how to set up your Drafts, Sent, and Trash folders to sync back to Gmail from Mail and MobileMail.

Gmail video montage

This Gmail video montage thing is actually pretty neat.

How to Import All Your Archive Email Into Gmail

How to Import All Your Archive Email Into Gmail

Gmail recently added the ability to check POP mail, and just dropped the restriction that the feature wouldn’t work with other Gmail accounts, so you can now import your old non-Gmail mail. It’s not quite simple, but it works nicely.

Google Apps for Your Domain

Google Apps for Your Domain

Official Google Blog: Mac Gmail Notifier update

Official Google Blog: Mac Gmail Notifier update

New version, universal binary.

Gmail: Help Center - Can I use emoticons?

Gmail: Help Center - Can I use emoticons?

Gmail’s emoticon list. Personally I prefer them in all their ASCII glory rather than the graphical versions.

New Google Service to Blend the Gmail and Chat Features - New York Times

New Google Service to Blend the Gmail and Chat Features - New York Times

Chat in Gmail

Chat in Gmail

Could be useful. I often use Gmail like slow chat anyway.

Gmail Notifier for Macs

Gmail Notifier for Macs

gCount stopped working recently. Good to see this out.

Use Gmail to Send Mail From Other Addresses

Use Gmail to Send Mail From Other Addresses

You can now set Gmail up to send out email from another account, if you need to.

Google Blog: "Sign up for Gmail"

Google Blog: “Sign up for Gmail”

Interesting. Gmail is now open without invitations, but you need a cell phone to sign up as their way of verifying your identity.

New version of gCount

New version of gCount

I use this little program to check my Gmail for me without having to keep the browser window open. A few weeks ago Gmail changed something and gCount stopped working. This new version fixes that.

Gcount and Gmail Notifier

Now that I’m using Gmail as my primary mail provider, I’ve gone searching for a few utilities to make it work more like a desktop client.

The two biggest gripes I have with webmail are that it doesn’t work with mailto: links and that you have to check manually to see if you have mail. I’ve found good solutions for both of these issues. At work on my PC I use Google’s own Gmail Notifier, which pops up a little dialog by the system tray. It also lets you associate it to mailto: links, but seems to get confused if you also use Outlook for another account. For MacOS X I’m really liking gCount. It sits in your menu bar and turns red and optionally plays a sound when you get new mail. To make gCount your default mail handler you’ll need to open Apple’s Mail, go to its General Preferences, and select it instead of Mail.

I considered using Gmail Loader to import all my old mail, but decided against it because the mail doesn’t get imported with the right date and I think it’ll only be a matter of time before Google implements an import function (they already have for contacts).

Gmail Primary

In the interest of saving money I’ve decided to let my .mac account lapse when it expires next month. Please consider my Gmail account to be my primary address for the time being.

I very much prefer client email to web-based, but unless someone wants to throw some venture capital my way (I have tons of ideas) so that I can quit my job and work from home, webmail works better when moving from my work PC to my iMac to Katherine’s PowerBook.

Gmail4Troops and ComixRelief

I’ve donated three Gmail invitations to Gmail4Troops, an idea that Wil Wheaton has set up. The concept is that since Google offers so much storage space it would be ideal for soldiers who want to exchange photos or video clips with friends and family at home. If you have any free Gmail invitations, please consider passing a few along.

I’m also going to pick up a few titles on Wednesday to send to Operation Comix Relief. It’s a program set up by an Air Force nurse to get people to send comic books to troops who’ve been injured and are recovering in military hospitals. They’ve found that reading comics helps them get back into a childhood mindset that lifts their spirits when they’re dealing with rough stuff.

Mapping a Gmail Outbreak

Gmail is spreading through my peergroup like a virus. Two days ago Patient Zero was given three free invitations to give out. Within a day each of those people got three invitations and now they have started infecting others.

What this shows me is that Google has succeeded on two major fronts. Here’s how it works:

Success

Be a credible company that people don’t hate. (“Don’t Be Evil.”)

Build a better mousetrap.

Everyone is grabbing up Gmail because it’s a great product coming from a company they like/trust/don’t hate. Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail have stagnated, filled their interfaces with ugly ads, suffered from feature bloat, and reduced their free versions to the lowest tolerable functions. Who knew that providing good service was the secret to success?

[Oh, and yes I’m using Gmail now, too, but all my mail is going to both addresses, so just keep using my old one. I think I still prefer a good mail client to webmail when I’m at home, so for now at least I’m just going to be using Gmail at work.]