How many email accounts do you have? Out of those, how many do you check regularly, and how many different platforms are they on? If you have too many, you’re apt to miss something important. That’s why we’re going over how to ensure that your emails are well-organized and accessible from a single source.
One Account, Two Accounts, Three Accounts, Four…
Based on your work responsibilities and how your office is structured, it’s possible that you need regular access to multiple email accounts. You could have one you use internally, one for communicating with clients, one to reach out to vendors, one to use to sign up for resources and much more.
You presumably have other work responsibilities beyond just checking your email, however, so switching between all of them just isn’t a practical option. Well, it just so happens that you won’t need to switch, as the email client you choose will be able to consolidate these multiple accounts for you.
- An email account is the individual address used to send or receive a message.
- An email client is the program that allows you to send and receive emails. Gmail and Microsoft Outlook are two perfect examples. If you have multiple clients stored on the same server, they can be used pretty much interchangeably, each client presenting all emails. An email client also has a few features that enable you to better keep track of multiple email accounts, provided you have set it up to do so.
Multiple Inboxes
Email client developers understood that a given user isn’t going to be tied down to a single email provider, and certainly not a single account. This is why email clients can support multiple inboxes, assuming they’re configured correctly. Multiple inboxes allow a user to access a single client to manage multiple email accounts, streamlining the process greatly and enabling customized organization.
Multiple Email Personalities
On the other hand, some users don’t mind leveraging one inbox, but might still need to utilize more than one address in their correspondence. There’s also a method that enables the use of a single, catch-all inbox, but enables the user to select which email address their response is sent from.
To do so, you’ll first need to set up an email account you don’t give out, as it’ll serve as the catch-all address that all of your emails ultimately accumulate within. Once it’s been set up, you need to set all of your other accounts to forward their contents to that mailbox.
Once your messages are all being sent to the catch-all account, you’ll be able to respond to these emails from the address they were originally sent to.
Setting Up Inboxes and Personalities
In order to accomplish either of these tasks for your client of choice, you’ll need to adjust a few settings.
Gmail
To add another account to your Gmail client, access your Settings by clicking on the gear icon. Once you’re in your Settings, you should see a tab labeled Accounts and Import. Under that tab, there is a Check mail from other accounts section. Click on Add a mail account, and follow the instructions provided.
To add additional personalities to your Gmail account, you’ll need to again navigate to the Accounts and Import tab. There, you’ll find a section labeled Send Mail As, with the option to Add another email address. This will also allow you to choose your default email address.
Outlook
As it happens, there are too many different versions of Microsoft Outlook and too many variables to allow us to provide a walk-through. Fortunately, Microsoft does offer some documentation that instructs users how to manage their “connected accounts.” Of course, you can also call 844.671.6071 for our assistance, as well.