May
31
Hello, my name is Arstan Jusupov and I am the author of Jusupov.com where I blog about Open Source, Hardware and Software reviews. I took David’s offer and I will be a guest blogger here. Mostly my posts will include hints and tips about softwares, mainly open source or free, which will enable you to blog better. So stay tuned!
David, thanks for the opportunity!
Now, many people have blogged on how to start blogging, giving out many tips and hints. They say that you must start straight from your own domain. If you follow this advice then you would probably also follow my advice on using yourname@yourblog.com email wherever possible. So it’s kind of letting people know there’s a blog of yours at this address. Also it is good to have this kind of email account for your online image.
I understand if you don’t like to use E-Mail clients like Outlook, Thunderbird etc. You are always on the move, you are a blogger! Not an office rat 
Now this trick on how to use your domain email inside Gmail is a quick and dirty one. I’m sure most of the readers will agree with me that Google’s Gmail service is an awesome piece of software. Almost no spam, intuitive and yet simple GUI, great use of tags instead of folders etc etc…
So let’s see the list of things needed:
- A domain name for your blog
- Gmail account
- Access to your Control Panel at your ISP
- Some patience
If you have the above listed things that means you are ready to go. Now, login to your domain’s hosting Control Panel and make sure emails coming to yourname@yourblog.com is forwarded to yourname@gmail.com account. Afterwards, login to Gmail, go to your Gmail Settings on your top right corner of your browser. Pick Accounts tab and click on Add Another email address. In the popup window type in your name and your yourname@yourblog.com email. Click Next Step button and in the next screen click on Send Verification button when you are sure you have made no mistakes in typing your email address.
You wait for the confirmation code to be sent to your Gmail account (remember we redirected all incoming emails to your Gmail account?) . Once you receive confirmation email from Gmail just follow the instructions written there and follow the long link they sent to you.
At this point you have emails sent to yourname@yourblog.com and you can sent email in behalf of yourname@yourblog.com.
To see if this really works try sending emails from other emails, for e.g. Yahoo!, to yourname@yourblog.com and see if you receive. Then reply to the message to see if sending is ok.
Further suggestions:
- Make yourname@yourblog.com account as default. This means whenever you write email it will be sent from your yourname@yourblog.com account.
- Create a filter based on Sent to address. This helps you to separate emails coming to your blog email address and your original Gmail account.
So if you have a domain name it’s time to use your emails from it!
Note: It won’t however totally replace your email needs, if you want more take a look at Google Apps for your domain. I am myself moving there actually after having used the above trick for 3-4 months now.
Popularity: 18% [?]
I have my email for robertaferguson.com forwarded to Thunderbird, so I definitely agree with your posting. It’s a lot less clutter and Thunderbird will learn what’s junk and what’s not.
Yep, me too… I’m a big Thunderbird fan.
very nice post … using your domain name email is always a plus. However i’m attached to my gmail … so I’ll give your trick a try!
Darin
Darin,
there’s an option to pick – if you want to send from your gmail address or your domain address. So basically you don’t lose anything. Give a try and let us know how it went!
Hi Arstan,
Great first post… I’m glad you decided to contribute as a guest blogger. Thank you.
Thanks for the gmail tips. I am going to give this a try. I use Thunderbird, too, but the junk filter is confused and it actually sorts more good stuff into my junk than not and I end up having to check both the inbox and the junk folders regularly. So, gmail becomes more comfortable to me daily.
The one question I have is: Why?
Can you please explain the benefit to having Gmail store all of your mail – other then the great search of course.
So… Did I answer my own question?
Sorry,
besides great search I am sure everybody will find its benefits over having using Outlook/Thunderbird/anyother email clients.
Most of us already have already using Gmail, so having another email account to manage could be troublesome. Imagine if you have more then one blog/website that you run, you would then have to manage multiple accounts. That’s not easy.
Great spam protection, if you for some chances still received spam, teach Gmail to recognize spam better and mark it as spam.
Besides that, what makes Gmail so popular over other free webmail services? Personally, I think Gmail is the best option in the market for me.
I hope that answers your question.
Arstan
I do agree – Gmail is fantastic. I have an account and I love it! I am a Thunderbird user and I have that check all of my email accounts.
I guess it’s just personal preference as to having you mail client on or off line!
Great explanation. I’ve been meaning to do this for quite some time now for my personal domain. To me, it’s worth it just for the backup of my email archives.
The ony thing you need to be midful of is that Gmail only allows 5 additional POP3 accounts to be checked. Thunderbird and other e-mail clients allow unlimited e-mails accounts to be used.