Gmail hacks

After Digital readers told me Gmail's spam filters are better than any Outlook plugin, I've given Gmail a more serious look - I'm actually using it to check some of my Pop mail accounts (and not just as a simple non-work-related email address for personal use)

I'm still on Outlook for my main email, and I wouldn't recommend Gmail to replace Outlook for a small business or church.  My biggest pet peeve is that sending mail from a Pop account through gmail makes the recipient see the very unprofessional "From you@gmail.com on on behalf of you@otherdomain.com"

But there are some really cool things you can do with Gmail.  Here's a list of Gmail hacks.  I haven't used most of these advanced plugins and scripts.  But a couple that seem really cool are:

7) Toggling between different Gmail accounts:

21) Using Gmail like an external (backup) hard drive on your desktop

26) Creating a podcast from your Gmail messages to listen to your email

Pretty advanced stuff.  But lots of creative hacks that someone out there might find useful!

Comments

[Kez]

Joe,

I can't disagree with you more. Google Apps offers you everything a small business or church needs. The only cost to you is paying $10/yr to register your domain. I am planting a church www.renovochurch.org. And everything on my site, my email, my calendars, my docs, etc. is managed by Google. It's great. And the spam is top notch.

Grace and peace.

[Chris S.]

Like Kez said, Google apps is free! But it gets even better because a church can register with Google as a non-profit and get their education version of Google apps which gives you even more flexibility like having resources (rooms, projectors, tables, etc.) able to be scheduled on the calendar.
It has been working awesome for us, a church with 4 full-time staff & 8 part-time staff.

[Tim Morgan]

I disagree as well. Our church is using Google Apps for our domain email, and the staff are loving it. Gmail is indeed light years ahead of Outlook on simplicity and ease of use, and even power, believe it or not.

[Matthew Irvine]

Yep, we're using Google Apps too, and it makes me super happy. No expensive spam solution for me! Thanks Google! Even snappier, my users don't even know they're using Google Apps because they get their e-mail delivered in Outlook just like they always did before.

[Joe Suh]

Thanks for the comments.

My issue is with emails being sent from your pop account via Gmail. The recipient sees "From you@gmail.com on on behalf of you@renovochurch.org" or whatever your domain is.

Do you have a workaround for that, or do you just live with it?

I think it looks unprofessional for a small business. Maybe its OK for a church though?

[Joe Suh]

Matthew,
SpamBayes (and others) are free and open-source. Anecdotally, I can't say that its been better or worse than Gmail's filters. I get more false positives w/ SpamBayes, but I get less junk in my Inbox with it as well (versus Gmail).

[cadmus]

Hey Joe, when you use "Gmail" for your POP mail it adds that annoying line about where it's sent from but Google Apps becomes part of your domain so people can't tell whether you're using Outlook or webmail and have no idea you are using Google Apps until you show them.

I use the Standard Edition for my personal site and the Education Edition for our ministry and the free apps and convenience are outstanding. It's been very cost-effective for us and we have the ability to have as many users as we need that can colloborate on Docs, Calendar and the latest addition of Sites. It's also very useful for adding to the ministry website.

[Karen of Scottsdale]

I've been using Gmail for four years and I wouldn't go back to anything else. Using POP3 accounts is wonderful and you can create a send from address so nobody has any idea you're using Gmail.

See this link for more information:
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ctx=mail&answer=22370

[Joe Suh]

Karen, can you try sending a mail to an address using a different email client than Gmail?

When I do, my Yahoo client says "Yahoo! DomainKeys has confirmed that this message was sent by gmail.com." in the From field. And my Outlook client says "someone@gmail.com on behalf of someone@mydomain.com" in the From field. I haven't tried Thunderbird or Mac's Mail, but I'd imagine they would have some sort of note in the From field too.

Now to me (and the e-commerce company I consult for), this is unprofessional when emailing vendors and clients. I've even gotten a call from the recipient who thought my email was a spoof and asked if I really sent the mail.

So I think its unprofessional... and a showstopper. Definitely for a company. And maybe for a church. But I am not you :) Nor have I ever worked for a church...

[Mean Dean]

Y'all may want to reconsider using gMail for a file system.

I understand it is a violation of their Terms of Service - meaning if true - you could find your backups have gone "poof!"

[Brendan]

Google Apps for domains is the best solution out there for email if there is no dedicated staff for keeping an Exchange server afloat, especially for non-profits. Also IMAP support in GMail is amazing, and is great for iPhone users.

We use both an Exchange server and Google Apps.

[Mean dean]

Here's a link from google on how to configure gmail for POP for other mail clients, including Outlook:

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/bin/topic.py?topic=12912

Meaning, if a church or charity feels they look "unprofessional" leveraging gmail, they can at least dress it up with various Outlook settings.

Moreover, as mentioned by others here, Google Aps is now extended to all certified 503(c) non-profit organizations.

What this means is that routing email to/from gmails SMTP for your organizations domain in combination with Outlook, there is no fear of looking unprofessional.

[Joe Suh]

Dean - I think we're talking about different things. I'm talking about using gmail to send and receive POP mail (ie NO Outlook in the picture at all).

In my comment to Karen above, I'm saying that using Gmail to send POP mail to recipients who are not using Gmail creates a blemish in the From field. (try it out for yourself to see). There's no workaround for this from what I can tell.

[Mean Dean]

I have to disagree. I'm pretty sure I'm on topic with what's being discussed here - that is using google aps for a given's charity domain name.

I can and have sent/received POP email to/from smtp/pop both securely and with no "blemish" on behalf of that domain name leveraging all the spam fighting goodness of gmail once I've successfully configured my domain's MX records to point to Google's mail servers.

[Joe]

Today, Gmail finally gives users a workaround to get rid of "on behalf of" :)

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/send-mail-from-another-address-without.html

"We heard your request for another option that wouldn't show the "on behalf of" text loud and clear, and now there's a new option that does just that. Instead of using Gmail's servers to send the message, we'll use the servers where your other email address lives. Since Gmail isn't the originating domain, we don't have to include "Sender" info in the header. No more "on behalf of."