How to send from multiple email addresses in one Gmail account

You now know how to log into multiple Gmail accounts at once and forward other Gmail addresses to a single account.

The next step in our Gmail simplification program is to look like you're still responding to emails from multiple accounts, even though they're really all consolidated.

1. Go into your Gmail Settings.

Click on the gear icon toward the upper righthand corner of your Gmail screen (located underneath your profile icon or name). In the drop-down menu that appears, select "Settings."

2. Go to "Send mail as" settings.

Click images to embiggen.

Select "Accounts and Import" along the top tabs in Settings.

Scroll to "Send mail as:" and select "Add another email address you own."

How to forward email to another Gmail account

As I discussed in "How to log into multiple Google accounts," it is possible to have multiple Gmail windows open in the same browser.

However, it can be even easier for you to have all your Gmail come to a single account, assuming it's prudent to combine them.

For my needs, I have several Gmail addresses that I need to check that all relate to my blogging: my main hobomama Gmail account, mail forwarded from my personal domains (such as {at} LaurenWayne.com), and mail sent to various addresses {at} NaturalParentsNetwork.com (CarNatPar, Lauren, Advertising). Before combining these, I had to log into each Gmail account separately to read the messages, even though it's entirely appropriate to combine them all into a single account for the purposes of checking my inbox and sending replies.

(Note that I've kept my personal email separate, however. I figure that might lead to too much confusion, so I check it separately.)

Here's how you can check multiple Gmail accounts under one login:

1. Go to your Gmail settings of the account you do NOT want to log into from now on.

Click on the gear icon toward the upper righthand corner of your Gmail screen (located underneath your profile icon or name). In the drop-down menu that appears, select "Settings."

What I mean by "the account you do not want to log into" is, this is the account you'll be forwarding mail out of, to flow into the account you'd prefer to check. So right now, set up the forwarding in the reject account.

2. Configure your email forwarding FROM that account.

Click images to embiggen.

• Select "Forwarding and POP/IMAP" from the tabs along the top of Settings.

• Click "Add a forwarding address" and do so. It will send a confirmation code to the forwarding address, so now you have to log into that account to receive it.

• Confirm the code with the first (reject) account. You can click the link in the email Gmail sent you, or there is a box on that same page that will read "Verify [email address]" with a box for the confirmation code. (Will all this require some logging in/out and back-and-forth? Perhaps, if you haven't enabled multiple log-in, or you're forwarding to a non-Gmail account. But it will save you time in the future, so keep on!)

• Select "Forward a copy of incoming mail to," and the address you've confirmed should now be in your drop-down menu of forwarding addresses.

• Choose what to do with mail forwarded out of this account. Do you want it kept in the inbox, marked as read, archived, or deleted? To keep things tidy but preserve copies in case I choose to separate the accounts in the future, I choose "archive Gmail's copy." What you choose here will affect only the emails as they exist in this account, not as they appear when forwarded. In other words, I selected "archive," but the forwarded emails still appear unread and in my inbox in the preferred account.

How to log into multiple Google accounts

Two Gmail accounts open in the same browser simultaneously,
with no computers exploding

If you want to check multiple Gmail accounts or access (some) other Google accounts without logging in and out or opening a new browser, here's a tutorial to show you the easy way to handle this.

All you need to do is enable multiple sign-in and then sign in to each account, switching among them as needed.

1. Enable multiple sign-in for Google accounts within your web browser.

Go to https://accounts.google.com/b/0/MultipleSessions, select "On - Use multiple Google Accounts in the same web browser," and save.

2. Log into another account.

For most Google products, look in the top righthand corner to find a little down arrow next to your profile icon (if you have one) or your login email address. When you click the arrow, the drop-down menu above will appear. Click on "Switch account."


Presumably you will see yourself signed into only one account, marked "default." Click "Sign in to another account…" to do just that.

How to tag Facebook pages from your fan page

 



I'm banned from Facebook for today due to suspected malware violations,¹ which means I'll write about Facebook from afar.

Here's an(other) Facebook issue that was bugging me for months: I didn't seem to have the ability to tag other Facebook pages from my own fan pages.

So, for instance, I'd be on my Hobo Mama Facebook page and want to @ another fabulous fan page, and sometimes it would let me, but mostly it wouldn't.

I clicked around online, trying to find a fix, but nothing seemed to help. Until … I combined advice I received with one other crucial step: waiting a bit.

So, here is my two-step process to tag any page from your Facebook fan page. (Note that this doesn't work to tag people or personal profiles, as that doesn't seem to be a fan page functionality.)

Sunday Surf: Security, insecurity, and fun new tools

Links to share, from Writing Tidbits:

Diagramly - Draw Diagrams Online

Need to diagram a plot or your thinking process? Free online tool for flow charts and other visual thinking.

(Source: anktangle.com)

1 DAY AGO

writing plotting brainstorming diagrams

Click to Tweet | The easy, tweet about this link generator

Here’s the service that lets you specify a phrase to tweet.

3 DAYS AGO -  2

twitter marketing 2 notes

#NaNoProgMo January 2012: Week 1

I told myself I'd be better about making periodic progress posts for NaNoProgMo this time around. Easy enough, considering I haven't been making any progress!

Ok, that's not strictly true: I'm 1 hour into my 15-hour goal. Still, I haven't been working on my writing every day as I've meant to. I think setting my goal so low this month has made me feel like I can get behind, because catching up will be relatively easy. I was hoping I wouldn't take my half-hour a day as a maximum but as a minimum to get my momentum going. Um … yeah … I should have known me better.

Well, there's always next month!

I'm feeling discouraged about my mystery novel, the one I thought was almost finished last NaNoProgMo. I'm having Sam read it through for his second time after major revisions. I thought he might have some thoughts for tightening it up.

Well, be careful what you ask for, because he's only a third or so in, and he's already given me ideas for changing the whole direction of the novel.

The ambition of a writer who's also a mother

Up through my twenties, I had very little ambition. I mean, I wanted to be a novelist someday, but it wasn't urgent. I had no drive to make money, or impress people, or achieve much of anything.

For reasons beyond my understanding, that all changed when I started blogging. Mikko was three months old when I started Hobo Mama. Especially as the blog grew, I discovered in myself a passion to make something of myself, to be professional, to be taken seriously as a writer.

And yet, even now, even still, four and a half years later, I wrestle with that tension: ambition vs. motherhood, writing vs. parenting, success vs. fear. It's hard to say which will win, at any given moment and over time.

When I blog and when I work on my novel and other projects, or even when I do the business taxes for our family or work on my sewing, I feel the age-old guilt of a mother otherwise engaged. I am not paying attention to my children. I am devoting myself to something other.

But I also feel the spark of that other within me driving me on, compelling me to create, to do, to pursue. When I let it go for a time, I feel stagnant. But when I fall too headlong into it, it becomes repellant to me — what I become seems repellant to me.

Where does this tension come from?