Take control of your Inbox.

Over the last few years I have created a number of email addresses I have ended up collecting addresses. The problem with this is you need to monitor all these addresses and it can be time consuming. So how do you take back a bit of control?  I have been a heavy Gmail user having my own Google Apps account. Recently I decided to setup my Gmail account to access, download and sort my email from all my other email accounts.

After doing this I then set up filters to sort the new incoming email. With Gmail you create labels to sort your email instead of folders but the object is the same. Allowing Gmail to poll my other email accounts also ment I could use Gmail's powerful Spam filters to deal with the avalanche of spam.

If you have a Gmail account either via a Google Apps account or a generic Gmail account go to settings then accounts and "get mail from other accounts" then follow the setup screen. Once you have done this your Gmail account will start polling your other accounts and will download any new email. If you don't already have a Gmail account just type Gmail into the Google search engine and you will be directed to the Gmail setup page. Gmail is free and Google provide you with a generous storage amount. Do you have problems with your email? let me know how you deal with it.

Update on Tuesday, March 1, 2011 at 5:43PM by Daryl Hunt

Just to add to my previous post I have found a little utility to backup your Gmail account. The program is called Gmail Backup It is important to backup your email.

This is a free application for Mac, PC and Linux.  I gave it a try and it’s easy to use. After a quick download, you just give it your credentials and it begins downloading all your e-mails, backing them up securely 

Download Gmail Backup