If you have multiple email accounts and/or you are checking your email from different computers, you should seriously consider switching to using Gmail as your email client instead of relying upon something like Outlook or your email’s webmail offering.
Benefits of Using Gmail
- Gmail is FREE and allows you to funnel in all of your email accounts into one location with one login (store over 7 GB….Gmail always displays your current percentage of use).
- You can send emails out using one login while using your current email addresses. You are not limited to yourname@gmail.com. When you send a message for work, your work email address will show. Send a personal email to a friend and have your personal email account appear. Additionally, you find all those smtp error messages will disappear!
- Gmail is web-based, which means you visit a website to access your email. Because its web-based, you can access your email from any computer with an internet connection.
- Because Gmail is web-based you are always synched. For example, if you delete 10 messages while using Gmail from home, the messages will be placed in the “trash”. The next time you access your Gmail (lets just say your accessing it from work) you will find the 10 deleted messages are still located in your trash.
- Gmail automatically organizes messages as conversations so you don’t need to search multiple emails to follow an email conversation. They are grouped together for you.
- Gmail is integrated with Google docs, so when you receive an attachment you can choose to move the document there on the fly. Conversely, you will mostly likely eventually find yourself needing to collaborate on a Google doc with someone else, and to do so you need to have an account with Google.
- View attachments without software. Gmail provides you with an option to view attachments as HTML, which means you view the document in your browser instead of downloading it, and then opening something like Microsoft Office. This a great feature for those times when you are using a computer that doesn’t have software (perhaps an internet cafe) as well as a quick way to view the attachment (as with your current email program, you can download the document to your computer). This is one of my favorite features.
- Gmail relies upon labels to organize messages. You are most likely familiar with organizing your email through the use of folders. Folders are great as it keeps things nice and tidy, but unless you manually copy a message, you can’t have an email assigned to more than one folder. Gmail allows you to assign multiple labels to a message to help you organize and manage your email. Additionally, Incoming messages can automatically be assigned a label.
- Gmail is integrated with Google Chat. If you have someone in your Google Address Book, who also has a Google account, you can engage in a real-time chat if they are logged into your account at the same time you are.
- Gmail is integrated with Google Calendar. When you receive a message regarding an event you can easily add it to your Google Calendar (that is if you are a Google Calendar user).
- Google is riding the “Wave” of the next generation in computing…literally. Already a pioneer in “cloud computer” Google is developing “Google Wave” which is their take on improving communication and collaboration. I think its fair to anticipate that a Gmail account will be required.
Summary
Google isn’t going away, and a Gmail email account is the foundation to the use of its tools. That said, if you have to create a Gmail account why not take full advantage of what it offers, and more importantly let Gmail make your email life less complicated through the use of one login. Its free, its easy to use, it allows you maintain your identity, and provides quick access to other Google tools.
If you don’t already have a Gmail account, move your other email accounts into to Gmail. If don’t have Gmail, Sign Up!
