Gmail’s Mail Fetcher: Why You Shouldn’t Forward Messages into a Single Account?
So what’s up with e-mail forwarding? Most people have multiple e-mail accounts and find it a pain to access each one individually. Many email providers allow users to set their accounts to automatically forward all messages to a single universal email address. So why don’t more people do this?
I have found that most people shy away from email forwarding because they like to keep their inboxes separate. According to eMarketer, more than 94% of users in the U.S. (~160 million) utilize at least two e-mail accounts, and 65% of users (~128 million) employ three or more (3+) accounts. A principal reason users have multiple accounts is to stay organized. Personally, I have an account for business, an account for personal use, and an account for my newsletters (my “bacon” or “becn”). I like it that way. I know when I am in my business account, it’s all business. When I am in my personal account, it’s all fun. And my third account is for shopping, reading random newsletters, and killing time.
Gmail offers a forwarding service called Mail Fetcher. Mail Fetcher allows users to access up to 5 non-Gmail email accounts from within the Gmail interface. You can set Mail Fetcher to tag the messages by their source accounts through a color-coded labeling feature.
I am not sold on Mail Fetcher for various reasons. The first reason is that users are required to configure their POP3 server settings to utilize this solution; and most people do not know how to do this. Furthermore, some email services do not offer POP3 capability and others, like Yahoo and Hotmail/Live, charge for the privilege. Most importantly, however, I don’t like Mail Fetcher because it is not an effective organization tool. In my opinion, there is no substitute for the folder structure offered by email clients like Outlook or Thunderbird. Because you cannot filter or sort messages by their source account into separate folders, Mail Fetcher and other forwarding features simply add more clutter to your inbox. I have separate accounts for very specific reasons; my email needs to be organized and neither Mail Fetcher nor email forwarding is the solution. Sorry Google.
Yes I know. Its kind of ridiculous that I am responding to my own post, especially since no one else has left a comment. But a friend of mine sent me an email pointing out that this post argues against the NutshellMail business offering. (he was being nice by not posting the comment).
So I would like to clear up any confusion.
I am not a fan having messages from various accounts dumped into a single inbox (on an individual basis). It creates inbox clutter and lack of organization.
However, NutshellMail.com puts a spin of the concept of forwarding. Instead of having each message individually forwarded to your main inbox, NutshellMail will send you a single email that provides a snapshot of all your various messaging accounts. From the NutshellMail Update, you can then select specific messages to be forwarded into your main inbox. This enables users to keep accounts separate for organizational and productivity purposes, but still access any messages through a single primary inbox.
Hope that clears things up.
What’s wrong with using mail fetcher and then using GMail with IMAP in a mail client to get the structure you want?
Messages are SUPPOSED to be dealt with individually, this isn’t mail box clutter, this is the way e-mail works! It’s up to you to then use software filters on the messages to make sure that only the important ones get through to you. Manually selecting which messages to have forwarded or not is actually a backwards step in terms of mail forwarding/handling. Use algorthms to sort it, not the end user.
I have been using gmail and accessing 7 other accounts though it (either through the Mail Fetcher or having the other account forward on mails to my main account)
I have found this to be very organized due to the labeling, and I absolutely LOVE the labeling ability over the folder structure.
With your folder structure, mail comes in to a folder… only one folder…
With the labels, which actually simulate folders (as you can click on a label – much like you can go into a folder) … you can then put the same mail into different virtual folders (by labeling them more then once)
This is very handy as you can label something “personal”, and “pictures of people” for example…. and then it will appear in both “folders”
The labels are definitely something you have to get used to – but once you have, I believe that they are a far more advanced method to organize your inbox and your emails that you would archive…. hundreds of times better then folders ever would! (unless you copy the mail into more then one folder – but that would be ridiculous as that would create redundancy)
ramble…ramble…ramble…. labels rule!
hi there!
i have a question about fletching/forwarding, i have a Google mail my@gmail.com and also i have mail@mydomain.com email hosted on google.
i want to combine those two… to get both mail only on mail@mydomain.com
i used my@gmail.com to register and setup mail@mydomain.com, than i fletched emails of my@gmail.com using settings/accounts tab on mail@mydomain.com
also i can use Mail Forwarding function from my@gmail.com account.
Just wondering which is most correct and easy way co combine my accounts.
(ps. basically i don’t need my@gmail.com anymore… just want to have all emails sent to my old address in email@mydomain.com
Hi Lexocom,
Thanks for the comment and question. Since your personal domain account is hosted by Gmail you should be able to use Mail Fetcher to forward all your messages from your my@gmail.com account. However if you get a bunch of becn mail or spam into that account and do not want to clutter your main inbox with unwanted messages, i suggest you try NutshellMail to passively keep track of your my@gmail.com account.
NutshellMail can send you updates of all your activity on your schedule. You may find it useful to get one update a day so that you can audit your account and make sure you are not missing anything important. You can also use it to track your social networking activity.
Of course you don’t use “folders” in G-mail you use “labels”. The trouble with folders is they are a carry over from the physical world and have lots of limitations and don’t provide the flexibility to do the exact sort of organizing you would like to do that labels let you do.
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=118708