Using the mail inbox provided by an email hosting company is often too complicated. Fortunately, regardless of your email hosting provider, you can use your business email with Gmail!
Why should you use Gmail for your business email?
Gmail is used by over 1.5 billion people worldwide. It’s really straightforward to use, making it fit for use for pretty much anyone.
You are more likely to miss emails using your email hosting service provider, especially if it’s what you’ve been using before switching to a business email account. The better notifications and mobile compatibility allow you to keep up with your emails efficiently.
Other email host providers are also often limited in terms of storage, whereas Gmail offers an additional 15GB of storage.
“Labels” allow you to visually differentiate between different categories of emails. All of your emails also end up being organized in the same place, instead of being scattered everywhere.
Gmail also ensures that you are protected from spam. Your emails also automatically get sorted into either social, updates, or promotions, great for accessibility! Up to 99 emails can be added to your account, free of charge! You can quickly access any of your emails, from any of them, at any time!
How to start?
Before beginning, you need to set up a business email. You can do this really easily using your web hosting company. They usually offer a free business email if you’ve purchased a custom domain.
There are two methods discussed below that you can use in order to set up your mail using Gmail:
First method:
- Add a mail account
Firstly, you will need to log into your Gmail account that you want to add your business email to. Click on the gear present in the top right corner of your inbox, and go into settings.
Here you need to go under the ‘accounts and import’ tab and click on the link that says ‘add a mail account.’ A new window will pop up. Enter your email address; since this is a non-Gmail account, you will need to manually enter the mail settings. Click next.
Now go back to your browser and log into your business email from the email hosting account you use, then open up your mail settings. This can differ from host to host, but it’s usually found under ‘configure mail client.’
Open the window back up and enter your username and password. Copy the mail settings from your email hosting site. The ‘POP server’ is what shows next to ‘incoming server’ and matches “port” to whatever is displayed on the mail host.
Now you’ll have four options. Untick the first one to save storage. Tick the second and third ones for additional security and see where emails are sent from. Leave the last one unticked as well, unless you want the emails to skip your inbox. Click on “Add account.” Make sure you’ve selected “yes” on the next window as well, so you can also send emails using this account.
Now you will need to put in details to be able to send emails as well. Where it says SMTP server, make sure you enter the mail present next to ‘outgoing mail’ from your mail host. Then change your port to match as well.
Enter the username and password for your email and click “Add Account.” You must then validate it using the code sent to your email address.There you go! Your business email is set up on your Gmail account.
- Set a reply preference
Go under “accounts and imports” in settings. Next to‘send mail as’ and under ‘when replying to a message’, make sure that you have selected the first option so that you can avoid accidentally sending emails using your personal email instead of your business one.
You can, however, still manually change the sender when composing your email.
- Add a label
You can add labels in order to visually analyze which email is coming from what account. It helps you stay more organized.
To add a label, click on the three dots next to your email account’s label. Then select ‘show’ for your label to be visible. Then, you can change the color of your label as well for the messages to stand out from your other emails.
Second method
Sometimes an error message appears when you try adding your account to Gmail using the first method, even if your username and password are correct, so this is another way you can easily add an email account.
You don’t need to enter any mail settings in this method, so there is less margin for error.
- Add a forwarding address
Log into your email account on Gmail. Go into the account settings. There you will need to find the ‘forwarding’ tab.
Add your business email as your forwarding address, and accept this email forwarding. Enter the confirmation code that you receive to verify your account.
Enable forwarding manually and save the changes.
- Set up mail sending
Now that you’re done with receiving emails from that account, you want to be able to send emails as well. To set up sending, click on the gear icon in your inbox and open up the account settings. Under ‘accounts and imports’ next to‘ send mail as’, click on ‘add another address.’
Enter the account details and verify them using the confirmation code that is sent to you.
- Finally, add a label
A label won’t be automatically added, so you will have to manually set up one.
Start by sending an email to yourself and clicking on the three dots. Select “filter messages like these.” ‘Delete’ the from ‘entry’ and enter the email you want in the ‘to’ field. Create the filter. Then click on the apply label and enter the message you want as the label name. They create the label and filter. Now the label will appear on the left-hand menu.
Click on the three dots next to the label and select Show label. Add the color as you’d like, and that’s it! Now you can conveniently use your business email using the Gmail service, at the tip of your fingers.
