Comments on: Google, Gmail, and Google Apps Accounts Explained

By: Andre Kuzmicheff

Andre Kuzmicheff — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:34:08 +0000

I had run in to this issue as soon as I started using Google Apps. Some of my teammates even had called me too curious and had blamed me for setting our small company’s accounts in such a complex way. Thank you all for posting your comments, I know now I’m not the only one! Almost every use case mentioned in the article does apply to me, except the Android situation, since I work on iPhone. I have three accounts, two Google Accounts and one Google Apps account. My decision was to stop winding up on this disconnect between all of my accounts and work out a strategy that would keep my day relatively stressless. I use Google Account (kuzmicheffATglowingmind.net) and Google Apps account (kuzmicheffATglowingmind.net) in one browser, and those do not conflict so far. My third account (kuzmicheffATgmail.com) is kept aside until the moment Google resolves its multiple account issue, and I will become able to use Google Voice (I have really sweet number reserved in that one) and Google Wave with my Google Apps account. Let’s all hope that Googlers will deliver some solution to this problem, given the frequency with which they deliver new features for Google Apps. That means to me they really aim at increasing their sales, but it will unlikely happen, if this problem remains.

By: bakhlawa

bakhlawa — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 20:08:29 +0000

Thanks Rob. What I’m really trying to answer is: when I respond to mail in Google Apps that came through an alias, will the reply-to and from address automatically default to the alias address or will they seem to the user as they came from the main account?

e.g., I have an admin@domain.com email address and alias setup for feedback@domain.com. When mail comes to feedback@domain.com at the admin address:

1. Will replies to mails to the feedback address appear to the receiver with a From: and Reply-To: address of feedback@domain.com or admin@domain.com?

2. For new emails, can I set a From: address to an alias, e.g., feedback email address?

You see, I am currently living in GMail with access to feedback and admin email addresses through POP access. It’s messy because my business email is getting mixed in my personal account.

I would be happy to move to Google Apps, but I’m the only user with multiple email addresses. I just want to login once and check all emails in Google Apps and reply on behalf of each address without having to log back in as another user. Possible or am I just making this too complicated?

By: Rob Butler

Rob Butler — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:54:21 +0000

To bakhlawa – you need to assign aliases (dashboard – users – click on a user) to add extra email addresses to a single account (you would probably have to migrate mail from these accounts and close them before you could reuse the names)
Or you could just use forwarding from the Google Mail settings and forward all email into one account.

I’m torn between Google Apps and a Google account – I like the joined up functionality of Google accounts but having a slick custom logo and branded interface is much nicer and far more professional on printouts than my GMail one (what a difference a new logo makes!)

By: Rob_R

Rob_R — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 01:46:30 +0000

Hi Gina,

I googled this post after listing to you talk about this issue on TWiG.

I really don’t have anything to add, your post and commenter have covered the issue pretty well. Just want to add my voice to the chorus of Google Apps users (Premier in my case) who are struggling with the Google Apps/Gmail problem.

I told a couple of my friends, who I know are dealing with the same issues, to check out your blog. I hope Google is listening.

By: bakhlawa

bakhlawa — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 17:59:08 +0000

Gina, great post as always.

Can you answer a very simple questions re. Google Apps that I have been struggling with for days?

I run a small business with one user (ME!), but with multiple email accounts, e.g. feedback@domain.com, admin@domain.com and sales@domain.com.

Is there a way for me to login with my admin@domain.com address into Google Apps and check/read/answer/action email sent to the other email accounts (feedback and sales)? It sounds tedious to have to login to each account separately just to check email when I’m the only user and Administrator? I am comparing this to my current setup where I use my own GMail address but with POP, reply-to addresses for my business…it’s tedious and messy, but gets email from all email addresses to my ONE GMail account for me to read and respond.

I’m hoping there’s an elegant solution that I haven’t seen or discovered yet.

Many thanks and as always, keep up the excellent work.

By: GaryW

GaryW — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 19:19:46 +0000

Gina – nice article, thanks!

I’m a Mozilla Thunderbird user and use the zindus addon to sync contacts between my gmail and apps accounts. Not relevant to me but it looks like the zindus developer/s are entertaining a firefox version of the addon too.

I’m happy with my current setup but I wonder what Google’s final solution will be – a feature to allow different accounts to use the same set of contacts?

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:39:36 +0000

Gina — I’ve been using a Google App called “Shared Contacts” for a few months that I realy like. It was a little tricky to set up across the Gmail/Google Apps for my Domain, but now that it’s running, it works quite well:

http://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/viewListing?productListingId=5578829+5319719112092419985

By: Rob Butler

Rob Butler — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:36:47 +0000

@riotryan You can open a Google account with your Google Apps email address but you end up with 2 address books, and not full integration like you get in GMail.
Look at your contacts in Google apps and then goto http://www.google.com/contacts – are they the same? (The contacts are also useful for Picasaweb if you like to tag your photos with your contacts).

By: Chris Ford

Chris Ford — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 07:21:41 +0000

In the end I just abandoned my Google Apps for Domains account and moved us over to fresh vanilla Google accounts.

DNS is setup to forward domain emails to the correct Google accounts. We now get contacts working across all Google products mail, talk, reader, wave and simple iPhone integration.

Was complicated at first; had problems with talk friends and calendar invites but we have not lost any useful functionality and gained a while bunch.

Apps for Domains provides a walled garden of lowest common denominator functionality, which is probably good for most of the true target market but bad for the early adopters who jumped on before it became clear that new capabilities wouldn’t just turn up at the same time as they did on Vanilla accounts.

Haven’t lost anythi

By: riotryan

riotryan — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 22:22:25 +0000

I’m a little confused. I have been using Google Voice and Google Reader on my Google Apps account for the past month or so. I wonder why this isn’t working for everyone.

http://yfrog.com/3362170164j