How to Manage Multiple Gmail Accounts

by 3 people | Log in to rate

Ranked #954 in Tech & Geek, #22,516 overall

Guide to Using Multiple Google Accounts

A lot of people use multiple Gmail accounts nowadays. It might be a good idea to have two or more separate accounts since Google uses the same login info for all their services. For example, you could have an account for personal use and another one for work; or, you could use one Google account for your AdWords campaigns and only login to it from secure locations, while using a different Gmail account from internet cafes while traveling.

Switching between Google accounts manually to check your e-mail is time-consuming and ineffective. Thankfully, there are some tools to check multiple Gmail accounts all at once and switch between them with a single click. Furthermore, Google themselves have provided a cool feature that allows you to link Gmail accounts together. You will find all the information on you need - such as how to switch between Gmail accounts fast and check them simultaneously - on the page below.

How to Link Gmail Accounts Together

...And send e-mails from any of them without having to switch!

Gmail has a nice feature that allows you to send e-mails from any of your Gmail accounts without having to switch between them. So, for example, you could link all your multiple Gmail accounts to your "main" one and send e-mails from there without having to log off and log in repeatedly.

Multiple Gmail Accounts

All you have to do is to login to your "main" account and click Settings > Accounts > Add another email address you own (the image above shows the steps). After you add the account(s) you want, you will be able to specify which account you want to send the e-mail from whenever you are in the Compose Mail mode, as seen on the image to the right. That's it - now your Gmail accounts are linked together, and you can send e-mails from any of them without having to switch users!

How to Switch Gmail Accounts Fast

... And check multiple Gmail accounts simultaneously.

You are going to need Firefox for this (sorry, IE and Opera users). And, as you might have guessed already, we'll be using an extension. The best Firefox plugin to manage multiple Gmail accounts is by far the Gmail Manager. It goes without saying that it's open source and free to use. Here's what Gmail Manager does:

Gmail Manager Switch Accounts

Remembers your Gmail account passwords and logs on them automatically on browser startup - if you want it to.

Notifies you whenever you receive new e-mails to any of your Gmail accounts. You can of course turn off notifications if you want to. And you can choose how often it will check for emails, too.

Allows you to switch between multiple Gmail accounts with a few clicks. First select the Gmail account that you want to switch to from the status bar, then left click on it. Done!

If you mouse over the Gmail Manager on the status bar, it will show you latest statistics of the currently selected Gmail account (new messages in inbox, labels, etc).

You can download the Gmail Manager from the official Mozilla addons site or straight from the developers' webpage. Switching between your Google accounts using this addon is a cinch!