Managing Multiple Gmail Accounts

I mentioned that not only is my email hosted by Google Apps For Your Domain, but that I also read and manage all my email online now. No more Outlook or other local email clients. In general, this has been working great — anywhere I have a browser, I have access to my email. And heck, I always have a browser with me these days thanks to my USB Key.

However, initially I had some challenges. You see, up until very recently I’ve never used Gmail for more than one account. Now I have at least 3 that I want to monitor. Have you ever tried to be logged into multiple Gmail accounts in one browser at the same time? Didn’t work out so well for me! So, my initial plan of “Gee, I’ll just open more tabs and have a browser tab for each account” didn’t quite get the job done.

To be clear: checking email one account at a time was working fine. Just cumbersome. I wanted a way to be notified without have to go look. Something like Google’s Notifier (or the FF extension I used to use) that would handle multiple accounts.

Last week, Rich mentioned Netvibes and some updates. Long time readers know that I’ve always been a fan of Netvibes, but haven’t used (nor mentioned) them much lately. His article inspired me to drop by and see what has changed recently. Once there, I remembered their little Gmail notifier widget. After some experimentation, I was pleased to discover that I could add three of those to a Netvibes tab all pointed to different accounts with no problems.

The same evening, I found the Gmail Manager Firefox extension. It handles multiple accounts with no difficulties and not only lets me know when I have mail, but for which account. It’s really very slick and has made this “migration” much easier.

So I have two options for Gmail notification/management. The Netvibes one works great when I’m spending time in any browser besides Firefox. The Gmail Manager extensions works great all other times. Happiness is achieved.