Pimp Your GMail
22 June 2004, terribly early in the morning
I’ve been using GMail for a few weeks now, and I have to say I like it quite a bit. However, I don’t like having my mail just stored on Google’s server, I’d like a local copy. Also, I already have an email address which people know, and which I like, ramanan at funkaoshi dot com. So, what I’ve done is try and get the best of both worlds from my two email addresses.
My funkaoshi address is a POP3 address given to me by 1and1. 1and1 lets you attach three delivery destinations to an email address. So, in addition to the POP3 mailbox, I also have my mail forwarded to my GMail account. So, if people write to me at ramanan at funkaoshi dot com, the mail will also get sent to chungking at gmail dot com. I can check for email at my funkaoshi address anywhere now, by logging in to GMail.
In most cases a person receiving an email from my GMail account would simply reply to my GMail account. These emails would then need to be forwarded by me to my funkaoshi address, if I wanted a local copy. Luckily, in GMail you can specify a reply-to address. This is the address most users will see when you send them an email, and it is the address any replies will be sent too. I specify my reply-to address to be my funkaoshi email address. This way, I will get the mail in my funkaoshi mail box, and it will also get forwarded to GMail.
The one problem in this scheme is that emails I compose in GMail remain in GMail, unless I CC or BCC my funkaoshi address on all my outgoing mail. (Hopefully Google will add an option to always BCC an email address.) I then have my email client filter emails from myself into my sent mail folder. Of course, these emails would appear twice in my GMail account, once in the sent mail folder, and once in my Inbox. Regardless, this has been working out pretty well so far.
This is one way to have a web-mail address, and a normal POP3 mailbox work together quite well. You could do what I have done above with any number of web-mail services I would imagine.
Update: I’ve modified Micheal Sipey’s bookmarklet so now when I use it to compose mail in Gmail, my funkaoshi address is automagically BCC’d a copy of the message.
If I know you in the loosest sense of the word (that is, we have met, or you post comments here, or you are a friend of a friend, or you are my long lost cousin, etc., etc.) then post here if you want a GMail account. I have 6 invites now, but I don’t feel like giving them to people I don’t know if there are people I do know who want/need them.
by ramanan on June 22 2004, 4:58 am #
Yeah, someone like me, I fit ‘know’ in the loosest sense. Thanks for the invite ram!
btw, how the heck did you get 6 so quickly!?
by Tony on June 22 2004, 1:23 pm #
I don’t know. They seem to be giving them out at a much faster rate now. People I invited quite recently also have 3 invites each now it seems.
by ramanan on June 22 2004, 2:08 pm #
thanks again ram
hey man, if you really have too many invites, put them up on www.gmailswap.com
just a thought
by Tony on June 23 2004, 1:28 am #
Some dude has written more about pimping out your GMail.
by ramanan on June 23 2004, 8:17 pm #
Michael Sippy has written a bookmarklet to take you right to a compose mail window.
by ramanan on June 25 2004, 10:34 pm #
hey we too have the same name and I am looking for a gmail invite, if you still have one.
more about me in the next couple of days.
you can send them to my yahoo id.
( add at_the_rate yahoo dot com after ramanang )
thanks
ramanan
by ramanan g on July 8 2004, 9:37 am #
I’ve actually used them all up.
by ramanan on July 8 2004, 5:55 pm #
its cool
by kris on April 22 2005, 12:16 am #