This guide is for those who have a whole heap of Gmail or Google App email accounts. It will allow you to receive and send e-mails from the single account. The best thing about it is you reply using the e-mail address they sent to. You can also send from any of the accounts you set up. By the end of it you can have your account looking somewhat like this:



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Step 1:
Go to your main Gmail account, the one you want all emails coming into. Click settings.

Step 2:
Click the 'Labels' tab. Create a bunch of labels, you decide what to call them. Here's mine for an example;


Step 3:
Click the 'Accounts' tab. Create an account for each other email address you have. During this process you need to check the other email accounts inbox for a verification code. While you are doing this do step 4 aswell. Also be sure to check "Reply to same address the email was sent to" Here's mine for an example;


Step 4:
When you add an account you need to verify it, so go log into your other email address accounts and grab the verification code for step 3. While you are on this account, go to settings and click the "Forwarding" tab. Put in your main email address. Here's mine for an example;


Step 5:
No go back to your main gmail account, click settings then the "Filter" tab. Create a bunch of filters for the labels you created earlier. Here's mine for an example;


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There, all done now you have one central email account. If you have any comments, suggestions or questions feel free to post them.

Nice guide

I already knew this but it's good for people who are beginners at gmail.

Ps. I use Windows Live Mail to merge all my email accounts

I have about 4 different emails forwarded to my main gmail account, but have never setup labels. Took sometime now to set them up, thanks.

Yea it takes a bit to set them up, but worthwhile in the end.

i just do the same thing using windows live mail personally, lets me use all my different emails too whether its hotmail,gmail, anything. Then i also have a saved copy of emails on my hdd

Nice guide, that is helpful for anyone who didn't know, or never thought of doing it that way, but like others I do it with my windows live accounts lol. Good work

When you send an e-mail out of this central account, do new contacts go into this central contact list, regardless of which gmail acct you designate as the "return address"?

I don't need to keep the contacts separated between the multiple accounts and I'm wondering whether this technique can solve my problem of each gmail account having different contact lists (and thus a synchronization problem with my blackberry, which only seems able to sync a single contact list from a single gmail account).

What do you think?

I would say so.

However this setup is horribly flawed at the moment because when you send an e-mail it shows your gmail account username as the "sender". Google are apparently looking into it.

Thanks. I understand that it doesn't help me hide my central account, but I'm not too concerned about that. As long as when the user hits "reply to" it sends it back to the correct address (not my central account), this will be worth it. If Google fixes it eventually so they can't see the central account, that will be even better.

At least with this setup, if I only use my central account for all of gmail addresses, then my master contact list will be preserved and I can sync this one-and-only contact list with my blackberry.

Thanks! Just set this up with my x amount of gmails

After testing it, I'm having 2nd thoughts based on Jason's comment. When sending to another gmail user, it's not so obvious to the recipient that it's coming from a different e-mail address. However, testing with my wife's yahoo account, it's glaringly obvious; so much so that I'm continuing to look for a better solution. Hopefully, the Google folks will come up with a better solution soon.

Yea...this would be the perfect solution if it actually had the correct "sender" address.

Fingers crossed they fix it soon.

Thanks for this guide Jason.

It seems Google finally got around to fixing the 'Sender' issue.

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/s ... thout.html