image by cassandrajowett

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Almost three years ago I decided to start selling my art online. I knew I had to get a professional blog and my own business email address. So I signed up with BlueHost to get both.

I did have a Gmail account which worked fine but I wanted something more professional looking. No more myname@gmail.com for me.  I wanted myname@mydomain.com and that is what I got. But when I  sent my first email I discovered that the email clients my web host uses are not at all as sophisticated as Gmail is.

I was disappointed and didn’t know how to solve my problem until I found the solution using Gmail’s Mail Fetcher. It can download messages from up to five other email accounts, centralizing all your email in Gmail. Once you’ve set up Mail Fetcher, Google will check your other accounts on a regular basis, and new mail will appear automatically in Gmail. But the best part is that the recipients of the mail you sent from Gmail will only get to see your other, more professional business email address!

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Here is how it works:

• Go to your domain registrar control panel and create an email forwarding account for your domain (most registrars offer this feature for free with your domain registration).

• Log into your gmail account

• Go to  Settings in the upper right corner of your Gmail screen

• Open the Accounts and Imports tab

• Find the Check mail using POP3 section and click on Add Pop3 Email Account. Type in the email address of the account you want to access, click Next Step

• Check if the sample settings are correct and enter your password

• Now you can choose if you want the retrieved emails to be deleted in your other account or if you want  to leave a copy on the server.

• Click Add Account

• Create custom From address. This allows you to compose messages in Gmail, but have them appear to be sent from your other email account.

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Done!

Creative Web Biz - the art of creating an online business