Multiple Google Accounts

The ability to access two Gmail accounts at once in the same browser is my favorite feature that Google has added in a long time, even though I don’t use Gmail. I have some accounts I basically use for archival and search that I always end up having to open a different browser to access. Unfortunately, this feature breaks the already-fragile GV Mobile on my jailbroken iPhone 4. The two things I miss from Android are Google Voice integration, and the Navigation feature.

27 thoughts on “Multiple Google Accounts

    1. Nope, just a regular IMAP account on my server. I do a lot of server-side processing, including a WP plugin I wrote to modify mail messages as they come in, so it’s trickier to host it elsewhere.

      1. That sounds cool. Does that mean when you’re on your computer, you check your mail within your WordPress admin? Now that would be a plugin to write home about!

        No chance of you sharing it with the world, is there?

      2. No, it just looks up people in a DB and writes a header to the email that procmail then uses to put them in a special folder.

  1. Seems a bit unfortunate that this multiple account feature doesn’t support domain e-mail hosted on their service.

    (Or maybe I just haven’t figured it out.)

    1. I’ve heard that you can do domain email hosted email in a gmail window, but have yet to figure it out, either. Maybe someone smarter than either you or me will fill in the gaps here…

      1. There are actually 2 different offerings from Google Apps. Standard (which is free) and Premier (50$). You can create an apps account with any domain that you have for free.

  2. Since ditching my BlackBerry and going all iPhone, I’ve felt the same sadness at the loss of a truly integrated Google Voice app. GV mobile is actually pretty good, but it’s too bad the multiple account login messes with it.

    If Apple had a similar service to Google Voice, I’d probably use it even at a cost just to have it integrate into the phone correctly. FaceTime is great but I’d rather have archived voicemail and SMS available through MobileMe.

    Of course nothing with interface with Google’s services like a phone that relies on a Google operating system, and I’m pretty grateful there’s any kid of GV app for te iPhone at all.

    I remember seeing a video some months back of an iPhone running Android. Too bad you can’t dual boot your phone, or run Android inside iOS. Hmm.

  3. @matt
    What do u use for emails?
    I hope there is nothing called “emailpress” inside automattic.

    By the way, on one of our project for enterprises, we are
    planning to add, a full-fledged email feature inside wordpress.

  4. What is Android’s Navigation feature? Vocal turn by turn directions or something?

    If so, try giving Waze a go. It’s like the Google Maps app, but designed for driving directions. Unlike the $50 TomTom app it only does a top-down view (TomTom shows you from your perspective and stores the maps entirely on your phone for no signal areas), but Waze is still quite good.

    1. Yeah, I use Waze too. It’s awesome and fun. Love the new FB integration.

      Edit: Waze does have a 3D view, actually. Go to the Settings menu (click the up arrow in the bottom right, then the wrench icon) and change the Display to 3D. Voila. Not as cool as some, but better than others.

  5. I recently setup nearly all of my email accounts to pass through a single Gmail account. I must say, it’s made managing email a whole lot easier.

    This new feature just made things that much easier!

    1. I believe there’s an labs feature that automatically sets your from-adress depending on which email the message was sent to!

  6. That does sound useful. I often find myself using two different browsers, so that I can be logged into one set of accounts in one and a different set in another.

    I also use one browser with looser security settings for trusted sites, and another with AdBlock and NoScript for more dubious ones.

  7. Would be great to be able to login into one WordPress installation with two account at the same time in the same browser: One for the Admin and one for a testing user…

  8. They also recently started allowing Google Apps users (like me) to integrate their Google Apps accounts with the regular GMail-based Google accounting system. I just set this up today, and so far it’s a bit iffy, but I think it’ll work after a while.

    Google Voice is currently a problem, but Reader seems to work okay after I migrated my subscriptions over. As soon as I get everything working, I’ll be deleting my old Google Account in favor of the full Google Apps Account experience. Been waiting on this for a *long* time.

  9. Matt,

    You should really consider using Google Apps and filters. It lets you host a primary domain and additional domains as domain aliases. Filtering and labels take care of the rest. You can also send emails from any of your domains.

    Sounds like Google has already solved many of the use cases you might be using procmail to address, though I don’t know any further details of your email system requirements.

    All the best,
    Rahim

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS