Using Gmail as a Primary Email Client

Google’s Gmail has been discussed everywhere, and like any other tech geek, I was very curious to check out the service, but I refrained from discussing it here because I had nothing original to say. Now I feel that I do.

One week ago a generous Metafilter user offered me an invitation to join Gmail. Actually, several Metafilter users were all willing to do the same.

I’ve had the chance now to fool around with Gmail a bit, and I can say that the service deserves the hype it’s been getting, but not for the reason it’s been getting it. The aspect of Gmail which makes it so desirable, at least to me, is not the 1 gigabyte of storage space, but the way it handles email organization. Without getting too incredibly into the details, I’ll try to explain.

I keep all my email. I always have. Were it not for harddrive failures and pyromaniac fraternity brothers, my archives would contain about 20,000 emails, sorted into dozens of folders, dating back at least four years. Searching those archives for a specific keyword in any email client I’ve ever used would take a long time. A very long time. Searching in Gmail takes a split second.

Sure, Mozilla Thunderbird has a simple search bar which works quickly and efficiently. All I have to do is type in a word and it’ll show me all emails in that folder which contain the search word in the Subject or Sender fields of the message. Doing a search for that same keyword in the message bodies of all folders takes several minutes. With Gmail, again, a split second.

One of the ways that Google achieves such search speed (besides massive amounts of available computing power) is by eliminating the concept of folders. Instead, users are given the ability to create unlimited labels for messages, and assign to each message as many labels as are applicable. Thus, using the labels as a metaphor for message folders, I can put the same message into as many folders as I want without actually duplicating the message.

I’ll admit that what I really want is an email client for my laptop which has the power and abilities of Gmail, but it seems that one hasn’t been written yet, and even if one had been written, my laptop wouldn’t be able to duplicate the sheer speed of Gmail’s searches. So I’ve found an alternative, and it might even be better than what I think I really want.

Matt Mullenweg pointed out a way to import all my messages into Gmail from Thunderbird. This way I can use the advanced search capabilities of Gmail on my archive.

Then there’s the problem of new messages: New messages sent to my email address (Just because I’m using the Gmail service doesn’t mean I want to ditch my @quasistoic.org email address) won’t show up in Gmail. Easily solved: forward all the mail I get to my public email address to the gmail account.

The last problem was one I was greatly concerned about until I realized there was an easy solution sitting right in front of me. One of the reasons I use pop3 email is so that I can have my email archive accessible on my laptop at all times, including times when I’m not connected to the internet. This is important to me for all of the phone numbers and addresses I regularly harvest from it. The solution: set up my domain mail to keep a copy on the pop3 server, downloadable for laptop archive, and forward a copy to my gmail account for general use.

I’ve also set my reply-to address in Gmail to the domain address that everyone’s familiar with, and I use Gmail as my mail client. Every once in a while, I open up Thunderbird to download any messages that have accumulated on the pop3 server, so that they’re accessible offline.

Want a Gmail account of your own?
Take <–suhren got one
any <–marinova got one
one <–jklemens got one
of <–xfilem got one
these <–bastek got one
six. <–eeslade got one
Just say thank you, and make sure to pay it forward yourself.
More invitations inside