Set up Alias Email Addresses in Gmail

There’s no question that Google’s FREE Gmail has the best anti-spam service in the business, allowing you to access your important messages from anywhere, and avoiding the vast majority of unwanted email.
Would you like to use Gmail services to send and receive your corporate mail, for free? Sure you do… It works well, and keeps your inbox squeaky clean!
I know this page may look like a lot of work, but it’s really not. It’s a very quick process.
  1. CREATE YOUR GMAIL ACCOUNT: Go to gmail.com and follow the steps to set up a new account. Even if you already use Gmail for personal use, etc, I would recommend you create a separate account for business. For example, FirstNameLastNameCompany@gmail.com
    • Write to Thom Hiatt (thom@faithinmarketing.com) with your new gmail account name. He needs to set up forwarding for your account on his server.
      Staff Member cannot continue until this is finished.
  2. CREATE YOUR ALIAS:
    • Go to https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#settings/accounts or get there by going to Settings > “Accounts and Import”
    • In the “send mail as” section click on the blue link “Add another email address you own” — then a small box will open up
    • Type in your First and Last Name like “Jane Smith”
    • Type in the corporate email address you will be using, i.e. “yourname@yourcompany.org”
    • Leave a check mark on “treat as an alias” and then click the button “next step”
    • The box changes to a new window. Choose the button that says “send through gmail” and then click “next step”
    • The screen changes. Click “send verification” button, and Gmail will send a test message to your corporate email address. That message will forward to your new gmail account.
    • Check the Gmail Inbox for that new message. Open that message, and click the link to Verify.
  3. SET YOUR CORPORATE ADDRESS AS YOUR DEFAULT OUTGOING ADDRESS
    • Go back into the gmail account settings area: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#settings/accounts
    • In the same “send mail as” area as before, find the corporate email address listing, and look to the right … click on “make default” … this makes your corporate email address the default outbound email address that your recipients see.
  4. SIGNATURE: If you’d like, you can go into the general settings area to adjust your outbound email signature: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#settings
    • On that page, scroll down to the bottom and type in a preferred signature. It is best for branding purposes if all staff use a consistent signature.
    • Save any changes.
  5. ACCESS EMAIL: Now you can access email from any computer. You can also install the Gmail app for phone/tablet — then add the gmail account (you are adding the gmail account and not the business account)
This is how I (Thom Hiatt) have used my own corporate email since January 2006… and it’s amazing.

  • You will have access to your email from any computer, phone or tablet, using the web at gmail.com, by using a free Gmail App, or by connecting Outlook/Thunderbird to the gmail account.
  • When you send mail, it will come FROM your corporate email address.
  • This method dramatically reduces and nearly eliminates spam messages! Hurray!
The technical aspect is:
  • Someone writes to your address which is yourname@corporatedomain.com
  • The email gets sent to your domain name
  • Your domain name forwards the message to our server
  • Our server forwards the message to your gmail account
  • Within mere moments of the person clicking send, the message is in your gmail account.
  • If you use Outlook, set up Outlook with an IMAP Account, and Outlook will grab the message from gmail and bring it into Outlook. And you can reply.
  • If you use Gmail, you can open and read the message, and reply from your computer, phone or tablet. Based on your gmail settings, the message will go back to the sender from yourname@corporattion.com
If you already use Gmail on your phone or tablet, it’s super easy to add your Corporate account as a new and separate account, keeping all of your work mail separate from your personal mail.