Ask YC: Email setup for multiple accounts | Hacker News Reader

Ask YC: Email setup for multiple accounts

2 pointsjwilliams5 comments

I've ended up with a lot of email accounts.

1. My public Yahoo one that I've used for years.

2. 2 or 3 Google Hosted (non-Gmail accounts).

3. A Gmail account that I don't use as a public account, but as a Google Account quite a bit.

4. A MobileMe account (for iPhone Push).

5. Couple of temporary accounts that I use/used when traveling.

I was using the Gmail account as the aggregator, picking up the other accounts via POP. There are a few problems with this: Number one by far is that Google do not poll the accounts often enough - it's up to an hour and I'm constantly manually refreshing to get the mails I want. There is also the lack of iPhone push.

I've tried forwarding, but it quickly ends up being a mess of mails everywhere - or I simply lack the system to keep it tidy.

In all cases I end up with multiple Junk mail folders that I need to manually check occasionally.

I won't even get onto Calendars, because that's even more of a mess. Integration is getting better, but it's a long way from being complete.

Is there any nifty solution out there for this? Do others out there hit the same issues?

I use Thunderbird with five accounts. The only problem is you have to get into an action/archive/delete mindset for your inbox or it soon becomes unwieldy.

On OSX I use an app called MailPlane to manage all my gmail accounts(hosts and gmail). Not sure about the other accounts though. Maybe Thunderbird?

I have 4 things I need to check:

1. My personal MobileMe account

2. My master gmail account that has mailed forwarded from:

a. My work Gmail b. My web-contact Gmail (also for signups and throwaway) c. My former personal Gmail that I'm replacing with MobileMe

3. My Yahoo Mail accounts only for PayPal/Ebay because of the ability to use folders

I use Fluid to capsulize the Gmail windows and I have never ever bothered with Thunderbird or Outlook.

Gmail's IMAP forwarding is always pretty fast for me. I then just change the mailfrom to the email it was forwarded from and I haven't logged into those separate Gmail accounts since last year.

My one gripe is just that there's not enough colors for the tags.

My calendar setup is Gcal but I'm trying to get it synced to iCal. I've been using BusySync on Mac for the past 20 days and will be paying for it because it essentially solves the headache of syncing both ways so that my iPhone is always updated but I can manage it on my computer.

Your Gcalendar setup is insane. Just curious: why are you replacing your personal gmail with mobileme?

I managed to get a very valuable name at me.com and I like Mail over Gmail. Push plus iPhone makes it a lot better.

I have literally used up every single color in Gcal. However, I only see about 6 to 8 events per day. The colors are usually used for stuff I want to keep track off, when my domain names expire, school, birthdays, art showings, work, YC, parties, political events, holidays, and etc.

As I rely more on the software the more data I put into it. Maybe I should just stop caring... Or just use one color... but I have like OCD or something.

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