How to set up your professional email in Gmail

Why put your business email inside Gmail

Most South African business owners already live in Gmail all day. Rather than checking two inboxes, you can pull your professional address into the Gmail you already use, and send from it too, so replies show your business address instead of your personal one.

There is one important limitation to know up front. Gmail's built in mail fetcher uses POP3, which downloads mail rather than syncing it. That means a message you read in Gmail may still look unread in webmail or on your phone. If you want true two way syncing across several devices, use the Gmail app's IMAP option on mobile, or use Outlook on the desktop instead.

Step one: bring your mail into Gmail

1. Open Gmail on a computer and click the gear icon at the top right, then See all settings.
2. Go to the Accounts and Import tab.
3. Next to Check mail from other accounts, click Add a mail account.
4. Type your full professional email address, for example you@yourdomain.co.za, and click Next.
5. Choose Import emails from my other account (POP3) and click Next.
6. Fill in the details: Username is your full email address. Password is your mailbox password. POP Server is mail.yourdomain.co.za. Port is 995.
7. Tick Always use a secure connection (SSL) when retrieving mail.
8. Tick Label incoming messages so business mail is easy to spot in your inbox.
9. Click Add Account.

Step two: send from your business address

Gmail will now ask whether you also want to send mail as this address. Say yes, otherwise your replies will still go out from your personal Gmail.

1. When prompted Would you like to be able to send mail as, choose Yes and click Next Step.
2. Enter the name you want recipients to see, for example your name or your business name. Leave Treat as an alias ticked.
3. Click Next Step.
4. For SMTP Server enter mail.yourdomain.co.za, with Port 465 and Secured connection using SSL selected.
5. Enter your full email address as the username and your mailbox password.
6. Click Add Account. Gmail sends a verification code to that mailbox.
7. Open the code. You can find it in cPanel webmail, or wait a few minutes for Gmail to fetch it into your inbox.
8. Paste the code into the confirmation box and click Verify.

Step three: make it the default

1. Back in Settings, go to Accounts and Import.
2. Under Send mail as, click make default next to your business address if you want every new email to come from it.
3. Choose Reply from the same address the message was sent to. This is the setting most people want, because replies then automatically match the address the sender used.

Using it on your phone

The Gmail app on Android and iPhone can add your professional address directly, and it supports IMAP, which syncs properly.

1. Open the Gmail app and tap your profile picture at the top right.
2. Tap Add another account, then choose Other.
3. Enter your full professional email address and tap Next.
4. Choose Personal (IMAP).
5. Enter your mailbox password.
6. For incoming server use mail.yourdomain.co.za with port 993 and SSL.
7. For outgoing server use mail.yourdomain.co.za with port 465 and SSL, and make sure Require sign in is ticked.

The settings, in one place

Whichever route you take, these are the details Gmail will ask for. Replace yourdomain.co.za with your own domain.

Things to know before you rely on this

• Fetching is not instant. Gmail checks for new mail on its own schedule, sometimes only every hour. If you need mail the moment it arrives, use the Gmail app with IMAP, or use Outlook.
• POP3 is one way. Mail Gmail has fetched may still show as unread in webmail. This confuses people who check both.
• Deleting in Gmail does not always delete on the server. Your hosting mailbox can still fill up, which silently stops new mail arriving. Log in to webmail occasionally and clear it.
• Keep the mailbox password safe. If you change it in cPanel, Gmail will stop fetching until you update it in settings.
• Check your sending address. After setup, send one test to a colleague and ask which address it came from. This is the step people skip and then regret.

If Gmail refuses to connect

1. Confirm the same email address and password work in cPanel webmail first. If they do not, the password is the problem, not Gmail.
2. Check you typed the full email address as the username, not just the part before the at sign.
3. Try port 587 with TLS for sending if 465 with SSL is rejected.
4. If Gmail reports the server could not be found, the domain may not be pointing at our hosting yet. Send us a message and we will check the DNS.
5. If you get a certificate error, ask us for the server hostname to use instead of mail.yourdomain.co.za.

How Digitalx can help

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