February 7th, 2007 in Communication, Lifehack, Technology

Gmail Hack: Different Users From the Same Address

Flagrantdisregard.com have written a nice little piece on creating multiple users [writers] from the one gmail address. Their example for use is a parent who wants their young children to be able to send emails to friends and family without the parent needing to write it.

My kids, 6 and 4, are too young to have their own email accounts. Email software is too complex for them and they can’t type anyway. Besides, I don’t want them exposed to the kind of spam I get on a regular basis. Fortunately, most email apps let you setup multiple identities on one account.

My understanding is this hack works for most email accounts, but we will show the example for Gmail.

Suppose your Gmail address is Alice@gmail.com and your child’s name is Johnny. To send mail from your Gmail account with Johnny’s name in the From line:

1. Go into Settings, click Accounts, then Add another email address
2. Now enter Johnny’s name and Alice+Johnny@gmail.com as the address.

gmail add account

Now you are able to send emails with Johnny’s name as the sender. This is great for families who stay in contact with family through emails. The name changes, but the address remains the same.
However, this isn’t the only use.

I have an online business I run with a friend. We both use the same email for said business and converse with prospects others in the industry.

With this handy hack we can now do one better than a generic email from ‘our business’ and personalize the interaction further by having two users. Something that will make correspondence make a little more sense, and I think, more professional.

How to give your young children a personalized (managed) email address – [FlagrantDisregard]

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Craig Childs

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