How to merge old email accounts into a single Gmail inbox
It is possible to consolidate all of your incoming mail into one Gmail inbox, if you want to. Gmail has two crucial features – the ability to send mail as a different account, and the ability to download mail using POP3 from other accounts.
1 – Sign into your Gmail account
2 – Go to Settings –> Accounts –> “Get mail from other accounts”
3 – Click to “Add a mail account”, and input the POP3 settings from your old email account (varies by provider). Then choose how to import it. I highly recommend you not delete the mail from the old account’s inbox, and also apply a label to all mail from the old account.
4 – Gmail will then download all of the old account’s mail, this may take awhile depending on how much mail there is. After the mail is downloaded, it will all be marked as “unread” – since POP3 does not “see” read status like the superior IMAP protocol does. You’ll have to sort through it (using that label you should have applied in step #3) to mark the messages read.
Now, to set up emailing from the old account, if you wish to do so. If you are completely switching to Gmail and don’t want to reply to messages using the old account, you are already done!
5 – Go to Settings –> Accounts –> “Send mail as”
6 – Click to “Add another email address”, and fill out the form. Gmail will send an email to the account, to confirm you own it. If you set up POP3 downloads to Gmail in steps 1-4, it should show up in your Gmail inbox.
7 – When you get the email, click the confirmation link, and you now should be able to send mail using the other account from your Gmail account.
I personally am only partially using these features so far – what I am using them for is to consolidate account types. For example, all my personal email will go to one account, business related to another, and shopping/junk mail to a third. I may eventually consolidate into one master account, but only when the “Multiple Inboxes” Gmail Labs feature plays nicely with the Remember the Milk Firefox plugin.
Hope this tip has helped you organize your email inboxes!