Maximize Your Use of Gmail (Google Mail)

Learn to Forward GMail to Your Primary Email Account

GMail works seamlessly with many other applications, particularly Picasa. If you're using Picasa to download, organize, and/or edit your photos, a GMail account makes it super simple to email them to your friends and family (this is especially true if you're using version 3 of Picasa). The only problem is, who wants to have yet another email account to check?

This tutorial shows you how to forward all the email that comes into your GMail account to your primary email address. Once you've set up the forwarding rules, you'll never have to do it again. Best of all, you'll be able to send photos out through Picasa (using GMail), but your friends' replies will come directly to your regular email account -- which means you'll never have to check your GMail account.

You can get a free GMail account by clicking here. Once you've gotten your free account set up, follow the instructions below.

Click on Settings (at the upper right).

On the new page, click on the 5th tab, called Forwarding and POP/IMAP.

On the first section of the next page, check off (or tick) Forward a copy of incoming mail to and enter your email address; from the dropdown menu immediately afterwards, choose either Archive or Delete Gmail's copy.

Click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page.

This means that any email sent to your new Gmail address will be sent automatically to your regular email address.

Send a test email to yourself at your new Gmail address to make sure it forwards properly to your regular email address. If you haven't received the test email within 2-3 hours, go back into the Forwarding and POP/IMAP page of your Gmail account and make sure you spelled your regular email address correctly. Don't forget to click Save Changes if you've made any.

Now you can easily send photos using Picasa and GMail!