Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
Gmail users have been able to manage their mail from non-Gmail accounts since early 2015 using Google’s Gmail Android app but now the company has announced a brand-new feature. This is called Gmailify and enables users to take advantage of inbox organization, Gmail’s spam protection, Google Now integrations and much more without need to change their email address.
This means you can check your Yahoo.com, Outlook.com, Hotmail.com emails within Gmail’s mobile application. You will also be able to manage these accounts as if the emails were being hosted on Google’s servers. This new feature makes perfect sense for people who would like to benefit from Gmail’s advanced feature set but who are using a different email address and don’t want the hassle involved in changing it.
For those people accessing their non-Gmail accounts from the Gmail application, they will still need to opt in to the new Gmailify feature. To do this is simple as you just need to open up the Gmail app and sign into your external accounts and then “enable Gmailify”, according to an article in Tech crunch.com. What this means in practice is that you will need to link your non-Gmail accounts to Gmail. This is very straightforward using the app’s “Settings” screen, tapping on non-Gmail account you wish to link and then choosing “Link Account.” This will enable the app to take advantage of Gmail’s new expanded feature and will work both in the android application as well as on the web. It is simple to unlink the accounts at any time.
As well as being protected by Gmail’s spam filter, non-Gmail accounts will also be organised by type and you will be able to search your non-Gmail account using advanced search operators. In addition you will be able to receive better notifications on your mobile and travel and hotel reservations will appear automatically in Google Now.
Google isn’t the only company trying to cater to non-account holders by focusing on its feature set. For example Yahoo recently announced its mobile email app would enable users to manage their Gmail and they would be able to benefit from password free signing and Yahoo’s “smart” contacts. Outlook.com even has an import tool to enable users to make the transition from Gmail to its app as easy as possible. Interestingly Gmailify was launched on the same day that Microsoft took Outlook.com out of preview.
At the moment Gmailify only works with Microsoft’s Outlook and Hotmail and with Yahoo but there are plans for more providers to be supported in the future.
