Archive for IMAP
How I Moved A Client from Outlook email to Gmail–and did it remotely
Posted by: | CommentsLast week, I blogged about moving my email to Gmail with the intent to do this follow-up on how I did the same for a client of mine. This client lives in her Outlook email and travels frequently. Earlier this year she went from a Blackberry to iPhone. She loves her iPhone. She expressed her need for me to have access to her email and schedule. In addition to viewing her mail and calendar, she wanted me to be able to file, send and respond to emails from her mailbox. With a friend’s very expert assistance, we set up an exchange/imap account with her ISP that allowed me to do this from within my Outlook client.
Now if she had a reliable ISP, we’d still be using it, but problems developed and I removed the exchange/imap feature from her Outlook. When exchange/imap went away, so did all the nicely organized email folders that were on her iPhone. This decreased her productivity since she couldn’t file her many incoming messages. Who likes to lose features as we travel down the tech highway!
Enter Gmail and it’s highly touted IMAP features. I discussed with my client this option and how I’d be able to once again have complete access to her email and calendar and that she would again have all the folders available to her on her iPhone. She wanted me to go for it. So I first wanted to try it out on one of the family’s email accounts. Then I did it with my Outlook account (detailed in last week’s blog). Success!
I use the free and very useful Logmein to access my client’s computer remotely. I posted about this program a year ago. It’s been one of the most useful tools in my arsenal. I chose a convenient time to first back up her email and then did the set up by following the instructions from the great How-To-Geek. After adding the Gmail account from within Outlook, most of the tweaking could be done from within the web interface. I moved all of her Outlook folders (one at a time), down to her Gmail and got them organized as they were before (for the most part). There were a few odd error messages here and there. For example, one said I couldn’t move a particular folder, but then it would be there all the same. Gmail provided very easy instructions for getting Gmail onto the iPhone.
Everything has been working for the last couple of weeks. We are still working out a few kinks here and there. One irritant has been that Outlook 2007 is slow to sync all the folders and mail that are in the Google folders. It’s really been slowing her system down. I’ve been looking around for some tweaks for this and think this from Digital Inspiration may work.
So, would I do again for another client- you betcha! Of course, you have to have a client who has trust in you, a good sense of humor and a bit adventurous. The unexpected can happen, but with the proper preparation, having a back-up and restore plan of what you’re about to change and choosing a time that doesn’t impact business critical tasks, you too, can do it.
How I Moved My Outlook email to Gmail and Retained the Best of Both Worlds
Posted by: | CommentsI’d been an Outlook user for many years – both corporately (using Exchange), and currently in my VA Practice. When you’re in the corporate world, Outlook is the client to use. But, during the past two years, a whole new world of education and exploration opened up while I went through my VA Training and the launch of my VA practice.
Class training emphasized collaboration with our clients was essential and we were urged to explore how to accomplish that–keeping in mind the technological comfort level of our clients.
I like to be sure something is going to function the way it says it will before implementing with a client, so I tried it out on myself! Last fall, Gmail came out with its highly anticipated IMAP feature. IMAP allows syncing of mail among multiple devices because the mail stays on the server. I read and heard a lot about it and I did a lot of studying and researching and then took the plunge.
Steps I Took
1. Before starting, I did a backup of my Outlook (you can’t be too careful). Then, I wanted some detailed instructions. I found them here with the How-To-Geek. He’s great. I followed these instructions and now I had my Gmail IMAP account in Outlook.
2. Then I started moving my outlook folders into Gmail. I used drag and drop to do this, although I’ve read since then that they should be copied, not dragged. I noticed that Gmail put annoying prefixes on each of my folders…the first three in the picture are before I edited the labels and the last two are after I edited the labels. It was more readable for me after I removed the prefix.
3. Then I went into my Outlook account settings (Tools>send/receive groups) and told Outlook not to check for mail in my Outook account, but to only check my Gmail IMAP account. I did this so I wouldn’t get duplicate messages – one set in my Outlook and one set in my Gmail.
4. Then I went into the Gmail Settings and under the ‘General’ tab, I added my email signature. Under the ‘Accounts’ tab, I told Gmail I wanted to send mail from my outlook address, not my gmail address (more about this later). I also tweaked the settings so I could ‘Get mail from Different Accounts’ and I added my Outlook account here. The ‘Labels’ tab contains the former Outlook folders, now renamed labels by Gmail. Here’s where you click on ‘edit’ and change the name of the label to whatever you wish. The next tab is the ‘Filters’ tab. Filters are like Rules in Outlook. They are insanely easy to set up and they work so much better than Outlook rules — ever have problems with Outlook rules??
What I Really Liked and What Really Works Well
I like, no love having email access from anywhere. Of course, everyone says that, but it is oh so true. Even when I’m at home and too lazy to walk upstairs to my office to see if some mail arrived, it’s wonderful because I can use a downstairs computer. When I’m at my sister’s house, I can check my mail – it feels great!
The filtering and spam catching abilities of Gmail are legendary — and true. The filters just work and Google is pretty good at catching only the spam.
Pretty much unlimited storage. Currently, I’m using only 1% of my storage – no worries there! I’ve read that many people move to Gmail because of the almost unlimited storage. Outlook warns not to go over 2-3GB in their mail accounts as it takes forever to load and can/does become unstable.
I can keep on using my Outlook 2007client. I’m familiar and comfortable with Outlook, how it works, what it does and what buttons to push. Gmail, with its threaded conversations is great, but it takes some getting used to (for me, anyway). The web Gmail interface doesn’t appeal to me that much — because I don’t have years of experience with it. I’m getting more comfortable with it after a week or so now. But I like knowing I can work in either.
What Isn’t Working and a Glitch with Google
Sometimes I get annoying pop-ups in Outlook regarding not being able to file a message, use default folder and a couple other annoying things. I don’t know why and haven’t researched it to see what it is.
With Gmail, there is an ‘All-Mail’ folder, and an ‘In-box’ folder. I also set up a separate folder for one account’s emails to go into. As a result, I get 3 copies of each incoming email in each folder. If I flag one of them, then all three will show up in my ‘tasks’ list. This is irritating and I haven’t decided what to do about this.
This could be the most irritating and I did research this one and as far as I know, no one has come up with a fix for this: I told the Gmail settings that I wanted all my replies to come from my default Outlook address–however, when I’m using my Outlook client to respond to mail sent to my Outlook email address and I hit reply, Gmail will make the return from my gmail account instead of my Outlook account. I have to remember to click the down arrow and switch accounts. This is quite exasperating. Now, this does NOT happen when I’m using the web Gmail – only when I’m using Outlook. Anybody know how to fix this?
Overall, I’m very pleased with the migration to using Gmail’s IMAP service. I’d like to hear anyone else’s story or get some comments from others who have done this.
Next time, I’ll talk about how I moved one of my client’s mail from Outlook to Gmail!
