How to use your Gmail account for more than just Gmail

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ISSUE 19.42 • 2022-10-17 SOFTWARE By Lance Whitney With the Gmail website or app, you can add access to non-Gmail accounts. Those of you who have a Gm
[See the full post at: How to use your Gmail account for more than just Gmail]

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WSGeo, ibe98765, Perq, lmacri, JohnW, Norio, abbodi86

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How to add Gmail as a search engine in Chrome-based browsers

..how to create a handy search engine so you can search your Gmail inbox from within the Chrome address bar.

..Sometimes, however, I don’t want to have to open Gmail to search for something. When I need a bit more efficiency in my workflow, I can count on Chrome’s ability to add custom search engines. Once you’ve added a search engine to Chrome, it’s just a matter of typing a keyword in the address bar and hitting the Tab key on your keyboard to then search the target…

Open your browser and then open the Settings window. From there, locate the Search Engine section and click Manage Search Engines And Site Searches..

Click Add. In the next window (Figure C), here’s what you need to paste into the settings.

Search Engine: Gmail
Keyword: gmail
URL: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#search/%s
After configuring the new Search Engine, click Save to dismiss the window. Your new Gmail Search Engine has been added…

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People should be distancing themselves from Google in general. There are way better options out there such as protonmail for security. You may as well authorize Google to sell every aspect of your life if you actually give them this much access. They will scan and sell all your email info

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bbearren, roadster1024

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What you aren’t saying is that the Gmail server is rife with spam going through the server. I have digital proof of this as well. What I use is Gmail for stuff that I suspect will come in as spam and it has been proven over and over.
The shame with this comment area is that I’m not allowed to input the (.png) photo showing the original with the message actually going through FR [France], but coming from RU [Russia] neither of which is from my server. I don’t trust the Gmail server at all, since they are allowing junk to be forwarded without so much as anything but as trusted. Yes, I do look at the original messages to see where they really came from. I get dual finals (.com.ru), that’s spam or an attempt to phish me. Neither will work, because, I mark the message as SPAM on the Centurylink server (owner of Embarq and Embarqmail) in turn it ends up being listed as a SPAM message globally.
Be careful with what you are trusting Gmailly or Gmail with else you get spam through this service.

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bbearren, Geo, roadster1024

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You have to register in order to add images.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady

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I set this up for my wife (she uses another account as her MAIN email, the gmail account is just a necessary evil to her) and she doesn’t like the fact that the “Primary” account is still the gmail one. Any way to swap that with her other account?

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You indicated a clear distinction between Gmailify and Importing other email accounts on the web app, but did not discuss the difference on the mobile app.

Can you expand on this?

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I’m opposite I don’t like the look of gmail;  I set up my gmail in Thunderbird.

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I have a few gmail accounts.  They are not used for email in any way, shape or form, nor will they ever be.  Most are throwaway accounts used for registering to sites that require registration with a valid email address in order to view their content.  I never check the email for any gmail account.  I have my primary email through my website host, where I also have multiple accounts, but also where they don’t siphon off every bit of personal data that they can get.  My privacy is assured to my satisfaction with this arrangement.

I have a couple of YouTube accounts for which I use gmail accounts, but again, I never use the email part of those accounts.  They are merely access to my YouTube accounts.

I don’t quite understand why a site that warns regularly about privacy and security and strong password protection promotes one of the most (if not the most) personal data super-suckers of the internet, Google.  It boggles the mind.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We were all once "Average Users". We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do to our systems, we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

Computer Specs

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Alice, wavy

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AMEN BROTHER (or SISTER) !!!!!!

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Alice, bbearren

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No offense here but doesn’t Google know enough about me already?! I attempt to make every effort, though likely unsuccessful, to prevent these “MEGA SPYING ORGANIZATIONS” from knowing more about me. I am extremely amazed about how I receive “suggestions” to sites etc… within days of having spoken within my home about a certain topic. These “sites etc…” that I mention are random topics that I may RARELY, or never have prior, spoken of. Think I am paranoid? I have spoke to SEVERAL others who have had the same “coincidences” occur. Some of these that have confirmed it happening to them as well are been those in computer security positions.

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I can see that Google is a lightning rod for criticism, and I respect other’s opinions even if I disagree with them.

But I have been using Gmail as my main email service for 10 years without anything bad happening to me, my data, or my life. 🙂

How Gmail protects your privacy & keeps you in control

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/10434152?hl=en

“We do not scan or read your Gmail messages to show you ads

If you have a work or school account, you will never be shown ads in Gmail.

When you use your personal Google account and open the promotions or social tabs in Gmail, you’ll see ads that were selected to be the most useful and relevant for you. The process of selecting and showing personalized ads in Gmail is fully automated. These ads are shown to you based on your online activity while you’re signed into Google, however we do not process email content to serve ads.“

Google Privacy Policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-US#infochoices

 

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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oldfry

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JohnW wrote:

“When you use your personal Google account and open the promotions or social tabs in Gmail, you’ll see ads that were selected to be the most useful and relevant for you. The process of selecting and showing personalized ads in Gmail is fully automated. These ads are shown to you based on your online activity while you’re signed into Google, however we do not process email content to serve ads.”

@JohnW you hit the nail on the head.  That is what I do not want.  I do not want to see “personalized ads”.  I don’t want to see any ads.  I don’t want my online activity tracked/scoured for the placement of “personalized ads”, or for any other Google reason.

By not using gmail, I don’t need to sign in to Google.  I don’t use Google to search.  I don’t use Chrome to browse.  I search with DuckDuckGo and Startpage using Firefox, so that my searches are anonymized and I am not tracked when I leave DuckDuckGo or Startpage.

In short, I don’t want an online profile that can be used for anyone’s monetization purposes.  In my view Google is one of the worst offenders.  Hence,

bbearren wrote:

I don’t quite understand why a site that warns regularly about privacy and security and strong password protection promotes one of the most (if not the most) personal data super-suckers of the internet, Google. It boggles the mind.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We were all once "Average Users". We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do to our systems, we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

Computer Specs

2 users thanked author for this post.

wavy, F A Kramer

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bbearren wrote:

In my view Google is one of the worst offenders.

In my view, Microsoft is probably worse.

Hence I do not use an online MS account for Windows, no Office, no Outlook mail, no OneDrive, no Edge, no Skype, no LinkedIn, no GitHub.

Don’t want Microsoft to own me!

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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oldfry

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JohnW wrote:

I do not use an online MS account for Windows

Nor do I.

JohnW wrote:

… no Office, no Outlook mail, no OneDrive

I use Microsoft 365 and I have an outlook.com email address, but it has specific, non-commercial uses. I also use OneDrive as an extra copy of non-financial documents. I don’t get any ads from Microsoft in any of the Microsoft 365 programs.

JohnW wrote:

… no Edge, no Skype, no LinkedIn, no GitHub.

Nor I. Edge, Skype and LinkedIn are uninstalled and I don’t visit GitHub.

JohnW wrote:

Don’t want Microsoft to own me!

Nor I. I have their telemetry shut down, and Windows running the way I want it to run.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We were all once "Average Users". We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do to our systems, we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

Computer Specs

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I get to have a little fun with these advertisers by using a VPN running through a server in London, England. I am 7000+ miles away from London, but they don’t know that. Result? I get ads for English vacations, products and services. Those ads are costing someone a bit of money that is completely wasted. My only regret is that Alphabet and Microsoft are not the losers, at least not yet. I hope that someday the purchasers of “Internet” ads will realize how ineffective their ads are, and thus Google and the others will suffer a big drop in ad revenue!

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F A Kramer wrote:

I get to have a little fun with these advertisers

What are advertisements ? Never saw one for years and can’t remember when I have seen and ad, maybe with Windows XP.

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Alex5723: Try using any of the Microsoft apps such as Money, Weather, Bing (search), Edge, etc., on a Win 10 computer.

A serious request, please tell us how you manage to avoid the ads.

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F A Kramer wrote:

A serious request, please tell us how you manage to avoid the ads.

I am like Alex5723 and do not see ads also. I am currently using Linux Mint 20.3 with the Brave browser and have the Shields set to Agressively block trackers and ads, Agressively block fingerprinting, and Block cross-site cookies, those are just the Brave browser settings. For Helmet, Belt, and Suspenders Armor, I also use the browser addon extensions: Disconnect, Privacy Badger, and uBlockOrigin. Because Susan Bradley recommends having multiple browsers, I also use all those extensions in Firefox and Vivalvdi also. I used Revo Uninstaller Free with Advanced Settings to Uninstall Edge browser and remove leftovers like Registry entries and AppData folders and files. I did not like the Edge browser constantly making 4 MB browser metrics files even when I never used the browser, it seemed like Edge was spying on my other browser use (seemed = not certain). Color me Paranoid Plus but I enjoy my current set up. I recommend at the very minimum using uBlockOrigin for Privacy concerns, go into the settings Dashboard and click on the Filter Lists and Enable All the filters that are listed there, I have all 25 checked, but did not add any optional additional filters, which is possible. I guess I am not Totally as Super Paranoid as I could be (?).

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I use Gmail as an email client (but have no Gmail addresses) on my phone. All my email active accounts are within my own domain and provided by my domain host (Ionos). I think that means I do not have the privacy issues with Gmail discussed above (please correct me if I am wrong).

I use Gmail to access mail on my phone, but handle most of the traffic on my desktop (using Outlook) or tablet (using Samsung’s mail client). It works perfectly well, except for one irritation. My habit is to move all emails that I have dealt with from my In Box once handled. However, if there is anything in the In Box waiting, Gmail will display those messages, plus quite a number of earlier removed messages, in its In Box, and stays that way even on refresh until the In Box is empty.

Annoying, but not fatal.

Chris
Win 10 Pro x64 Group A

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I do use ad blockers and an addon (uBlock Origin) that blocks some info and sends false data back so that it does not get tied to me. Some sites, only a very few that  do not need  to be visited anyway, pick up on it and will not let me continue. None of them are sites that I could not live without. Nothing connected to computers and privacy is ever going to be perfect but at least it slows these folks down. Algorithms, especially self-learning algorithms, have become quite scary in their accuracy and their ability to undersand how the human brain is wired. Through the “self learning” of these algorithms they are good at using our brains against us.

P.S. : I am not paranoid. The world runs on the almighty dollar. “They” really do not care who I am but they sure care about trying every advantage in order to squeeze more money from me.

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F A Kramer wrote:

Alex5723: Try using any of the Microsoft apps such as Money, Weather, Bing (search), Edge, etc., on a Win 10 computer.

A serious request, please tell us how you manage to avoid the ads.

I don’t use anything Microsoft apart from Windows. In Windows I don’t use even build-in simple tasks / services like copy, uninstall, defender, Edge, search…so I don’t know/see any Microsoft’s ads.

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I have about 10 GMail accounts and use half of them regularly.  Have no problems with spam at all.  Google catches the few pieces I receive.   The UI is rudimentary and Google developers are always messing with making controls as obtuse as possible in order to gain a few pixels of screen space.  Seems to be some kind of Gen-x problem.

I have an Android Google Pixel phone so google knows everything about me including my current location at all times.  Doesn’t bother me at all.

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OK, so we all don’t like Google, Microsoft and anybody else looking at our stuff and sending us messages. Right on.

But to expand on Lance’s great topic. Or a small piece of it.

Has anyone actually understood the difference between – and good use – for categories and  labels  ?   Maybe I’m too stuck in my ways, but I find it much easier to move into folders (which seem to  be called labels in Gmail), where they’re most likely never seen again. I guess you can do something similar with the pretty colored labels, i.e. hide them. But isn’t that kinda redundant, and less effective than subfolders? The way I remember it early on, there were <span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>no</span> subfolders, and ONLY categories in Gmail. How’s this work?

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wavy

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