Google Mail and Google Apps Setup

Google Apps enables you to have email addresses at your domain name. Each Google Apps user you set up has access to Google Mail, Google Calendar and Google Docs.

Using Google Mail works like this:

  • Google provides your Mail Server – mail.yourdomain.com – for free as part of Google Apps Standard Edition
  • You set up Users (a User = Email Address + Mailbox)
  • You access your mail via Google’s webmail interface or any old POP/IMAP email reader (like Outlook or Mac Mail)

Setting up and Configuring Google Apps for the first time

When we setup a new client website, we often setup Google Apps when we Go Live. If you can login to your email from a browser at http://mail.yourdomain.com then Google Apps has already been setup for you, and you will have received your username and password. If you are the owner of your website, this will be an Administrator account for Google Apps, so you’ll be able to complete some of the administrator tasks described below.

If you want to do the initial setup yourself, see our instructions at the end of this article.

Reading your Email

You can read your Google Mail using any web browser. It is the best way to read your mail.

Yes, you can use a mail application (such as Outlook or Apple Mail) that reads POP or IMAP mailboxes as well. If you haven’t used the Google Mail web interface before why not give it a go?

Using the web interface for Google Mail is easier to setup, and easier and more efficient to use than a desktop web application. Google say so. So does Lifehacker Australia.

Here are a few suggestions:

  • Use Settings, General to display 100 messages per page. Now you’ll be able to scan your email much faster, and file/delete message in bulk.
  • Use Settings, Accounts to let you send email from several different accounts
  • Use Settings, Web Clips to turn off messages above your inbox.

Setting up a POP mail reader

If you must, here are the instructions on setting up a POP mail reader such as Outlook: Setting Up a Mail Reader

POP is usually activated for each new mailbox, however if you need to activate it manually (or activate IMAP) read this: Activating POP or IMAP

You can also have a look at Google’s Gmail Help Center for a lot more detailed help.

A reminder about your spam filter and POP readers: your Google Mail account filters spam on the mail server. Spam is NOT copied across to your mail reader. So you may need to login in to your webmail from time to time to check nothing important has been filtered.

Creating Additional Users

When you create your Google Apps account, you’ll set up the first user and this will give you your first email address (like firstname@yourdomain.com).

You can add more users later on. Each user has their own mailbox with their email address, password and quota for storage.

Nicknames

If your name is Geoffrey but people also call you Geoff, you might setup your email address as geoffrey@yourdomain.com and then update the user to add a nickname for geoff.

Emails sent to geoffrey@yourdomain.com or geoff@yourdomain.com will both come through to the same mailbox.

Mail Groups

You create a mail group with its own email address. Sending an email to the group address means the email gets delivered to all members of the group.

You might set up an email group for info@yourdomain.com and place several email addresses into that group. Any email sent to info@yourdomain.com gets sent to everyone on the list.

A mailing group doesn’t have a mailbox, just a list of usernames.

You can set permissions on who can send email to the mailing list. If you want to receive email from your website contact form, you’ll need to set permissions to Public.

Migrating Contact Lists and Old Mail

Import Your Mail and Contacts

Tasks

Try Settings, Labs and turn on Tasks to get a handy to do list in your mail box: Google Tasks

Calendar

Google Apps gives you Mail and Calendar. You can click through to your calendar from your web mail box, or access it at http://calendar.yourdomain.com.

It is very handy. You can easily share calendars with other users in your domain. And the Quick Add link makes it very quick and easy to use.

The Google Apps Admin Help

If you get stuck using the Google Apps control panel to add users, create groups and so on, you can get detailed help at the Google Apps Admin Help Centre.

Don’t have Google Apps setup yet?

If you haven’t got Google Apps setup yet then you’ll need to do two things:

  • Configure your DNS for Google Apps – if you’re using an OM4 website, you can use the one click email setup option at Dashboard, Domains, Email Setup (choose the Google Apps option), and then you can answer ‘already done’ to any DNS related questions during Google Apps setup. Otherwise follow Google’s instructions to set up your DNS.
  • Set up your Google Apps Standard Edition account

If you are migrating from another mail server, make sure you have a local copy of all your required emails – if you use Outlook and can read you mail while not connected to the Internet, your mail is being downloaded from your mail server to Outlook and you have a local copy of your mail. Google Apps does have a mail migration utility you can use to copy mail from your current mail server to Google Apps mail, and the Help files have instructions on how to use it.