Today I'll refer to how I recently set upwards my email accounts for best efficiency leveraging one service you probably already use: Gmail, but in a specific context. Let me explicate.

I have active Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook accounts too every bit three IMAP accounts from my start-ups. I used Outlook (desktop client) to manage all these inboxes. The problem was that spam became uncontrollable, specifically for my three IMAP accounts and for Yahoo.

I tried putting spam assassins at the server level; local filters at the local level; all for naught. I connected to get driveling by Viagra pills, Nigerian despots, lonely women and all the other clever variations spammers use. Information technology was overwhelming.

I always thought Gmail was astonishing at beating spam. So I decided to route all my mail through Gmail so Google can filter information technology all out for my five other accounts. I can and then proceed to use Outlook to manage this filtered post.

Hither's what I did:

Imported all the accounts into gmail.com via Settings > Accounts and Imports.

Created a label for each account and then they appear as their own mailbox on Outlook. The method is to create a filter: Settings > Filter > Create new filter > eastward.g. for all emails with yahoo.com in the to: field and directly into the corresponding characterization.

Kept the default Gmail setup for unlike tabs: Main, Social, Promotions, Updates and Forum. These tabs piece of work really well, and afterward importing all my emails they in turn were automatically organized around those tabs.

In case you lot're not familiar, Gmail analyzes whether an email is something from a social network or forum, an ad, or spam from an app or website, then categorizes them appropriately into these tabs. This isolates the mail that are important (i.e. Primary) and you can glance through the rest whenever yous want. This system works superbly.

Editor's Annotation:
Jeffrey Yuwono is CEO and co-founder of Feecha, a hyperlocal news app for neighbourhoods. A Stanford MBA and Duke undergrad, Jeff writes insightful observations about technology once a day on his web log The Cornerplay and now on this weekly column on TechSpot.

The problem nonetheless is that desktop postal service clients like Outlook don't back up Gmail tabs, so without this characterization I tin can't access the Primary tab. Without it, the inbox I practice get on Outlook contains all the emails received, including the ads already categorized under Promotions. This defeats the purpose of the whole exercise!

Fortunately, there'southward a clever hack around it: create a characterization to mirror the Primary tab. Filter all emails that match Category:Primary and direct to the new label. Via this label, I can now finer access the Primary tab from whatever mail client.

Gmail takes its sweet time to import mail. Presumably, because Google has to scan emails and then they can categorize them correctly (and figure out what ads to display, just whatever).

On clients like Outlook, Gmail is the only e-mail business relationship needed. All the other emails you've imported with their corresponding labels will appear through it. On mobile, I tin now really use the native Gmail app, which of course does back up tabs.

Later a week of use, I'k happy to report that spam is mostly eradicated. I say more often than not because Gmail does not do a complete job detecting spam of Chinese origins.

Switching to Gmail made a huge difference on mobile. At present when I get a new mail notification I'm more than probable to check information technology, and it's far easier to go on runway of what I need to read now that my inbox is not flooded by spam.

At that place are of import drawbacks, still. The biggest is that Gmail doesn't play well with Outlook. There are three problems:

ane) Outlook is wearisome at indexing and displaying Gmail;

two) Mail ordered by time is actually time received, which is the time y'all imported the emails into Gmail but non the time they were actually received. You tin gear up this by sorting by time sent, but and so you can't group emails by chat on Outlook;

3) When you send email from Outlook, you lot have to always specify who information technology's from (sender account) unless yous're comfortable with the default.

I suspect all local clients, not simply Outlook, will suffer from these annoyances. I really gave upward using Outlook on an older PC because information technology was too dull, and merely used gmail.com instead.

If you're an Outlook addict, you lot may non want to follow in my footsteps.

Another issue I experienced was that Yahoo doesn't piece of work well with Gmail either. Fetching Yahoo mail is rife with errors and delays. Gmail will ofttimes requite me a message that information technology encountered server or authentication errors when it tries to fetch from Yahoo. So Yahoo mail that I received yesterday may not announced until today on Gmail. I'chiliad OK with this equally my Yahoo mail is typically used to register for apps and websites, but your situation may be different.

Overall, I'thou happy with the switch. I'm disappointed I stopped using Outlook – it's more fully featured than Gmail, and the agenda integration is leaps ahead – just defeating spam is worth the price.