Most college students get tired of having to log into their school’s email system every time they want to see their emails. This can definitely be a hassle over time, especially if the school uses the same email server as you use for personal emails. By that, I mean that the school is using Gmail for the basis of their email system and you use a Gmail account for personal emails as well. In that case, you literally have to log off and on every time you want to switch between the two. Luckily, there is an easy solution to all of this. It’s called mail forwarding. Let’s take a look at how this system works and what you would have to do to use it.

How to Mail Forwarding Works

The concept of mail forwarding is pretty simple. You just have to setup an email account to pull all of your messages from another account when they come in. the messages will still go to the second account, but they will also come to the first one for you to see. That will save you from having to go to your second account in order to check your emails. Everything will be accessible right there for you.

If you setup your account correctly, you can actually send messages from one account using the email address on another account. In other words, you can be logged in as [email protected] while you send a message to someone as [email protected]. The recipients will never know that you are using a different account, so you can keep your professional emails and your personal emails separate. This will save you from revealing your [email protected] account to your bosses, professors, colleagues, and peers.

I have a Gmail account that I use for business, and then I have another that I use for my family. I check everything on the family email, but I send info to my clients with the business address. As long as I remember to choose my business address before I send something, no one knows what my personal account is. I’ve only messed up on that one time, and that client already had my personal email. It didn’t turn out to be that bad in the end. You can do all of this to help yourself manage your life in one simple location, so you might as well give it a try.

How to Setup Mail Forwarding

Setting up mail forwarding will vary based on the email account you like to use. You can either have your email from one address forwarded to another address, or you can import emails from one account to another. Either way, you should be able to setup a connection that takes emails from one account and puts them on another one. Look for a “forwarding” option somewhere in your account settings, and you should be able to figure things out from there. It’s not a software engineering process, so you should not have trouble understanding the procedure when you get into it. You just have to follow the steps as they come.

You could also set a filter on your emails so that only certain ones get forwarded to you. If you have one professor that writes you all the time, you can make sure that those emails get to your personal account. Then you could just check back in every once and awhile on the other emails you get. I like this option because it prevents me from getting a bunch of random school announcements in my personal email. If you want to minimize the clutter, this is a great option for you. Check out your mail forwarding opportunities, and you’ll be able to manage your life better in no time.