DescentBB

Okay time for one of my stupid questions again

I just need to get some opinions on using my gmail account properly from the start to avoid the same problem I'm stuck with now.

My needs:

A central mailbox which I can access anywhere anytime from a pc with an internet connection (will mostly be one of my home pc's or my office pc). This account is for my personal use and stuff.

For this I went and got myself and Gmail account.

Short version of the question:

Should I use my Gmail account via my web browser or is it better to setup Outlook 2007 with an IMAP account for this mail account?

Long version: (a bit of history to my mail habits) for those not into reading long boring stuff and grasps the question you may skip this part

What happend was my personal email account (with an alias) was and still is used as my office email address. This was a mutual beneficial arrangement with the office when I was still using dial up but I've recently upgrade (at long last) to ADSL.

Now my problem is my ISP mail account uses aliases on the main address via which mail is downloaded (pop3). In short I'm now a bit screwed. All my personal emails gets downloaded together with my work email at the office on my office pc and leaving me unable to read it a home after it is downloaded and if I download it at my house its a pain in the @$$ to transfer work emails that was downloaded with my personal email. I'm also a bit stuck with this problem due to my own account as one of my aliases are used as the office official email address which means I can't just remove the alias and tell the office go make another plan. Changing the office email address will be too time consuming and counterproductive.

So I've decide to go and get myself a Gmail account. Shot everything is cool but ever since I've got internet way back I was using Outlook as my mail client (pop3). Now with Gmail I stumble across the IMAP protocol which probability is old news to everyone but not to me of course. Which is perfect for my needs (ability to have an central mailbox which I can access anytime anywhere on any of my given pc's home or office) but is it worth the effort of setting up multiple Outlook systems with an IMAP account or should I just use Gmail through its webmail mode and keep my new account and contacts split from my work accounts and contacts which is setup both at my house and office? keeping these in sync usually means exporting the personal folders of both and cross importing them (big pain in the back!)

The other thing I need to keep in mind is my monthly data cap because it is SO huge (2gb - best bang for bugs package currently available that fits my budget!). Using webmail or the IMAP protocol I know you just download the header of the email until you read them. But how will this affect data usages when the mailbox starts growing as I do not like deleting my emails. This is more specifically based on if I were to use Outlook with IMAP because it periodically syncs the two \"accounts\". I know you can set the period and you do not need to leave outlook open to continuously sync but even then every time you open outlook it will need to sync with gmail or I am a bit of the tracks here? And how does this sync differ to when you access gmail through a web browser data wise? It's just a matter of I do not want to waste my available bandwidth on things that are not necessities.

Sorry for being this tedious and mundane but sometimes its hard to change habits but if its for the best one must adapt or die, so to speak.

Use the web interface, it provides one central mailbox that is the same on any and every computer you access it from. You can also import all your old outlook contacts to gmail easily. Just export them all from outlook as a CSV file and click contacts on your gmail, then click import on the bottom left of the screen, upload the file and it will copy them all.

Also, just so you know, there is an option in outlook for POP3 mail servers that leaves the messages on the server. So for instance you could set both your computers to leave all the messages on the server till you remove them manually and both computers would be able to get all the messages. The downside is both computers will always get all the messages and mark them as new even if you already read them at the other computer and if you don't clean up your inbox manually it will fill up.

Also Gmail can be checked from IMAP or from POP3 just like your ISP mail account, but it may behave exactly the same on POP3 as your existing mail accounts so keep that in mind.

I use the GMail web interface for most purposes, but I also use the POP3 system with Outlook when I'm at work. The POP3 system is convenient because I can set GMail to \"archive\" the the messages that are downloaded to my work machine. That way they're out of my Inbox on the web, but I can still get to them if needed.

The nice thing about IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol, previously called Internet Mail Access Protocol) is that You are able to access your email at the remote server instead of having to always download it. It is often an option to have your software download it anyway (Outlook does that by default ). In those cases, just locate in your settings where it refers to \"save a copy on the server\" (or something like that).

Most POP3 systems allow the same thing, but require downloading the messages regardless. Again, look for that \"save a copy on the server\" (or something like \"remove from server\") selection choice.

Either way, if the message isn't removed from the server, wherever you connect to it (web or in Outlook) the message will still be there ... unless a program removes it.