Gmail, Whyfore You Torture Me?
I like gmail. The beta began in late 2003 and in mid 2004, I was able to snag an invite from a friend from a yahoo group. Back then, you only got five invites to spread around and people were not handing them out to just anyone. But I got one, and shared around my invites.
A couple of years later, when my small employer was switching hosts for their website, I opened up two more accounts, and spread out those invites to coworkers wishing to archive their emails. Eventually, I had several emails for various needs, including two that are the blog name and the blog url. For the most part, that initial account I created in 2004 is the catch all, the one that gets the most emails from commercial entities. Then there's the professional email that I use most for correspondence.
When I was admitted at USF, I got another gmail account, but this one was set up differently, receiving and sending mail from the USF servers. So, it was possible to be logged into one of my non-USF based gmail accounts and the USF assigned one at the same time.
Today, that changed. USF email addresses ported over to full gmail functionality. I'm not happy with it. Why? Because now, it'll sign me out of the USF servers completely if I want to access any of my other accounts.
I thought the simple fix would be to merge the two most used gmail accounts with the USF based account, but that's been quite interesting. There is no breakdown of which account the emails contained in my USF inbox originated from. Strangely, at one point this evening, it told me I had 4500 NEW emails. Combined, these three accounts might have 40 new pieces of mail.
Then, it decided to mix emails from 2004 with brand new ones. So account A's first emails would be listed right next to ones received from USF an hour before. There was no way to sort the mess out, so I decided I'll probably be checking my email from my phone until it does.
There's a reason why I keep separate email accounts, so I can weed stuff according to importance. This integrated approach is horrible, and I'm going back in to revoke permissions in a moment. That still doesn't fix the problem that if I want to leave my school email to check other gmail accounts, I have to go through the whole sign in process on the school servers regardless of whether it's Blackboard, Oasis or USF mail.
There has to be a better way, Google.
A couple of years later, when my small employer was switching hosts for their website, I opened up two more accounts, and spread out those invites to coworkers wishing to archive their emails. Eventually, I had several emails for various needs, including two that are the blog name and the blog url. For the most part, that initial account I created in 2004 is the catch all, the one that gets the most emails from commercial entities. Then there's the professional email that I use most for correspondence.
When I was admitted at USF, I got another gmail account, but this one was set up differently, receiving and sending mail from the USF servers. So, it was possible to be logged into one of my non-USF based gmail accounts and the USF assigned one at the same time.
Today, that changed. USF email addresses ported over to full gmail functionality. I'm not happy with it. Why? Because now, it'll sign me out of the USF servers completely if I want to access any of my other accounts.
I thought the simple fix would be to merge the two most used gmail accounts with the USF based account, but that's been quite interesting. There is no breakdown of which account the emails contained in my USF inbox originated from. Strangely, at one point this evening, it told me I had 4500 NEW emails. Combined, these three accounts might have 40 new pieces of mail.
Then, it decided to mix emails from 2004 with brand new ones. So account A's first emails would be listed right next to ones received from USF an hour before. There was no way to sort the mess out, so I decided I'll probably be checking my email from my phone until it does.
There's a reason why I keep separate email accounts, so I can weed stuff according to importance. This integrated approach is horrible, and I'm going back in to revoke permissions in a moment. That still doesn't fix the problem that if I want to leave my school email to check other gmail accounts, I have to go through the whole sign in process on the school servers regardless of whether it's Blackboard, Oasis or USF mail.
There has to be a better way, Google.
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