How to customize your outgoing Gmail email address

by Mike Beato | Apr 20, 2011 | Solutions

I use Gmail as my primary email account because they have:

  • Lots of space available
  • Excellent spam filtering
  • Great message search
  • Good integration into my desktop and iPhone mail client applications
  • And, oh yes. It’s free.

But I don’t necessarily want to promote my actual Gmail address. It’s not because I don’t want people to know I’m using Gmail, but doing so would waste an opportunity to promote my beato.com domain “brand” when I send and receive messages. So I’ve set up several email addresses, all funneled to my Gmail account.

What about outgoing email messages? If I send a message from Gmail in my browser, how do I make the outgoing message NOT be tagged with my Gmail address but with my desired address? Here’s how:

Let’s say your desired email address is jay@blotny.com, which now forwards automatically to your jablotny@gmail.com account. And you want all outgoing mail from Gmail’s browser interface to show that comes from jay@blotny.com, not jablotny@gmail.com. First, click on Mail settings in Gmail’s “gear” menu.

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Add your real email address

Click on Accounts and Import, then Send mail from another address — enter your name and the email address for outgoing mail.

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The easiest choice is to Send through Gmail‘s outgoing SMTP servers:

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Verification: This step is to make sure you actually own the email address you want to use. After you Send Verification, you will receive an email message with a confirmation code. Enter it to verify.

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Once your new email address is verified you’ll want to (1) make it the default outgoing address and (2) Always reply from default address.

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Compose new message

Now when you create a new outgoing message in Gmail, you’ll see a popup menu with choices of outgoing email addresses. Your non-Gmail address should be already selected since you specified it as your new default.

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Don’t miss this simple opportunity to reinforce your domain brand by making this small change to your Gmail settings.

This post is also available to read on my Substack.

15 Comments

  1. ximena

    How do I make my desire email adress my own?

    Reply
    • Mike Beato

      Not sure I understand your question.

      Reply
  2. Charisa Langeveld

    How do you do the first part though? How do you change your incoming mail address to be Jay@Blotney.com, rather than JayBlotney@gmail.com?
    Like you said, I want to use the opportunity to promote my business. But I lack the knowledge.

    Reply
    • Mike Beato

      It’s a bit beyond the scope of this blog post, but basically you need to 1. Register a domain name through a registrar (GoDaddy.com is one example); 2. Set up a forwarding address that points your desired email address with your Gmail address (Jay@blotney.com –> JayBlotney@gmail.com). The specific details depend on the registrar you select.

      Reply
  3. Eddie

    Thank YOU for posting this I kept pulling my hair trying to setup my godaddy email in Microsoft entourage and I kept getting issues sending emails but I just new there was an easier way to do this!

    Reply
  4. Emi Armengol

    I’d like to know how to costumize my inside email. I mean put the letter size, color and the writing i choose, so my mails look more personal. Yahoo allows you to do so, for instance…

    I also would like to put the same color to the income emails. If, for instance, I choose green that all the page looks green.
    Thank you!!!

    Reply
  5. Ron Kolman

    Hi. Thought I’d go directly for a straight answer. I’m new here, great resource you have Mike. When providing my gmail address for website registration purposes, am I able to add a “+” and word (to designate the site I’m registering for: e.g. ron.kolman+beato@gmail.com), to assist in catching/suppressing spam mail?
    Thanks for your time,
    Ron

    Reply
    • Mike Beato

      Sure thing, Ron. That’s a good idea, and another feature that I like about Gmail.

      Mike

      Reply
  6. Meg

    Where do i find the verification code? 🙁

    Reply
    • Mike Beato

      The verification code will be sent to the email address you specify.

      Reply
  7. Matt

    Hi Mike

    I want to change my outgoing NAME it says “me” and I want it to say Matt Mattero

    I tried editing my sent mail as and changed it to Matt Mattero but it still says “ME”

    frustrating how do I change it so all people who get email from me it will say Matt Mattero?

    Thanks!

    Matt

    Reply
    • Mike Beato

      Matt – When you ‘Compose’ a new message, does it say your name and email address in the “From” field? Are there any other options in the From field drop-down menu?

      Reply
      • Matt

        no there is no drop down menu
        send me your email ill send u an email i sent it to my yahoo address and it said my name so all is ok i guessl tell me if it has my name ok?

        Reply
  8. Niko

    How do I change my outgoing business info? Example: Name, business , phone etc. from one company to another?

    Reply
    • Mike Beato

      Not sure what you mean by outgoing business info.

      Reply

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