Outlook Sidebar with Gmail

This should be very similar in Outlook 2007.  All of the settings are the same, but often found in different locations.

Setting up Gmail in Outlook

Open Outlook.  Go to Tools > Email Accounts.  Select add a new e-mail account and click next.  Select IMAP from the server types and click next again.  On the next screen enter all of your user info, email address, etc.  Enter in Gmail’s servers: imap.gmail.com and smtp.gmail.com.

Once you have filled out all the settings you’re going to want to click the ‘more settings’ button.  Click the outgoing server tab and check the ‘My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication’ checkbox.  Click the advanced tab and check off that the server requires SSL for BOTH servers.  Change the SMTP port to 465.  Click OK.  You can test your account settings via the button now, if you followed directions it should work fine.

You should see your Inbox in the left pane, if you don’t you’re going to want to go back into the email accounts options > view accounts and change the settings for your IMAP so it has a data file of its own.

Copying your mail

To copy your mail, you would just drag everything over to the folder in your Gmail inbox that you wish to have the mail in.  Plan this part out carefully because doing it wrong can result in duplicates which is annoying.

Other Ideas:

• Add webmail accounts to Gmail via their built in settings.
• Use Evolution Mail (Linux) to copy mail from an exchange web account to your Gmail, and then set up a rule to forward your new messages to Gmail as well.  This is only necessary if you don’t have access to the exchange server externally and don’t want to add your Gmail account at work for security reasons.
• …be creative.  Gmail is the $h1zniT