Last week, Evan wondered what would happen if Penn State did away with its notorious Webmail system and adopted a 3rd-party service, like the ever-popular Gmail. The comments section soon filled with questions and tips on how to make Webmail work better and how to even replace it with Gmail. It hadn’t occurred to me the amount of people who still had yet to experience the rapture that is Gmail. Here’s a quick guide on how to receive and send Penn State mail from your Google account.

The common misconception is that the only way to get PSU mail into your Gmail inbox is to use the Google settings to check the Penn State mail server. While you can do it that way, Google often waits long intervals of time to check the PSU server, so you won’t instantly receive your mail. Forwarding your mail will fix that problem. Go to work.psu.edu, log in, and click “Change your e-mail fowarding address” button. Enter your Gmail addy and click “Change”. There won’t be any confirmation message once it’s done, but you should soon be receiving PSU email in your Gmail box instantly.

Google makes it really easy to send mail from Gmail “pretending” to be from another account – meaning you can send mail from Gmail that will still say it’s from xyz123@psu.edu – with just a quick set-up and confirmation. In Gmail, go into your settings and open the ‘Accounts’ tab. Click ‘Add another email address you own.’ Enter the information and Gmail will send a confirmation to that email address which, if you’ve forwarded it to your Gmail inbox, should show up immediately right there. Enter the confirmation code and you’re good to go! I can’t even begin to list the benefits of Gmail over Webmail if you haven’t used it yet. Set up your account and start checking it out today!

Here’s a Pro Tip! While you’re at work.psu.edu, click Add/Change Other Directory Information and check out the “Alternate Email ID” fields. PSU lets you sign up for up to 3 additional IDs for your single email account. For instance, in addition to your xyz123@psu.edu addy, you can also get yourname@psu.edu, which gets funnelled into the same email inbox! Wowza!