I use Google's Gmail to manage all my e-mail. But it's not quite that simple.
I use Google's Gmail web client and Google's Gmail smartphone app (Android and iOS).
I've changed the domain names in a feeble attempt at privacy.
benmoore@mydomain.com
My primary e-mail account is benmoore@mydomain.com which is a Google G Suite. So that is the identity that I use to log into Gmail. And I recently added Google 2-Step Verification.
benmoore@mydomain.com arrives in the Gmail app. I have labels/folders that I sort correspondence into.
ben.moore@throwaway.com
This is what I use for throwaway e-mails, e.g. when I sign up for a newsletter or something.
ben.moore@throwaway.com is more complicated. throwaway.com has a free offering that I use. With the free offering you can't forward the e-mail to another address. So I have configured the Gmail app to pull my throwaway.com e-mail with a POP3 interface.
To do this, I went to Settings / Accounts and find "Check mail from other accounts:" I specified the credentials for throwaway.com. I made sure to check "Leave a copy of retrieved message on the server". This took a little playing around to get this correct. The Gmail app will retrieve new e-mail from this server every 60 minutes. That's good enough to me.
When e-mail arrives to ben.moore@throwaway.com I have a filter that assigns a label of "Throwaway". Then to separate this e-mail I went to Settings / Accounts / Multiple Inboxes and setup a pane for the label of "Throwaway". This results in a separation of benmoore@mydomain.com e-mail and ben.moore@throwaway.com e-mail.
I use the throwaway.com SMTP servers to send ben.moore@throwaway.com so the headers look right. You specify this in Settings / Accounts / Send mail as:. This also takes a little playing around to get this correct.
ben.moore@mywork.com
This is my work e-mail. I just have it forwarded to benmoore@mydomain.com. Like ben.moore@throwaway.com I use mywork.com's SMTP servers to send ben.moore@mywork.com so the headers look right.
anything@tracking.biz
I use this when I'm suspicious of how someone might use my e-mail address. This e-mail domain is set so that any name you put in front of @tracking.biz comes to benmoore@mydomain.com. But I use the same technique as throwaway.com to segregate the incoming e-mails into a separate area in my inbox.
The way I use this is to use a name that identifies to whom I gave that e-mail. For example I created an identity at Computerworld as computerworld@tracking.biz. Let's just say that Computerworld must make a lot of money from selling their mailing list.
Overall
With all these e-mail identities I get to choose which one to use when I compose a new e-mail. In the Compose dialog there is a drop-down box next to the "From" field where I can choose.
Under Settings / General I specify:
- Ask before displaying external images
- Send cancellation period: 30 seconds
- Keyboard shortcuts on
- Button labels: Text
- I'll add contacts myself
The Android and iOS apps honor all these settings so your experience is consistent across all platforms.
I'm sure I haven't covered everything. Leave me a comment if you have a question.
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