Making the Switch to Gmail from PAWS
Posted under: Recently in my communications class I was required to present a five-minute persuasive speech on a topic of my choosing. Naturally being somewhat of a nerd I picked something tech related but also something I thought the other students would care about and also take action upon. I presented my speech on why you should be managing your email with Google’s Gmail service. My speech aimed to convince students why they should stop using the PAWS email system at the U of S and start using Gmail. In an effort to make switching as easy as possible for students I created a step by step handout of how they could switch to Gmail. Below are the 3 steps that I laid out for them which perhaps you’ll also find handy. In future weeks I’m planning on writing a few more guides on some of the features of Gmail since it’s something I use daily and quite frankly love like a family member.
Here are the 3 basic steps required for switching to Gmail from PAWS.
Step 1: Signing Up
Visit www.gmail.com and click on “Create an Account”. Fill in the form as required making sure to pick a professional sounding login name. Addresses in the format first.last or initial.last can be good choices if available.
Step 2: Forward Existing Mail to Gmail
UofS Students:
- Go to www.mits.usask.ca and login with your NSID and password.
- Click on “Forwarding” under the heading “Email” on the left hand menu.
- Enter your new Gmail address in the “Forward to” space and click “Set Forwarding”.
- Now future email sent to your PAWS account will be automatically forwarded to Gmail.
- In Hotmail go to Options > More Options (In inbox, link is on upper right hand side)
- Under the heading Manage your account click “Forward mail to another e-mail accounts”
- Select “Forward your mail to another e-mail address” and type in your gmail address
- Click Save, and you’re done!
Step 3: Import Old Emails into Gmail
- Download and install Mozilla Thunderbird:
www.mozillamessaging.com/thunderbird/ - In Thunderbird navigate to File > New > Mail Account
- Enter your email and password from your new Gmail account and click “Continue”
- Repeat steps 2 & 3 this time using your old email address and password (for U of S students this means your PAWS account)
- Thunderbird will start to load your messages. This could take a while if you have a lot of email.
- Select your old email inbox in the left menu column (for U of S students this means your PAWS account)
- Click on a message then press “Ctrl + A” to select all messages.
- Click and drag these messages to your Gmail inbox in the left.
- Wait patiently while Thunderbird moves your mail.
- Voila! Enjoy all the new capabilities of Gmail without losing any old emails!
That’s it, I did it in under 3 minutes and I’m sure you can too. If you have any questions or would like to request a step-by-step guide for something else related to Gmail feel free to leave a comment.
2 Comments + Add Comment
Got anything to say? Go ahead and leave a comment!
Meet Derek
Derek Wilson is an undergraduate mechanical engineer at the University of Saskatchewan. He has a passion for technology, music and theatre. He's a natural problem solver with a knack for building wombat houses out of used leather belts.
I find Gmail unusable for work/personal mail. Messages sent directly to me get lost in the sea of incoming non-personal mail addressed to others, and its vaulted high speed search — even filtering by automatically applied labels — takes many seconds. I tried it out, and then went back to Apple Mail.app with a sigh of relief.
I use Gmail for mailing lists, but it’s just not very well suited to tracking and acting on individual messages within the firehose of email that I manage each day.
That’s interesting. I just started using Outlook at work (no other options) and I’m having the same difficulties you are with Gmail. A few tricks I use in Gmail are:
1. Filters that “skip inbox”, “apply label” and “mark as read”. For those emails you’d like to receive but don’t need to read as soon as they come in
2. Gmail’s Priority inbox feature. You need to use it for a while so it can get better.
3. Get really good at filters. You can make filters that use wildcards (use a * to denote a wildcard. For example *@facebookmail.com should filter all emails from Facebook) plus you can use AND/OR operators (for example *@facebookappmail.com OR *@facebookmail.com to filter from either address). Once you’ve mastered filters your inbox should be easier to maintain.
I’m curious what features mail.app has that makes it easier to manage your inbox.
You might even look into the Gmail Lab feature “Multiple Inboxes” to better manage the two different types of mail you are swimming in. Good luck and let me know if you give it another try.