HOWTO: Manage Multiple Gmail accounts in Firefox

Let’s face it, Gmail has redefined free webmail. Pretty much everyone has at least used Gmail. Many people, like myself, have multiple Gmail accounts. I have my personal account, which I use to manage my domain email acounts, as well as my “junk” account. So, for those of you with multiple accounts, I’ll walk you through a way to manage them. This method uses a Firefox extension called Gmail Manager.

1. Download & Install

First, download Gmail Manager from the Firefox Add-ons site. Don’t forget to install it the fast way. Once you have it installed, a Gmail icon will appear in the bottom right corner of Firefox.

2. Setup

Right-click on the Gmail icon and click Preferences. At the top, click the Add button and enter your Gmail address and password. If you don’t share the computer with someone else, you can select save the password and login to the account automatically. This makes account management extremely helpful.

Now, click the Toolbar tab.

Under Selected account:
“Hide unread count…” will hide the number of unread emails you have in that account. I prefer to do this to save space.
“Hide alias from…” will hide the Gmail address from being displayed. I prefer to hide this as well.
I feel the color the Gmail icon is enough to determine if you have new mail or not, so the two above options are both checked for me.

Under Tooltip:
“Show labels with…” will show only the labels with new mail.
“Show new mail snippets…” will actually show a little snippet of your new mail in the tooltip. This is an excellent option.

Under Unread count:
This section is obvious. I prefer only to select the Inbox.

The Notifications tab offers additional options, such as the update time… which is set to 15 minutes by default.

3. Use it

Now you can add as many other Gmail accounts as you want. To switch between/among accounts, right-click the Gmail icon and select the account. To open your Gmail Inbox for that account, just click on the icon.