How to Set Up Gmail Alias on iOS

By
Shawn Lemon
July 20, 2022

After searching Google for guides on this and finding articles that don’t make sense, I figured this out and am documenting it for you. I hope it helps you! Today is July 20th, 2020 and this works on iOS 13 and iOS 14 Public Beta

If you got here and are not sure exactly WHY you would want to do this, I put in a section at the bottom just for you. The rest of you, we’re going straight into the instructions!

In order to use one Gmail account to send from all your different email addresses, you need to set up the ability to Send As.

  1. Decide what Gmail account is going to be your Master Account to send from.
  2. Go to gmail.com and make sure you’re logged into the Master Account
  3. Click the gear icon in the top right corner, click See All Settings
  4. Click the Accounts tab
  5. Under Send mail as, choose Add Account
  6. Type in the email address you’d like to be able to send from. We’ll call this a Secondary Account since it’s not the Master Account.

    If you get an error saying your Google Workspace administrator won’t let you send from external SMTP servers, have your admin go here and Allow per-user outbound gateways. After this change is made, you may have to wait up to an hour or so before the change takes effect.
  7. Put in the password for the Secondary Account and continue

    If you put the password in and it’s not working but you KNOW it’s correct, you probably have 2-step verification turned on for this account. For the big email providers I list in the next bullet, you really need to enable 2-step. Once done, you can get the App-Specific Password.

    Log in to the email account and go to your security settings. You’ll need to create an App-Specific Password. Here are instructions or a direct link to set this up for Google, iCloud, AOL, Yahoo, and Outlook. Copy this password and paste it into the password field you're working in for the Send As.
  8. Hopefully, all worked well and you’re done with this part! If you have more than one Secondary Account you want to send from using your Master Account, repeat steps 5-7.
If at this point you're wondering why you should do all these steps, this video is part of the training series I put together for new organizers we hire where I explain when we should, but more often, should not consolidate and forward accounts. This is my personal story and accounts and what I would have done differently looking back 10 years.

Next, we need to configure your device correctly.

  1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone and/or iPad
  2. Scroll down to Mail
  3. Tap on Accounts
  4. Tap on the Master Account we’re working in (I know some of you have multiple Gmail accounts so pick the one we’re working on.)
  5. Change Settings

    If you only use the Master Account for email, delete the account

    If you use this account for your contacts, calendars, or notes, just toggle Mail off. Most people are using iCloud for this.

    If your Secondary Accounts that are forwarding to your Master Account are still in this Accounts list, you should either delete those accounts or toggle Mail off. It’s important to see if you have any contacts, calendars events, or notes synced with an account you’re about to delete, so do that before deleting. Previous Android users especially need to do this. If you go ahead and delete and realize something is missing, you can always add the account back. I’m not going to detail out consolidating contacts, calendars, and notes from multiple accounts in this guide. There are too many steps and it varies with each service. If you’re interested in this, you basically need to export from the Secondary Account and Import it into your Master Account.
  6. Once you’re finished reconfiguring your Accounts settings, go back to the Accounts list
  7. Tap Add Account
  8. Choose Other
  9. Choose Add Mail Account
  10. Fill in your Name, Email (Master Account), Password, and Description

    A note on the Password field. As I stated above, you need to have 2-step verification turned on for this account. I suggest creating a new App-Specific Password. You can use the one above, but it’s not the best practice. Here are instructions or a direct link to set this up for Google, iCloud, AOL, Yahoo, and Outlook. Copy this password and paste it into the password field.
  11. Incoming Mail Server

    Host Name: imap.gmail.com

    User Name: put in your email address

    Password: Fill in your App-Specific password you just generated
  12. Outgoing Mail Server

    Host Name: smtp.gmail.com

    User Name: put in your email address

    Password: Fill in your App-Specific password you just generated
  13. Hit the Next button in the top right corner
  14. Only turn on the Mail toggle then hit Save
  15. At this point, you’re back at the Accounts list. Tap on the Master Account you just added.
  16. Tap on Account button
  17. Tap your email address (it may be grey)
  18. Tap Add Another Email…
  19. Type in the address you want to send from (Secondary Account) and hit the return button (on keyboard)

    This Secondary Account email address should be in the list under the Master Account
  20. Tap on Account in the top left
  21. Tap Done
  22. If all went well, you’re ready to go!

Now that you’re all set up, it’s time to test it and make sure everything works. Go to the Mail app and compose a new email. You should see your email address in the same line as the Cc/Bcc field. Try it out by sending me an email at hooray@thedigitalorganizer.com!

Need some more help? Book a free Discovery Call with us here. This type of stuff is what we do all day, every day.

If you've bought a domain and are using a personal Gmail account to send from your business address, you need to watch this!
Here's the case study I referenced and what it looks like to fix going down this path after you've scaled your business.

So, why would you want to do this?

I’m all about streamlining things. I like things simple. The less stuff you have, the less stuff to break and then troubleshoot/fix. The process of consolidating email accounts is the first thing I like to take my clients through. If it makes sense for them to do so, we forward all their other email accounts to one Gmail or Google Workspace account so everything is in one place. (There are MANY advantages of using Google, like choosing not to sync more than a certain number of emails to your computer to speed it up but everything is still on Gmail.com and searchable!)

Once everything is forwarded to this account, we might need to set up the ability to send as one of those other accounts we’re forwarding. I don’t always like to send emails from my business email, so I did this for my own account. While I have 4 email addresses forwarding to my primary address, I only need to respond from the primary and my personal Gmail. That’s where this instruction sheet comes in.

After we forward all the email to one account and set up the ability to send from our other address(es), we decide whether we want to import all the historical email from those addresses into Gmail. This is the final stage in consolidating the email accounts. All email is flowing into one account, we can send from whatever addresses are still relevant, and we can search one email account for email that spans multiple addresses. Pretty cool, huh?

If you want help consolidating all your data from multiple accounts and platforms, we do that! Check out our Migrations page.

This is the first piece of the puzzle when consolidating. You also have to check for contacts, calendars, notes, and reminders to see if there’s stuff that needs to be copied into your primary account. Just about everyone who has more than one email address typically has sync issues. You may not have known this next part, but no one else does either.

Every Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, and AOL account (there are more but I’m sparing you from a long list,) have their own Contacts, Calendar, and Notes sections. Some have Reminders too. An email account isn’t just email anymore. When you add a new email account onto your phone and you see the option to sync your Contacts, Calendars, etc, it’s not actually syncing what you have on your phone, it’s ADDING another address book and calendar!  Almost NO ONE knows this and it’s why we’re so busy fixing this for people.

Technology changes incrementally and over time. Features are continually added that have the ability to help us. Just ask the marketers pushing the products! But there’s A LOT of overlap. Cleaning up accounts and deleting stuff we don’t use anymore is key to keeping a system that works well. I encourage you to go through your devices and do a little cleanup.

As you finish reading this, go into Settings on your iPhone and iPad. Scroll to Passwords & Accounts and see just how many different accounts have Contacts, Calendars and Notes checked. Don’t go nuts and just start deleting, you may find certain contacts or calendar events missing. Observe what’s turned on and go look around in your different apps to see if it’s safe to turn off.  Repeat this on all your devices. On the Mac, go to System Preferences > Internet Accounts.

I hope you found this helpful! Feel free to give us a shout if you want some help. This is what we’re here for!

How Disorganized am I?

Take our assessment to learn your score
A hand holding a mobile phone with a screen showing a question from the Digital Organizer's quiz