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Gmail allows you to sign in to multiple accounts at the same time (in different tabs). I have two pinned tabs always open in Chrome - one for personal, one for

Gmail allows you to sign in to multiple accounts at the same time (in different tabs). I have two pinned tabs always open in Chrome - one for personal, one for business emails. Works incredibly well for me.

danielweber 14y ago
How does this work? If I sign out in one tab, it signs me out in another tab, on Google Chrome. Just tested it.
- wan23 14y ago
  http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1721977 http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&a...
- phenylene 14y ago
  Here's how I do it using Google Chrome: 1. Sign in to personal Gmail by going to gmail.google.com 2. Sign in to work Gmail by going to mail.google.com/a/foo.com (obviously, replace foo.com with your work domain)
- c0nfused 14y ago
  Just click on your account name in gmail, hit add account at the bottom of the little menu, and bam more accounts in more tabs.
- archangel_one 14y ago
  I click on my account picture in the top right, then click on "Add account" and log into the other one. Presto, two accounts. Disclaimer: I am about 99% certain this is not some weird internal Google feature (not on the gmail team, don't worry), but it's also been > 1 week since I had to go through this performance so I may have forgotten some detail.
  - tlogan 14y ago
    And then when you click on some Google service it always logs you in with a wrong account. Good luck trying to add something to calendar by clicking to a link.
    - magicalist 14y ago
      I assume this is hyperbole (I'm not sure what magic you're expecting...maybe something like intents where it asks you every time which account to use?), but the logic isn't complicated. It just uses the first account you logged in with. I'm usually signed in to two accounts (and have a gmail tab for each open right now), so I just sign in to the one I do my primary calendaring, etc in first. If you really want to keep them separated, you should just use Chrome's multi user accounts or their equivalent in other browsers.
    - tlogan 14y ago
      @magicalist Actually, you explained the problem without noticing it: "It just uses the first account you logged in with." Maybe it should be default account? Because "first account" will always change in round robin fashion because cookies will expire first for the newer account (which is second) and then after you login it will become first.
    - archangel_one 14y ago
      I've just had a quick test and it actually does okay; clicking on "calendar" opens the calendar for the account I'm currently looking at. I guess it might not work well if you click a random link somewhere with two accounts open simultaneously, although I have a bit of sympathy for them there because that does seem kinda tricky to solve.
- StavrosK 14y ago
  Apart from Google's multiple signin, Chrome supports account profiles, so you can have two Chrome windows with completely different cookies, logins, everything.
ChuckMcM 14y ago
Except this only recently was made to work again (a year?) and it doesn't work across all Google properties. I agree that the new effort from Microsoft had no chance against the old gmail, against the current gmail the jury is still out :-). What I find interesting is that its even a product. I know that sounds weird but bear with me for a moment. Mail (the service) has changed hardly at all for a decade. You send an email, may be you attach a few files, you get the email. The biggest change was that you could send text that had been formatted with HTML so that it looked 'better' (not everyone agrees with this) than plain, monospaced text. Its a bitch to monetize in any way except direct payment, and yet the Eudora's and other mail clients of the world have faded from memory. Given the collective memory, is it time for mail as a service? You know you pay $12/year or something and it just works. Nobody futzes with the UI, the amount of space you get/use is entirely a function of what you're willing to pay. The question I'm asking is this, "Have we collectively come to understand the intrinsic value of email?" If so is there a utility service business plan that makes sense now? I could certainly see how you might structure such a business.
- mbesto 14y ago
  > You know you pay $12/year or something and it just works. Nobody futzes with the UI, the amount of space you get/use is entirely a function of what you're willing to pay. Id' argue Outlook UI changes with every version just as much as Gmail has. Gmail is also far less drastic, as updates are pushed regularly rather than a new version every 2 years or so. You can pay for GDrive and get 25GB for gmail. E-Mail is a commodity and has been for quite some time. I don't see anyone disrupting the service side of it anytime soon.
- MattRogish 14y ago
  I think gmail is as close to a "mail as a service" as you can get. You can get your own domain pretty easily, and yes Google charges you for it. You can hook up plenty of 3rd party native clients to it - if you want, you never have to use the web interface at all (9x% of my gmail usage is from Mac and iOS native clients).
  - ChuckMcM 14y ago
jewel 14y ago
If you're OK with having separate windows, you can use a different profile for each one. Chrome handles this much better than firefox. For example, I silo my facebook browsing with: chrome --app=https://facebook.com https://facebook.com --user-data-dir=/home/jewel/.profiles/facebook The other thing I do is use a different google account for each of their services, so a policy violation in one won't shut off the service in another. For example, I have calendar@mydomain.com for google calendar, plus@mydomain.com for google plus, youtube@mydomain.com for youtube.
- Splines 14y ago
  Chrome supports profiles through the UI now, check out the settings page (under the "Users" category). It makes switching between them (and knowing who you're using) easier by adding a user icon/switcher to the top-left of the window.
- icebraining 14y ago
  Chrome handles this much better than firefox. How so? What can Chrome do that using the Firefox Profile Manager can't?
  - jrbnz 14y ago
    Firefox doesn't seem able to connect to a specific open profile and make a new window, if you run Firefox without --no-remote, it always opens a new window for the oldest instance, which makes keeping multiple profiles open a pain. If you close your browsing profile while your have your email profile still open, now the Firefox icon will open windows in your email profile. If you make an icon for your various profiles that uses '--no-remote', you can only open one window with that icon. To open more you'll have to find the running instance. I generally prefer Firefox so if I've missed something I'd love to know, but I searched high and low for a solution and in the end I gave up and swapped to Chrome. Now I have launchers for Facebook, etc. that behave exactly as you would expect. You click the Facebook icon and you get a Facebook window, running the Facebook profile.
udp 14y ago
I find multiple sign in a great way of ensuring you're always using the wrong account for each service.

danielweber 14y ago

How does this work? If I sign out in one tab, it signs me out in another tab, on Google Chrome. Just tested it.

wan23 14y ago
http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1721977 http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&a...
phenylene 14y ago
Here's how I do it using Google Chrome: 1. Sign in to personal Gmail by going to gmail.google.com 2. Sign in to work Gmail by going to mail.google.com/a/foo.com (obviously, replace foo.com with your work domain)
c0nfused 14y ago
Just click on your account name in gmail, hit add account at the bottom of the little menu, and bam more accounts in more tabs.
archangel_one 14y ago
I click on my account picture in the top right, then click on "Add account" and log into the other one. Presto, two accounts. Disclaimer: I am about 99% certain this is not some weird internal Google feature (not on the gmail team, don't worry), but it's also been > 1 week since I had to go through this performance so I may have forgotten some detail.
- tlogan 14y ago
  And then when you click on some Google service it always logs you in with a wrong account. Good luck trying to add something to calendar by clicking to a link.
  - magicalist 14y ago
    I assume this is hyperbole (I'm not sure what magic you're expecting...maybe something like intents where it asks you every time which account to use?), but the logic isn't complicated. It just uses the first account you logged in with. I'm usually signed in to two accounts (and have a gmail tab for each open right now), so I just sign in to the one I do my primary calendaring, etc in first. If you really want to keep them separated, you should just use Chrome's multi user accounts or their equivalent in other browsers.
  - tlogan 14y ago
    @magicalist Actually, you explained the problem without noticing it: "It just uses the first account you logged in with." Maybe it should be default account? Because "first account" will always change in round robin fashion because cookies will expire first for the newer account (which is second) and then after you login it will become first.
  - archangel_one 14y ago
    I've just had a quick test and it actually does okay; clicking on "calendar" opens the calendar for the account I'm currently looking at. I guess it might not work well if you click a random link somewhere with two accounts open simultaneously, although I have a bit of sympathy for them there because that does seem kinda tricky to solve.
StavrosK 14y ago
Apart from Google's multiple signin, Chrome supports account profiles, so you can have two Chrome windows with completely different cookies, logins, everything.

ChuckMcM 14y ago

Except this only recently was made to work again (a year?) and it doesn't work across all Google properties. I agree that the new effort from Microsoft had no chance against the old gmail, against the current gmail the jury is still out :-). What I find interesting is that its even a product. I know that sounds weird but bear with me for a moment. Mail (the service) has changed hardly at all for a decade. You send an email, may be you attach a few files, you get the email. The biggest change was that you could send text that had been formatted with HTML so that it looked 'better' (not everyone agrees with this) than plain, monospaced text. Its a bitch to monetize in any way except direct payment, and yet the Eudora's and other mail clients of the world have faded from memory. Given the collective memory, is it time for mail as a service? You know you pay $12/year or something and it just works. Nobody futzes with the UI, the amount of space you get/use is entirely a function of what you're willing to pay. The question I'm asking is this, "Have we collectively come to understand the intrinsic value of email?" If so is there a utility service business plan that makes sense now? I could certainly see how you might structure such a business.

mbesto 14y ago
> You know you pay $12/year or something and it just works. Nobody futzes with the UI, the amount of space you get/use is entirely a function of what you're willing to pay. Id' argue Outlook UI changes with every version just as much as Gmail has. Gmail is also far less drastic, as updates are pushed regularly rather than a new version every 2 years or so. You can pay for GDrive and get 25GB for gmail. E-Mail is a commodity and has been for quite some time. I don't see anyone disrupting the service side of it anytime soon.
MattRogish 14y ago
I think gmail is as close to a "mail as a service" as you can get. You can get your own domain pretty easily, and yes Google charges you for it. You can hook up plenty of 3rd party native clients to it - if you want, you never have to use the web interface at all (9x% of my gmail usage is from Mac and iOS native clients).
- ChuckMcM 14y ago

jewel 14y ago

If you're OK with having separate windows, you can use a different profile for each one. Chrome handles this much better than firefox. For example, I silo my facebook browsing with: chrome --app=https://facebook.com https://facebook.com --user-data-dir=/home/jewel/.profiles/facebook The other thing I do is use a different google account for each of their services, so a policy violation in one won't shut off the service in another. For example, I have calendar@mydomain.com for google calendar, plus@mydomain.com for google plus, youtube@mydomain.com for youtube.

Splines 14y ago
Chrome supports profiles through the UI now, check out the settings page (under the "Users" category). It makes switching between them (and knowing who you're using) easier by adding a user icon/switcher to the top-left of the window.
icebraining 14y ago
Chrome handles this much better than firefox. How so? What can Chrome do that using the Firefox Profile Manager can't?
- jrbnz 14y ago
  Firefox doesn't seem able to connect to a specific open profile and make a new window, if you run Firefox without --no-remote, it always opens a new window for the oldest instance, which makes keeping multiple profiles open a pain. If you close your browsing profile while your have your email profile still open, now the Firefox icon will open windows in your email profile. If you make an icon for your various profiles that uses '--no-remote', you can only open one window with that icon. To open more you'll have to find the running instance. I generally prefer Firefox so if I've missed something I'd love to know, but I searched high and low for a solution and in the end I gave up and swapped to Chrome. Now I have launchers for Facebook, etc. that behave exactly as you would expect. You click the Facebook icon and you get a Facebook window, running the Facebook profile.

udp 14y ago

I find multiple sign in a great way of ensuring you're always using the wrong account for each service.