<p>jym626: I have an aol account that is forwarded to my gmail account. I just followed whatever directions google has on the website, and it works. I have other friends who have their aol accounts forwarded to gmail, with no problem. </p>
<p>People without gmail accounts can also access Google docs. When you put something in Google docs you can select a few different privacy/editing settings. I have one large file I need to transfer regularly, and I put the pdf in Google docs, email the link to people, and they can download the pdf. If you let them, anyone can edit a Google doc.</p>
<p>I use gmail as my cloud storage for some things. Nothing like bank statements that would cause trouble if anyone could see them. I know my daughter uses gmail or Google docs to back up her college assignments.</p>
<p>I think GMail is a great e-mail system, and I’ve been using it since 2006 when I got an invite. It’s very user-friendly, and so far I haven’t had a major problem with it.
Machines will always be reading your email no matter what service you use. At the most basic level, they need to do this to properly deliver and display your messages. And beyond that, all mail services will scan the content of your email for spam-filtering purposes. Gmail’s scanning for advertising is similar to that, so even though it’s kinda creepy, I don’t think it should worry people.</p>
<p>GMail also has something called labs which allows people to test new services/features before they are released. The ones that are popular and effective are added to GMail for everyone. One of these labs products is the forgotten attachment detector. A lot of people send messages without attaching files they said they were going to attach, so some Google engineers devised a solution and now if you mention somewhere in your message about an attachment, but don’t attach anything, then GMail might ask you if you forgot to attach anything before you send your message. I’ve found it useful.</p>
<p>One thing about the gmail threads that confuses me is if you forward an email to a third party, and then carry on a back and forth with the third party, it’s hard to tell if the original sender is getting the emails too, since it all appears on the same thread. Anyone?</p>
<p>I love gmail. I switched a few years ago because the POP access was free and my old yahoo email wanted me to pay an annual fee for this special feature. POP access lets me set up Outlook on my computer to be my main email program, and it will automatically get the email from my gmail account and send my new email through my gmail account.</p>
<p>It also works great with my Android smart phone.</p>
<p>I only use the gmail standard interface when I’m not at my laptop, so the threads don’t bother me.</p>
<p>I also have a few accounts, and set up Outlook to automatically put the emails from different gmail accounts into separate Outlook email folders. Yes, I’m a geek.</p>
<p>I love the Google calendar, too, but that’s a different thread.</p>