10 Benefits of Having a Gmail Account - You May be Surprised

In my opinion, a Gmail account is a must-have for every person. The benefits of having a Gmail account are sometimes underestimated, especially if you are a website and/or blog owner.

I am not saying you cannot live without a Gmail account, you can, but you miss out.

It is equally important to have proper business emails as well. For example info@mybusiness.com. The question then remains why do you need a Gmail account if you have your business emails.

Let me tell you about the benefits of having a Gmail account.

Benefit 1: Don’t Mix Business and Pleasure

Who says you cannot mix business and pleasure? Of course, you can, but not when it comes to your emails.

A Gmail account is a great alternative for a personal email account. I know you can use other free services (like Yahoo, etc) for this purpose, but do they have the same benefits as Gmail?

Benefit 2: No Downtime

You can always rely on Gmail to be there when you need it. Gmail users nealy never experience any downtime. I also use MS outlook and my business email is down more than I would like.

Luckily I have Gmail to fall back on.

Benefit 3: Google Docs and Sheets

I use Microsoft Office, but if you don’t have MS Office, Google Docs and Sheets are an excellent alternative to Office. It does not have all the functionality and features of Office, but it does a pretty good job.

Because Google Docs and Sheets are freely available to everyone it is easier to share your work with others. Say for example you want to create a free editable checklist, like a SEO checklist, for people to use and edit.

Google Docs and Sheets also save directly to your Google Drive. No worries about backing up your info.

Another excellent feature of Google Docs is the voice typing. In the image above you can see the microphone icon. I have "typed" the small sentence to the right "hands-free".

Give it a try.

Benefit 4: Google Drive

15 GB of free storage. You can backup your website and anything else to your Google Drive. 15 GB is a lot of storage space if you don’t backup large files like videos and high-resolution images which takes up a lot of space.

Keep in mind your emails are also using this space. Don’t keep unnecessary emails, especially the ones with large attachments.

I have more than one Gmail account and I get 15 GB with each.

I am not sure but I think Dropbox only gives you 2 GB free storage space.

Benefit 5: Google Calendars and Tasks

Google Calendars and Tasks have enormous functionality. You can create different calendars for different things, you can create different tasks without timelines or add a timeline to it and it will show in your Google calendar.

You can create events, add guests and share with them. You can set reminders for something important you need to do, etc. You can even share entire calendars with others.

Benefit 6: Gmail Signatures

You can create beautiful email signatures. For those who don’t know what an email signature is, it is the section that will appear at the bottom of your email when creating a new email or replying to an email.

Benefit 7: Labels

This is one of my favorite features. Labels are used to organize your emails. I notice most of my friends and colleagues never organize their emails. Everything is kept in the inbox and sent items folders. This is a recipe for disaster. How do you keep track of what is what?

One thing I have learned over the years is “don’t keep your emails in your inbox when you are finished with it!”.

One of 2 things should happen:

1. Delete the email if you don’t want to keep it.
2. Move it to the relevant label as soon as you are finished with it.

Unresolved emails can stay in the inbox if it still needs your attention.

Benefit 8: Multiple Emails in One Central Place

It can become a nightmare to try to keep track of multiple email addresses if you have to give attention to each email location daily. Why not put them all in one place? You can see in your main Gmail account what email address was used.

Gmail does a pretty good job if you want to forward all your Gmail accounts to one central Gmail account. At Wealthy Affiliate, you also have the option to forward your business email to any email address, including Gmail.

What I love about Gmail is if setup correctly, you can reply to emails using the email address you want to. It does not mean you have to reply to a message using your main Gmail email account. You can change it. Pretty cool! What do you think?

Benefit 9: Spam Control

You cannot completely eliminate spam received in Gmail even if you tell them to block it. It will still show up in your spam folder, but there is a neat little trick to not receive spam emails from a specific email address.

By applying a "Delete it" filter to an email address you can tell Gmail to delete an email without receiving it in your inbox or spam folder. This means before it goes to the inbox or spam folder Gmail automatically deletes it. I use it all the time and my spam folder stays clear.

If you are curious and want to see what was deleted you can always find it in the bin/trash folder. This will not be possible if you cleaned your trash folder.

Use caution before using this option because it means you will not receive any emails from the blocked email address. All blocked emails are stored and you can always undo the block at any time.

Here is the method I use dealing with spam:

1. If it is from a trusted site I know like Canva, I will unsubscribe from their email list. Normally most companies honor your request and will stop sending you promotional emails.
2. If it is a suspected scam email, I don't click on anything. Too risky, even if there is a unsubscribe button. I just ask Gmail to send it to the bin directly.

Benefit 10: Settings and Everything Else

Gmail have so many options I am not going to list here, but I suggest you take a couple of hours and explore all the options in settings. You might be surprised what is possible.

Conclusion

I have never used any other email services other than Gmail and Microsoft Outlook. Are there any free email services out there with more benefits than Gmail? I would like to know if you think you are using the perfect email service.

Just a note: Microsoft Outlook is far more advanced than Gmail, but it is not free. You also have to back it up manually.

Thanks for reading my post. It is much appreciated.

Did I mention any Gmail benefits you were not aware of? Please let me know in the comment section below.

Thanks

Rika