Gmail changed the rules of email, bringing to the game the idea of “virtually infinite” mail storage, innovative features, and the speed and responsiveness of a desktop client in a web-native application. It is not surprising therefore that people migrated to the Gmail system.

But for those managing multiple email accounts for different purposes, migrating to gmail came with a tiny bit of inconvenience: by default, you can only login to one Gmail account at any given time in one specific browser. Of course you can have multiple browsers running, but then again, there are really not that many browsers out there, especially that can fully support Gmail (with its fancy AJAX implementation).

Then Gmail itself provided two solutions to this problem: auto-forwarding and POP mail access + Mail Fetcher in Gmail itself. Auto-forwarding lets you configure a main gmail account where all other emails from your other Gmail accounts are automatically forwarded. Mail Fetcher on the other hand allows you to setup Gmail to fetch your other POP mail accounts, including your other Gmail accounts (Though you have to trick the fetching Gmail account by providing a dummy email address but correct POP settings and credentials to fool it that it’s not fetching mails from another Gmail account since it looks like Google is discouraging that scenario).

The solution provided above works, but for some who wants a clear separation of inboxes, a Firefox extension provides a simple, no-frills solution. Gmail Manager allows you to manage multiple gmail accounts and switch to their respective inboxes conveniently. It also displays your Gmail account details including unread messages, saved drafts, spam messages, labels with new mail, spaced used, and new mail.

Once it’s installed, you will notice a Gmail envelope in your Firefox’s status bar at the bottom. Initially it is gray-scaled, because you haven’t configured any account yet, clicking on that envelope brings up Gmail Manager’s preferences dialogue, where you can start adding your Gmail accounts. Just click add in the main preferences dialogue, then enter your Gmail credentials (works for Gmail for Google Apps too). When an account is logged in, the text beside the Gmail Manager icon shows the current logged in account and the number of unread messages.

Hovering your mouse over the icon will show a tool tip showing the details for the logged in Gmail account. To go to your Gmail inbox, just left click on the envelope icon (this time, since accounts are already set up, it will go directly to your inbox instead of showing the preferences dialog).

To switch accounts, just right click on the Gmail Manager icon, then click on the Gmail account that you want to activate. Gmail Manager will handle the logging in steps for you.

When new mail arrives in your account while Gmail Manager is active, a snippet of the message will be shown in a pop-under notification (make sure you turn on alerts in the Notification tab of the preferences dialog). You can also force Gmail Manager to do this for all unread messages in your inbox by invoking the Context menu and selecting “Show new mail snippets…”

The Gmail Manager extension for Firefox is a great piece of software. It is pretty easy to use and it provides just enough configurability options, which is a good balance between usability and feature-richness.