Skip to main content

Allow others access to your Gmail account with Gmail Delegation

Image used with permission by copyright holder

If you’ve ever experienced the pain of having to log in and out of separate Gmail accounts, Gmail’s new “Gmail delegation” feature will be a welcome addition to your email routine. Now you can grant my personal account access to your Gmail account and have others use it. This is particularly useful for families that use a shared email account.

Google has offered email delegation for Google Apps accounts for a while, it’s been a lifesaver for execs that want their assistants to have access to their email and respond on their behalf. Now its available to all Gmail users.

To grant access to another account, click the Settings link in the top right corner of Gmail. On the “Accounts” tab, you’ll see a new section where you can “Grant access to your account.”

As Hari Nidumolu, software engineer, explains in his post announcing this new feature, “The account you add will get a verification email with links to accept or deny access. Once the account accepts and you’ve refreshed your browser or logged in and out again, you’ll see a small down arrow beside the email address at the top right corner of Gmail which can be used to toggle between accounts.” He continues to write, “Each account will open in a different browser tab or window so you can view both accounts simultaneously, all while signed into your primary account.”

Have you started using Gmail’s new email delegation feature? If so, let us know how you’re using it and what you like about it in the comments.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Laura Khalil
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Laura is a tech reporter for Digital Trends, the editor of Dorkbyte and a science blogger for PBS. She's been named one of…
How to block an email address in Gmail to stop spam
A person expressing angry emotion at a computer.

Google makes it easy to unsubscribe from mailing lists, but spam or phishing emails can still slip through. If you need to block an email address on Gmail, do the following:

Open an email from the sender you would like to block.
Click on the Dots icon in the upper right-hand corner.
Select Block.

Read more
How to sync your Outlook Calendar with your Google Calendar
aop version 28 best value 15 inch laptops

It can be difficult to keep track of multiple calendars worth of events. And it can be especially hard when they span different calendar apps like Google Calendar and Outlook. You might then be looking for a way to sync the two apps' respective calendars between them. If you are, you've come to the right place.

Read more
How to recall an email in Gmail on mobile and desktop
A person sitting at a desk, in front of a computer monitor with their head in their hands.

Sometimes the moment you hit send in Gmail you want to recall the message. We all make mistakes. Luckily, Google gets it and, just as you can recall an Outlook message, you can unsend a Gmail. In the past, you had to manually enable it, but now it’s on by default.

Here’s how to make the most of it.

Read more