I'm Only One Googler

September 28, 2008 10:36 PM

I have a gmail account that I use in my personal life. I also have a google talk (gtalk) account that I use for work. They're two different usernames. Is there any way to combine them under a single google username, preferably the name I use for my gmail account?

I created the gtalk account recently when our office switched over, and I used a different name thinking that I might like to have my work stuff separate from my personal stuff. What I didn't realize at the time was that my chat transcripts are stored in the google account associated with my gtalk name, so every time I want to look at an old chat, I have to log out of gmail. Additionally, it's just becoming annoying to have two usernames in my life.

I tried to associate my gmail address with my gtalk account, but google doesn't allow that. Is there any way to combine these accounts?

posted by Amy Phillips to computers & internet (11 comments total)

so every time I want to look at an old chat, I have to log out of gmail

if you've got more than one browser installed on your system, leave the gtalk account logged into gmail in the secondary one—this is what i do for all the sites i have secondary accounts on that i need to check every once in a while.
posted by lia at 11:01 PM on September 28, 2008

You could simply forward all mail from one account to the one that your GTalk account is on, and create a filter to differentiate them easily if that's needed. Or enable POP3 and get the mail from the account that way.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 11:09 PM on September 28, 2008

Why don't you just use the gmail account for google talk? I never set up an "account" in google talk - I just gave it the exact same credentials I use for gmail. However, if you have contacts associated with work account you'll have to move them over to the personal one.
posted by O9scar at 11:23 PM on September 28, 2008

For what it's worth, if your office switched over such that they use Google Apps for your Domain, you can remain logged into both GMail and AFYD at the same time. You can also download use Digsby as your chat client; it works with GTalk.
posted by disillusioned at 11:40 PM on September 28, 2008

(Which is to say you can log into multiple accounts on multiple services. Trillian works the same way, though I'm using an alpha and not sure what the latest free build offers.)
posted by disillusioned at 11:42 PM on September 28, 2008

I wonder, if you set up a Gmail account using your Gtalk username (you can do this), will Google automatically transfer the saved transcripts to your inbox and/or make them available somehow via Gmail? If so, then you can forward them to your personal account and then associate/consolidate the two Gmail accounts. Voila, tout est un!
posted by carsonb at 1:35 AM on September 29, 2008

Another option is to use an IM client for Google Talk. I run Pidgin in a scenario identical to yours.

I run a portable version off my iPod on both XP and Linux. It's really handy.
posted by quarterframer at 6:26 AM on September 29, 2008

carsonb, I think that's exactly what I wanted to do. I have a Gmail account associated with the Gtalk username. Can you walk me through the steps in detail to accomplish what you've just laid out? Pretend you're talking to your web-illiterate grandmother (not that I'm that bad, but I've been trying to do this very thing for about a week and failing, so clearly, I need remedial instruction).

(I can't change my Gtalk account name now; it's been given out to hundreds of work contacts. And I can't change my Gmail address, as I have thousands of contacts under that name. I need to either combine the two or live with having two. It's also highly unlikely that my company will change their IT strategy in order to accommodate me. I realize that there are other workarounds, such as using multiple browsers and third-party IM clients; I'm just hoping that Google has a real solution.)
posted by Amy Phillips at 7:54 AM on September 29, 2008

1. Transfer all Gmail from old account to new account (with Gtalk) using Mail Fetcher
2. Set your old Gmail account to forward all emails to the new Gmail+Gtalk account. Login to the old account, click on Settings > Forwarding and POP/IMAP, and click on the "Forward a copy..." radio button.
3. Set up the new account to receive and send email using the old account's email address. Logout and login to the new account. Click on Settings > Accounts, click on "Add another email address", and enter the information from the old account. Then select the "Reply from the same address the message was sent to" button.

After this is done, you'll also want to copy your contacts from the old account to the new account. You can do that through the Export and Import functions in Contacts.

At the end of this, you'll have a copy of all your old email in the new account. You'll have the contacts from the old account in the new account. All emails sent to the old address will be forwarded to the new address and when you hit reply, it will appear as if you were still using the old address. New emails however will use your new address. So to the outside world, you'll have two email addresses but it doesn't matter because you'll be accessing them from one account.
posted by junesix at 11:16 AM on September 29, 2008

Will that make it so that my Gchat logs will also forward to that Gmail account? I don't actually receive any mail at the Gmail account associated with my Gchat username. I really only want the chat logs.
posted by Amy Phillips at 11:43 AM on September 29, 2008

I think you misread. What I'm saying is to use your Gmail account associated with the Gtalk username as the final account. So you'll be moving all the mail from your personal Gmail account to the work Gtalk+Gmail account. This way your Gtalk chat logs go into your primary work account and all emails sent to your personal Gmail account get forwarded to your work Gmail account.
posted by junesix at 1:03 PM on September 29, 2008