Google docs without gmail?

May 3, 2022 3:08 AM

Increasingly, people sending documents to my university work email use a google doc link instead of an attachment. I am always denied access and have to wait for a permission from the sender, which half the time never arrives or arrives too late to be useful.

I'm signed into google docs with my personal gmail address so it doesn't recognize the university email address.

I created a new google docs account with universityaddressname@gmail. It isn't letting me click on the links sent to [e-mail].

What am I doing wrong? I just want to click on the link to the doc everyone else in these group messages seemngly can access through their university email without waiting for a permission from the sender.

posted by nantucket to Computers & Internet (14 answers total)

Best answer: Have you tried signing in with [e-mail]? That's what I have to do to access my work google docs. My work does not use gmail, and if I try to sign into *gmail* with my work address, I get an error. But I can sign into Google docs with my work address.

(You might say, "but I don't even have a Google account with [e-mail]!" but it's entirely possible you do have one and just haven't used it, and even if you don't you can probably set one up.)
posted by mskyle at 3:12 AM on May 3, 2022 [12 favorites]

Best answer: Yes, double check whether you have been assigned a work Google account you don’t know about. If you do, I recommend just keeping that account logged in in a separate browser you don’t use much. My work google account lives on Chrome and I just pop that open to get work links, rather than signing in and out of work and personal Gmail on my usual browser.
posted by Stacey at 3:31 AM on May 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks for these answers which make me realize I don't know another basic here. Trying to sign up for a new google work account but the gmail.com domain is always supplied -- is there a way to do this with the work domain instead of gmail.com?
posted by nantucket at 3:40 AM on May 3, 2022

Best answer: Go to the create google account page and select "use my current email address instead" under the box that says @gmail in it
posted by missmagenta at 3:43 AM on May 3, 2022 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Trying to sign up for a new google work account but the gmail.com domain is always supplied -- is there a way to do this with the work domain instead of gmail.com?

You won't be able to do this on your own. Your university's IT department has to do it for you. In fact, you probably already have a GMail account through your university. The IT people can reset your password so that you can log in.
posted by alex1965 at 3:56 AM on May 3, 2022 [4 favorites]

Best answer: The IT people can reset your password so that you can log in.

It's possible that when you try to set up the account, it will say, "you already have an account, do you want to reset the password?" I think that's how I got mine set up.
posted by mskyle at 4:03 AM on May 3, 2022

Best answer: If it's helpful at all, you can run two Chrome profiles, so one is your personal gmail and one is all your university stuff. If you're using Chrome, look at the upper right, you should see a little circle with a profile pic or I think it defaults to your initials if there is no pic specified. Click on that, and then at the bottom, you should be able to Add another profile. You can set it up so that the windows have different theme colors so that you can tell them apart.
posted by Medieval Maven at 5:06 AM on May 3, 2022 [3 favorites]

Best answer: And if you're using Firefox, it now has multi-account containers.
posted by flabdablet at 6:28 AM on May 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: This is the complete bane of my existence as more and more companies use Google for everything. My solution so far is to create different personal and work profiles in chrome and login to different emails on different browsers (I have about 5 Google based emails issued to me through different employers). Just creating the different profiles helps. However, the link sent to you must be to a Google-based email (some companies have this so I’m unsure if your university will allow it — try that first). I still have to ask for permission or as to be invited from another email 75% of the time.
posted by Bunglegirl at 7:35 AM on May 3, 2022

Best answer: I'm generally signed in to work, school, and personal Gmail in the same browser all the time. On the "you need to request access" page there should be a little button saying "use a different account" which you can click if things get confused.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:43 AM on May 3, 2022

Best answer: At my university, most faculty email is handled by Outlook, but we have a Google suite available without Gmail for using Docs, Sheets, Drive, etc. When I'm logged into a Google service other than Gmail, I can select the account to use by clicking on my profile picture.
posted by brianogilvie at 8:45 AM on May 3, 2022

Response by poster: Thanks everyone. I managed to make it work based on a combination of your input. Much appreciated!
posted by nantucket at 9:14 AM on May 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

FWIW, for some reason my university's default is that students sign into their university email via the Google universe, and staff sign into their university email through the Microsoft universe. I have no idea why this is the case historically, but I recently went through a near-identical problem and it took me a little while to figure out that I could just log into the Google universe with my university email instead of my personal one.
posted by tchemgrrl at 1:10 PM on May 3, 2022

I have no idea why this is the case historically

At my university, it's because the Google suite isn't considered secure enough for data that's covered by FERPA and other privacy laws, and since faculty and staff often keep such data, we use the Microsoft suite.
posted by brianogilvie at 4:01 PM on May 23, 2022