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What is Email Alias & How to Use It for Your Business

What is Email Alias & How to Use It for Your Business
What is Email Alias & How to Use It for Your Business

One tricky thing about business emails is that you can't limit your company to only one address. You will probably need one for the CEO, one for your marketing department, one for accounting, etc. That's a lot of individual inboxes to manage, but luckily, there is one straightforward and usually free solution to save the day—an email alias.

Keep reading to find out what an email alias is, how to get one, and how it can help your business.

What Is an Email Alias?

An email alias, or an alternate email, is a forwarding address, like an additional nickname you can add to your primary email. That nickname could be one you use to protect your real name on the internet. In a business setting, it could be a department title or a marketing campaign name.

While an alias does have a separate inbox, you don't have to open it to manage those emails; it only exists to forward all incoming messages to your primary email account. It also uses the same account settings and contacts as the account you consider primary.

When Is an Email Alias Useful?

A significant benefit of an email alias is the ability to create a professional digital presence for a company.

Let's say you just started your business, and you're the only one running it. You already made an info@businessname.com account that's going to be your primary email and hub for inquiries. But you also want to add an email address for billing inquiries and sales leads. An email alias will allow you to create both those addresses and have any emails sent to them redirected to your primary inbox.

Here are four scenarios when an email alias is useful:

You or someone else in your company fills multiple roles.

If you or any of your employees fill multiple roles, creating an email alias is quite useful. Instead of having to switch between multiple inboxes, all emails will be forwarded to the primary inbox. This makes it much easier to keep track of all the emails received.

You want to keep the contacts of a former employee.

You can also use alias email addresses for your employees so that you can stay in contact with people who reach out to a former employee. The downside is that this may result in a stuffed inbox. Another option is to add the employee's email address as an alias when they decide to leave and change the password, instead of deleting their account.

You need a temporary email address.

Temporary email addresses are useful when you need to register with a service but you are concerned about its reliability. If you're not thrilled by the idea of using a temporary email service, you can simply use an email alias as a temporary address instead. The best part is, as soon as you no longer need the alias, you can simply delete it and stop receiving any emails to that address.

You don't want to disclose your personal email online.

It's a good idea to keep personal and professional lives separate. For that reason, you may want to avoid using your personal email address for your company. With the help of aliases, you can still receive all the emails in your primary inbox while covering up all your personal information.

How to Add an Alias Email Account to Different Services

Having established that an alternate email can be useful to your business, let's look at the steps you need to take to set it up with different services.

How to create a Gmail alias

Gmail allows up to 30 aliases for each user, free of charge. Here is how to add an email alias on Gmail:

  1. Sign in to your Google Admin console using an administrator account.
  2. Use the Home page to access the Users section.
  3. In the Users list, find the desired user and open that account page.
  4. Under User information, find and click Alternate email addresses.
  5. In Alternate email, enter an alternate username (the part of the address that appears before the @ sign). Keep in mind that you can't create an alias that is already assigned to someone.
  6. If you manage multiple domains, you will also need to choose the one applicable in this case.
  7. Save changes once you're finished. You should start receiving emails for an alias address within 24 hours.

Next, hop over to your primary email and add the new alias so you can also send emails from the alternate address. There's a guide on how to add another email address to Gmail on our blog.

How to create an Outlook alias

Outlook allows users to create multiple aliases for free. Here is what you need to do to create an alias on Outlook:

  1. Go to Outlook's Add an alias page. Sign in to your account if prompted.
  2. Choose one of the following under add an alias: "Create a new Outlook email address and add it as an alias" or "Add an existing email address as an alias."
  3. Click Add alias.

Keep in mind that existing @hotmail.com, @live.com, or @msn.com addresses can't be added as aliases, and you can't add an alias that is already associated with another Microsoft account.

How to create an iCloud alias

Here is how iCloud users can create an alias email address:

  1. Open your iCloud email and look for the gear icon in the sidebar. Click "Preferences."
  2. Choose Accounts, and then click "Add an alias."
  3. Enter the required information - alias, full name, label, and label color.
  4. Click "OK" and then "Done."

How to send an email from an alternate address

This only requires one additional step and all your attention when writing an email. The reason is, now that you have one or more aliases, you'll find a new option in the Compose window, titled From. Once you're done writing an email, make sure that you choose the right From email.

Conclusion

Creating an email alias is an excellent way to create a professional digital presence for a business without having to spend extra money. An alias address is also an excellent choice for those who don't want to disclose their personal emails online or who need a temporary email address. An email alias is also handy for companies where one person fills multiple roles.

A business can create aliases for its employees instead of individual email addresses. This may result in a primary inbox filled with too many emails meant for multiple users, however, so it's usually best to create separate emails for each employee.

Do you like the idea of managing multiple aliases/email addresses from one inbox? We have great news for you! Mailbird allows its users to easily manage all emails and contacts from multiple accounts in one inbox.

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