Google Apps and Account Chaos Fixed (More or Less)
Collaboration, Personal Productivity, SaaS January 20th, 2008
I’ve previously complained about the total chaos between Google Accounts and Google Apps accounts, which basically rendered all Google Apps, other than Mail unusable for me:
In the early days of Google Apps the only way to sign up was by linking to an existing Google Account, in the format of myname@gmail.com. If you have one of those accounts, there is no way to tell Google that you are now myname@mydomain.com. This means that Google Apps thinks of your original @gmail and new, @domain identities and two different ones. You can directly access (via URL) your own Calendar, Docs, Groups ..etc. all under your own domain, however, programs that need to access those apps only find the other version, attached to your @gmail.com account. A simple example is trying to save an event from Upcoming.org, Zvents, or any other services: there’s no way to use them with your own domain.
Even the Google Groups is messed up: when I am logged in as myname@mydomain.com, Groups that I am a member of won’t recognize me. I actually have to have duplicate identities created in Google Groups: one to be able to send email (my own domain) and one to be able to access Group’s other features via the browser (@gmail format).
It appears to have been (almost) fixed now. Google Account and Google Apps Account still remain to different entities, but there is a way to (almost) have them work seamlessly. The steps:
- Go to your Google Account (not Apps!), see your list of services, and remove Gmail. (see Warning at the bottom of this post)
- Enter your Google Apps email (myname@mydomain.com) as the new primary email address for this Google Account. Your Apps account, the one with your own domain immediately becomes the new login to Google Accounts.
For the services that exist both in public and Apps version, e.g. Calendar, Docs, the Apps version will take priority, and becomes the default. (Warning: you won’t be able to access the “public” versions anymore). For other services, that don’t have an Apps version, e.g. Groups, Reader, you still need to sign in to your “basic” Google account. This may be a little confusing, especially if, prior to deleting the Gmail-based login you used a different password. Your Google Account now has the login name from the Google Apps account (your domain), but the old password. For simplicity, you may want to change the Accounts password to be identical with the Apps password. After this, although you may be surprised at the repeated login prompts, you don’t really have to worry about when you are in Google Apps or regular, public Google services, the experiences is fairly seamless.
Why “fairly”? There are still a few dead-ends. When you are in a public-only service, e.g. Reader, Groups, and click on some of the links in the upper-left corner, e.g Calendar, Google still attempts to pull up the “old” public version, and gives you some funny error message about a “null-calendar”… just ignore it.
I’ve done the transition, and with the exception of some of these bad links appear to be able to work normally now. I can save events from third-party sites, to my Apps Calendar, Plaxo synchronizes it happily, can participate in Google Groups with my own domain email, and even Doc’s come up properly. (There is an option to merge your old Docs account with the Apps version, but for this to work, every tiny setting between the two accounts has to be identical, down to the time zone).
Finally, there is some new information on Google Operating System today about associating additional email addresses with your Google Account. Google Blogoscoped has more details:
“This will allow Google services to recognize that [your additional email address] and your Google Account are associated (e.g. all invitations sent to this email address will automatically appear in your Google Calendar).”
For now, it seems the only benefit to doing this is for Google Calendar (although you can also then use any of your additional email addresses to sign in to your Google Account instead of using your username or Gmail address)
This may be the way to go in case you want to keep BOTH the Gmail account and the Apps email separately. (My process is a complete cutover), but it may not be a complete solution for services other than Calendar - at least for now.
Update: Warning! the process I am recommending essentially deletes your Gmail Account. You WILL lose all content in two days. See Ben’s comment and my response for details. A few more tips:
- If you already removed Gmail service and want to save your content. go back to Manage Google Account, include Gmail again, and use your previous Gmail id - your content will still be there for two days.
- If all you need is the old email for archiving/search purposes, but no longer need to maintain this particular Gmail address, you can always set up another Gmail address (which will not be associated with this Google Account), use Gmail Mail Fetcher to migrate all your old stuff (this can take days), then finally do the above steps again.
Tags: gmail, Google, google accounts, google apps, google docs, google Groups, google profiles, identity management
Zoli Erdos
Zoli
Where is the merge docs option?
It came up right on the main docs page, when I first accessed it. Since this was the “Apps” version, it was all blank, the message was somewhere in the middle. It failed several times, even though the userid/pw was already the same on both accounts. Finally I looked at every little detail, and the time-zones did not match. After fixing this, the conversion went through.
Sorry I don’t have more precise details, can’t test it again, don’t have any more pre-conversion accounts.
cheers Zoli
It almost, but not quite, works for me
I take it you don’t use iGoogle? seems like it’s unable to take an old google reader feed and a new gmail feed (for example and show on the one iGoogle startpage
or something?
Wow, thanks! You have adressed the very thing which has confused me since I signed up for Google Apps. I still have some questions, though. If I remove Gmail as a service and associate my Apps account instead, what happens to everything in Gmail? Does it get deleted? Merged? What happens to incoming email addressed to the Gmail account?
Ben,
I never got started on IGoogle, for the very chaos I mentioned before:
http://www.zoliblog.com/2007/05/01/igoogle-but-which-one-time-to-fix-the-google-apps-chaos/
As for Google Reader, I exported all to an OPML file just in case I would need to start fresh. But I continued to access Google Reader even after the transiton. The only confusion was the account name: while all other apps displayed my @zoliblog.com email, Google Reader continued to display the @gmail.com address, even though I logged in with the new credential. This made me worry, thinking I might lose it, but in two days the gmail name disappeared and now Google reader correctly shows me with the new addy.
Sorry I don’t know anything about the iGoogle situation. But from all the above, I suspect Google Reader does not have two versions, it was only available with your Google Account (no Apps version), so only the login credentials changed.
Brent,
You lose it all. Seriously.
What I did works for those who never wanted a separate gmail account after switching to their own domain. Since I did it more than a year ago, I forwarded all my gmail to the new Apps email and oen by one changed login info at several sites I had previously use the Gmail account. Before removing Gmail, I made sure I did not have anything but junk hitting it anyway.
If you can’t shut down your Gmail account, then perhaps you should try to enter your Apps email address as secondary address, like GOS and Blogoscoped are suggesting.
Brent,
See my post update for more details.
This is waaaay to complicated. No civilian (non-techy, non-early adopter) would waste their time jumping through so many hoops.
If Zoli can’t figure this out and get it running properly, then it can’t be done.
Michael Krigsman
Project Failures
Zoli, I’m confused.
I have a non-Gmail Google Account I created expressly to use in co-existence with my Google Apps account. I used a different email address for the Google Account, per Google’s directions.
I went in and changed the email to match my Google Apps email. It seemingly didn’t change anything — I try to login to gmail.com and it prompts me to create a new Gmail. I log into Google Reader and click the link in the top left to Gmail, and it does the same.
What has been fixed? Or have I forgotten to do something?
Ravi, I don’t think you had a reason to change anything… you probably did not experience any of the problems to prompt such a change in the first place. (?).
The problems I described earlier were specific to the early accounts, when the only way to sign up for Google Apps was by linking to an existing Gmail-based Google Account.
@Zoli:
Ah, ok. I thought this might be a solution for integrating/syncing a Google Account with a Google Apps account (so if you login with your Google Account, and click on Gmail, it takes you to your Google Apps email instead of prompting you to create a new Gmail).
Here’s to hoping for the day they finally fix *that* issue…
New to Google Apps and going slightly crazy…
If I make a google account with my Google Apps email address as suggested, will I be able to import an OPML file from my old google reader and then put the reader on my Google Apps start page?
I formerly used iGoogle, but I’m trying to switch over and recreate my iGoogle as my start page. Any help much appreciated!
Kat - no
I got stuck here as well - google apps has ocs, cal, mail and chat. All the other stuff is linked back to your old google username. For some bizarre reason igoogle/google apps start which is, after all just a mash up of different feeds, does not allow external feeds to be bought in (ie gmail email with google apps docs)
Go figure!!!
Change is so hard! Thanks for the quick reply. I suppose I will just add a reader link in my start page header and stay logged into a Google account under my domain name.
Also chat works in Safari on regular Gmail but not in google apps gmail, I’m really surprised the Apps pages aren’t further ahead of the consumer pages, almost as a beta test group.
My Apps account didn’t require that I enter my gmail.com Google Accounts details. Can I still combine my domain account and Google gmail.com account?
Zoli,
Works like a charm.
I finally have the ability to use iGoogle again [can't stand the GAFYD 'attempt'], and most importantly - Google Reader.
Thank you for sharing.
R,
R
[...] Account’ [you@gmail.com] – and your domain account [you@yourdomain.com]. Zoli has written a post which in great detail explains the process. For those brave enough - a summary of the steps [...]
What happens to my orkut account if I delete Gmail service from my Google account?
HELP!!!!!!
I signed up for Google Apps today, thinking it would make calendar sharing easier. BUT, I already had a google account associated with the same email with google docs and google calendar. Then I got an error message, saying I couldn’t use my calendar because it was already associated with another account!
All I want at this point is to DELETE this stupid Google Apps account, but I CAN’T!!!!! it seems it won’t let you????
I have been a loyal GMail user since the beginning, but this just SUCKS!
Thanks
Kat,
In order to use the ‘new’ features with google apps, you need to enable it explicitly. From the dashboard for your google apps domain, click on the Domain Settings tab, then for Control Panel, make sure you have “Next generation (US English only)” selected. Also make sure you check “Turn on new application feature to my domain before they are rolled out to all Google Apps customers.”
Once you do that, it could take as long as a day or so before you get all the new features, like coloured labels, etc… This should allow chat to work in Safari too.
[...] Google Apps and Account Chaos Fixed (More or Less)| Zoli’s Blog Google Apps és Account összeintegrálása (tags: google gmail apps GoogleApps accounts) Oszd meg ezt a bejegyzést : Ezek az ikonok ún. közösségi könyvjelző oldalakra mutatnak, ahol meg lehet osztani másokkal is amit fontosnak találsz. [...]
This only worked partly for me:
Google Analytics no longer recognized my profiles and prompted me to “get started” all over again. However, Webmaster Tools, AdWords, Groups, etc. recognized me under the new email address just fine.
This also still means I have two separate Google Apps.
When accessing Calendar from GAFYD, it says “Oops another calendar has been created for [my domain email]“, and gives two options for resolving it. The second option is to start using a new calendar with my domain, but actually has my domain listed as “null”:
“Start using a null calendar”
http://calendar.google.com/hosted/null
A weird bug, obviously…
And I still can’t access Groups from my new domained Google Apps, and vice verse, can’t get to my domained email from my Groups account…
Still very confusing and disappointing.
If I have adsense, analytics and other google accounts besides simply calendar, docs, etc. Will these accounts also be automatically changed or is there something I need to do before I delete my gmail?
Thanks,
Jerry
Do you know how this effects Gtalk? Is that lost as well?
Nate:
I’m concerned about GTalk, too, and I believe that this scenario might break it. You can remove GMail as a service from this Google Account, but you can NOT remove GTalk as a service.
I found that this severely confuses Google’s handling of XMPP requests. It looks like the Google Account’s GTalk service may take priority over the GAFYD GTalk service.
Can anyone confirm? I found that I could continue to communicate with existing GTalk buddies, but establishing new buddy relationships was broken (sat at “waithing for auth” forever).
Jeff
Google Apps is a GREAT idea, but seems really over the top for personal use if you have your own personal domain registered and just want to tie it in your own email address with a Google account.
i.e. log in with your user@domain.com and be able to access ALL of the available Google websites plus send and receive email as user@domain.com. Simple.
Logging this on the Google Groups page I think…