A Gmail account can offer you all this. You can use it to access your existing email accounts and profit from its eliminating junk, for example. You can use it to archive old mail. You can use it as a backup. You can also use it as an email account.
Get a Free Gmail Account
To set up a new Gmail email account:
- Visit Create an Account for Gmail.
- Enter your first name under First name:.
- Enter your surname under Last name:.
- Type your desired user name under Desired Login Name:.
- Your Gmail email address will be that user name followed by "@gmail.com"; If your Gmail user name is "example", for instance, your Gmail address will be "example@gmail.com".
- Click check availability!.
- If Gmail lets you know that your desired user name is not available, enter a different desired name under Desired Login Name: or make sure one of the proposals under Here are some suggestions: is selected.
- Type the desired password for your Gmail account under Choose a password: and Re-enter password:.
- Make sure you pick a password difficult to guess.
- For enhanced security, you can later enable two-point authentication for your Gmail account.
- Choose a question that will help Gmail identify you should you forget your password under Security question:.
- If none of the questions fit, select Write my own question and type your desired security question.
- Make sure the answer to your question cannot be found anywhere on the web — a social networking profile, for instance.
- For enhanced security, you can treat the answer to your security question like a password; if the answer is "Smith", for instance, you could type "5mI9#th". Make sure you remember any such antics, of course.
You can also enhance your secret question's security with a wordy answer; "Mrs. Smith," your teacher, becomes, say, "Madeleine Smith with the wooly pullovers in her VW bus".
- Enter an existing email address under Recovery email: if you want to be able to recover a lost password with it.
- Select your country or location under Location:.
- Type your birthday under Birthday.
- Now type the characters in the captcha picture under Word Verification:.
- Read Google's terms for serving Gmail.
- Click I accept. Create my account..
- Now click Show me my account ».
In addition to accessing Gmail on the web, you can also set it up in desktop and mobile email programs.
(Updated October 2011)
