How to Configure Zoho Mail When Switching From Gmail

If you're switching from Gmail to Zoho Mail, you likely want to keep many settings similar. So, here's how to best configure Zoho Mail when switching.

Zoho mail is a secure, privacy-guaranteed, and ad-free email service. It offers a feature rich email suite, making it ideal for personal and business use cases. If you’ve been using Gmail and want to switch to Zoho Mail, you’ll see a range of settings that might get confusing.

You can customize the viewing experience, email composer, organize your emails using filters, take quick actions with the attachment, manage spam lists, and even import or export email as EML. We’ll show you configure Zoho mail and switch from Gmail seamlessly.

Steps to Take Before Configuring Zoho Mail

Before customizing Zoho mail, ensure you’ve properly mapped the custom domain to the MX record and configured SPF/DKIM parameters to prevent email spoofing. Read our guide on migrating from Gmail to Zoho mail with your custom domain and complete the process.

When you switch to a different email service, your banking, credit card, billing, insurance, and other service providers should know your up-to-date email address for communication purposes.

The migration is a slow process, but in the long run, you’ll be able to consolidate important emails in one place. It's also a good idea to consider setting up auto-forwarding in Gmail, just to catch any services that you missed.

Composing Emails in Zoho Mail

Zoho mail offers you a comprehensive toolkit for composing emails. Click the New Mail button in the left pane to open Composer. By default, the composer window opens in a new tab (Settings > Compose > Open Compose in) but you can go with inline (it replicates the Gmail feature) or a new window.

Like Gmail, Zoho has rich formatting options to format your email message. There is an option to insert tables (which Gmail lacks) with configurable width and border options. You can even attach emails to outgoing emails (as EML) using drag-and-drop and reference older messages without re-writing them.

To customize the composer preferences, go to Settings > Compose and view the whole set of options. You can change the preferred text direction, customize fonts, automatically add recipients to contacts, and check your message for any spelling mistakes.

Add Large Attachments to Emails in Zoho Mail

Gmail allows attachments with a maximum file size of up to 25MB. With Zoho mail, you can send large files to your recipients through emails. The size of the attachment depends on the subscription plan. It varies from 250 MB with Mail Lite plan to 1 GB with Mail Premium.

Mail converts these attachments into links and send it to the recipient(s). If you want to send the same file to different recipients, select the file from My attachment > Huge attachments and send it again. For every attachment, you can set access permissions.

Limited access is suitable for sending attachments to other Zoho users or those with linked accounts. With public access, you can send large files to anyone using a secure and unique link. By default, all attachments have Limited access. Click this option to make it Public and generate the attachment link.

How to Schedule an Email in Zoho Mail

Zoho mail “Send Later” option lets you set up a custom schedule (date/time) for your email. While this feature is also built into Gmail, Zoho has the ability to set up recurring emails at regular intervals.

Draft your email as usual and click Send Later. Select the Schedule tab and choose a date and time.

To set up a recurring email, repeat the above procedure and click the Recurring tab. Choose the frequency (daily or weekly, end date, and time zone, if any. They come useful when you want to send out reminders to your clients regarding the invoices.

How to Snooze Emails in Zoho Mail

There will be some important emails to which you cannot respond immediately but need to later on. The Snooze feature in Zoho mail stores your email in a separate “Snoozed” folder and return your message back to the original folder after the specified time interval.

Select the email you wish to snooze and click the Snooze icon in the top menu. Choose the duration or pick a custom date and time. The selected email will move from the original to the Snoozed folder.

Reading Emails in Zoho Mail

At times, you may want to see an email from a sender you received a few days or weeks ago. Instead of scrolling through the email list, Zoho mail can list emails from a particular sender or subject.

Right-click the email message and choose List emails from this sender or List emails with this subject. You can even customize the fields of your email list like flag, attachment, comment count, size, and more.

Customize the Layout and View Options in Zoho Mail

By default, the emails are listed in the “Classic” view. To customize this behavior, click the Change View icon and select the “Compact or Super Compact” view. In each view, the ample spacing between emails decreases and lists more emails.

When you select any email, it opens in the Vertical Preview mode by default. Go to Settings > Mail View Options and choose Horizontal Preview to view your email below the email list. Or, choose New Tab to view them in a new tab.

Does Zoho Mail Offer a Conversation View?

On Gmail, when people reply to an email, it groups responses in a conversation view with the newest mail at the bottom.

Zoho mail stack the entire conversation in a tree view with sender details, timeline, folders, attachments, and more without even opening the email. In addition, you can sort the conversation thread (Settings > Conversation) with either the newest or oldest mail on top.

View and Manage Attachments in Zoho Mail

One of the biggest drawbacks of Gmail is the lack of a dashboard to view/manage attachments. While you can find messages with attachments using Gmail search operators, it takes a bit of practice. Zoho mail offers a centralized dashboard to view attachments (either sent to you or added to other Zoho apps) in a single place.

Click the Attachment Viewer icon to see your files neatly sorted based on their file types. Select any thumbnail to view them or take quick actions on the attachments. Click Open Linked Email to open the email linked with your attachment, attach and send a new email or add it to a note or task.

Follow-Up on Important Emails in Zoho Mail

We often need to follow up on the email irrespective of the response. Zoho Mail has the built-in option to add a reminder to your emails. Draft your email and click the Clock icon.

You can set a particular time to remind you about the email, whether you receive the reply or not. Or set a deadline date, and if no one replies to the email, you’ll be notified about it once the deadline is over. Zoho mail can remind you about the mail via notifications or email.

In the same way, you can set up a reminder for incoming emails. Select the email you want to add the reminder, then click More Options > Reminder. Choose your preferred option and proceed. Head to Settings > Preset to customize the alarm option according to your desired timings.

Organize Emails in Zoho Mail

Filters in Zoho mail help you automatically organize incoming/outgoing emails. Just like Gmail, you can set conditions and take action for those conditions. But in Zoho, you can use AND/OR operator to define whether any or all conditions should be considered.

To get started, head to Settings > Filters and create a new filter. Now set the condition type (combination of conditions in AND/OR), conditions (From, Subject, To, Cc, Bcc, Attachment type), and actions (Move to folder, Tag as, Forward email to, Delete email).

On Gmail, we use “Labels” to organize messages. In Zoho, you can create multiple folders at different levels to organize or manage emails. Click the (+) sign next to Folders to create a folder and select its location. In addition, you can create tags (Select an email > Tag as) to further organize them according to the project, particular team, clients, and more.

Zoho Mail's Integration with Third-Party Services

Zoho mail has excellent integration with external and internal apps to supplement your workflow. The internal ones are the Zoho apps (Zoho Invoice, Zoho Workdrive, Zoho CRM), and the external ones integrate with the mail through the API provided by third-party apps. To see which integrations are available, go to Settings > Integrations.

Click Go to Marketplace and choose your favorite apps. Some popular ones are Asana, Trello, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Clearbit, Google Calendar, GoToMeeting, and Integrately. Go to the extension page and activate it. Then, go back to the Integrations section and toggle the Enable button.

Now That Zoho Mail Is Configured, Try to Overcome Your Email Addiction

Zoho Mail is a great alternative to Gmail. The Mail Settings page is clumsy/difficult to navigate, and it takes time to get used to it, but if you have followed the procedure, you can start using Zoho mail in a matter of moments.

One common trend seen nowadays in people is checking email every few minutes. Although this obsessive inbox-checking habit seems innocuous, it can negatively affect your well-being and productivity. To know more, read our guide to find ways to overcome email addiction.