GNU/Linux Desktop Survival Guide by Graham Williams
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Using GMail to Unify All Mail

An interesting approach to consolidating all your email into one place is to use Gmail (Google's free email server). The approach is to forward all your different email accounts to a single gmail address. Then download your email into a local application (like Evolution) using POP. You can also send email through gmail using SMTP, and have the email appear to be from somewhere other than Gmail through Gmails alternative From configuration. Using Google's SMTP service to send your email means that it will be archived online as is all of your received mail.

In this way all of your email will flow through Gmail which acts as a free email host. You then have good spam filtering, a nice web interface, archiving and backup, and search. You may not even use your Gmail address for sending or receiving email. This means you are not tied to Gmail if, in the future, arrangements change!