If you have a church email, that is, an email that ends in “uuwinnipeg.mb.ca,” you might be interesting in reading this article, which details how to set up email alerts on your device or your browser (e.g., Chrome).

Many people who use church email accounts (which are Gmail accounts) have asked me how to set up an email forward from a Gmail account. This is a bad idea for the reasons I describe in this post. Also, frequently forwarding doesn’t work predictably. Still, I understand the need to be alerted to receiving email, especially when it’s an account that might not receive email every day. Instead of using forwarders, I recommend setting up alerts so when you receive a Gmail, your browser or app alerts you to it.

General tips

Here are some tips which includes some of the main points in the Gmail article:

• Download and install the Gmail app to your phone or tablet (either Android or Apple).
• If you have a Windows computer, there isn’t an app you can install, but you can set up Chrome so you can log in using your church profile.
• Get in the habit of checking the email once per day.
• Set up email alerts on your phone or tablet. Be sure to turn notifications on.
• Set up email alerts in Gmail. Instructions for this are below.

Set up email alerts in Gmail

These instructions are from the Google Workspace Learning Center > Get notifications for new email

Set up notifications

1. Open Gmail.
2. At the top right, click Settings See all settings.
3. Scroll down to Desktop notifications and select New mail notifications on or Important mail notifications on (if you use Priority Inbox).
4. Click Save Changes.

Turn notification sounds on or off

1. Open Gmail.
2. At the top right, click Settings   See all settings.
3. Scroll to “Desktop notifications.”
4. Click New mail notifications on or Important mail notifications on.
5. Next to “Mail notification sounds,” select a sound from the list.
6. To turn off email notification sounds, select None.
7. Scroll to the bottom  click Save changes.