Topify is a great new service to make your Twitter life easier and more efficient. However, it requires you to change your Twitter email to a custom Topify address which, for many people, is a bit too risky. Here are two approaches you can take to use Topify without giving up complete control of your Twitter email address.
How to Safely Use Topify with Gmail Forwarding
The standard method of using Topify requires you to change your Twitter email address to your new custom Topify address. However, that could put you in a bind if Topify goes down or is unavailable for any reason. The solution is to keep your Twitter email address as something you control but configure it so that it saves and forwards all Twitter mail to Topify.
There are two basic ways of doing this:
- If you already use Gmail as your Twitter address, create a Topify filter as described by Voyagerfan5761 or Chris Messina.
- Or you can create a new Gmail account and forward all your mail to your custom Topify address.
Since the first method is already well described by those two other posts, I will take you through the steps necessary for the second method.
Step 1: Sign-up at Topify with your Regular Email Address
Topify is currently in BETA and requires an invite. If you go to the Topify site, you can sign-up and they will suggest you check out the blog and follow them on Twitter. I found a working invite in their blog so you might too.
When signing up on Topify, be sure to use your regular email address and not your custom Gmail account which we will be describing in a moment. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a mail loop (which no one likes..at least no one I personally know).
Once you have successfully registered, they will provide you with a unique Topify email address. Don’t lose this address since there is no easy way to obtain it again (at this time).
Step 2: Create a new Gmail Account
Creating a new Gmail account is pretty easy.
Step 3: Forward your Gmail account to Topify
The next step is to forward all your Gmail messages to Topify. Since this email account will only be used for Twitter, you can redirect all mail to your unique Topify email address.
After you log into your Gmail account, click on “Settings” at the top. Then click on “Forwarding and POP/IMAP”. In the Forwarding section at the top, enable the “Forward a copy of incoming mail”, enter your unique Topify email address, and then select the “Archive YOUR NAME’s copy” menu option. Finally, hit “Save Changes” at the bottom.
It will look something like this:
Step 4: Change your Twitter Account to use your new Gmail Address
You will need to log into your Twitter account and update your settings to use your new Gmail address. You are now good to go!
Hope you have found this article useful. Do let me know if you would like to see more examples of how to effectively use online tools for your personal and business needs.
6 responses so far ↓
Topify Makes Twitter Following Easier « JC’s View // May 2, 2009 at 10:21 am |
[...] ← Time to Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome How to Use Topify Securely [...]
Arik Fraimovich // May 3, 2009 at 12:17 am |
There’s a slight problem with what you describe here – it will create a sort of a loop:
1. email received from Twitter -> sent to us
2. we send you an email
3. email received from us -> sent to us
4. we send you that email (we forward any email to your Topify address to you, so you get notifications from Twitter support / password reminder)
5. go to step 3
I think a better way will be: setup the account to forward Twitter emails to us as Chris or Voyager explained. Create another rule to forward our notifications to the real address of the user.
JC Cameron // May 3, 2009 at 1:48 am |
Arik, yep, that would be bad. Very bad.
However, that’s not what it says above…or, I certainly hope it doesn’t.
Step 1: Sign up with Topify USING YOUR REGULAR EMAIL.
I believe that resolves the infinite loop. The correct loop should be:
Twitter ->new Gmail Account -> Topify Account -> Regular Email Account
Which is the same as Chris and Voyager explain except they assumed you already had a Gmail account. So, replace “new Gmail Account” above with “Existing Gmail Account”.
I will highlight that text in bold in the first step because I agree it should be highlighted more than it is now.
Arik Fraimovich // May 3, 2009 at 10:27 am |
I admit: I didn’t read it all.. just skimmed over.. had the feeling that you probably took care of that point
Voyagerfan5761 // May 5, 2009 at 10:59 pm |
Interesting solution. I actually didn’t think of using a different Gmail address. I guess it’s OK if you don’t care about being found by email address (so far as I know, only the solution that Chris Messina and I blogged about can preserve that sort of findability).
Thanks for the link!
JC Cameron // May 6, 2009 at 12:31 am |
Hey Voyager, thanks for the comment and completely agree. If you ALREADY have a gmail account, use the filter method as it is the better choice (in a variety of ways). But, if you don’t have a gmail account yet, this makes things marginally simpler.