MartinGWD

Getting a not so Google account

I applied for a job with a custom domain email address. That domain is managed by Apple iCloud+. If I receive an email, I’ll get it in Apple Mail. The HR person emails a calendar invitation to have a call next week. The invite link is from Google Calendar. You can click the “Yes” (I’m attending the event) button and a Google Calendar page will tell you that you said yes with your not Google email address.

I’ve using Apple Calendar so usually I manually input the event and copy/paste the details. Today I thought: wouldn’t it be nice to double click the .ics file attached in Mail app and get it to Apple Calendar with al the details?

So I did, and I must have not payed attention but Apple Calendar prompts with a “which calendar you want to send this event to” and I just clicked “accept” so the event was properly recorded in Apple Calendar BUT, a Gmail address associated with my calendar appeared as invitee for the event. A Gmail address, as you may be aware, is a yes Google email address.

So there we were:

This kinda defeated the purpose of providing a “cool/professional” custom domain email. I could just use my Gmail, which also has my name, it’s not like it has a teenage millennial name like thunder_rider85 (hi to thunder_rider85 if you exist and are reading).

So I wondered: how could I do this in the future and appear as my custom domain and show my profile pic without using Gmail.

I remembered that in the old days you could have a Google/Microsoft account that welcomed you to their services without the need to use their e-mail service. Turns out you can still do that. You can go to Google, create a new account, say it’s for personal use, say you want to use your email and there you go: a full Google Profile, with Google Calendar and a Google Profile.

I was kinda happy until I remembered I was supposed to de-google not give them more information like the custom domain I own that I’ve kept from them for 11 years. But anyways, what you gonna do, gotta choose your battles, etc ¯_(ツ)_/¯.

On the bright side, I was having similar “issues” with other custom domains that I use as aliases like someone sharing a Google Doc with me and me having to say “oh, please use this gmail”, and to my surprise I discover the Google account comes with everything you could expect form the service sans Gmail. In my case, I will enjoy the free 15GB of drive, the occasional google doc/spreadsheet, but more importantly, I will enjoy having my profile picture when I email with people that’s on Google Workspace, or Gmail or anything Google related (which they say is a LOT of people).

Anyways, this was not the tutorial I expected to write but it is the story that came out and made me happy to share.

Thank you for reading ʕᵔᴥᵔʔ