Google Apps in China?

While we run our own servers & such, complete with email packages, we prefer the Gmail way of doing things and have outsourced our personal email accounts to Google Apps. However, we ran into a problem when trying to register for the service from here in China. Google Apps "isn't available in your country".

Don't let this stop you. Google Apps CAN work in China. All you need to do is find a trusted contact in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia or most of Europe & have them go through the set-up process. Personally, I had a family member do it for me. Since then, we've been on Gmail for our email for almost a year.

The trick is, going step by step with them until they get to the point where it's "not available" for you. They'll have to finish the rest. Remember that your Contact will be entering YOUR password. Don't use your main password at first. You can change this later when you get access. If you have a primary email address you'd like to use, make sure that your contact knows it & types it in properly. Your primary address CANNOT be changed or edited on Google Apps once it's entered. And if you have to start over, it generally takes Google over a week to reset it's end.

From there, all you have to do is log into your control panel & make the necessary adjustments to your MX records. Google has a nice 5 step tutorial on how to do just that. Once you're set up, change the password you gave to your contact. Even if it's your own mother, you never know what kind of viruses & keyloggers could be lurking on her computer.

Things to know about Google Apps in China: Email works, as does Docs, Calendar & others. Web pages, however, do NOT. If you expect to get a free host out of Google in China, think again. We've tried this for a few clients & it's never worked. This may change, but as of this particular post, Google free websites are quite blocked here.

Also, if your domain is also your server, you'll have to do a bit of tweaking to your records. Otherwise, your "localhost" clients' emails will bounce. Some servers will look for localhost email addresses first, and even if it exists on Gmail, it'll fail & bounce back to the client. Instructions for this will be coming soon.

About Google Apps in general, there are a lot of complaints circulating around the Internet about sending an email from an alias on Google Apps and Gmail. It'll look something like "From: you@emailaddress.com~On Behalf Of yourprimary@emailaddress.com". If you think that using Google Apps as opposed to Gmail will remove the pesky "~On Behalf Of" part, you're mistaken. Contrary to popular belief, this has nothing whatsoever to do with Google. This is a Microsoft Outlook & Outlook Express Issue. When Google sends an email, it attaches the extra email address to "Sender" in the headers, rather than "XSender." Until Google decides to use either "XSender" instead of "Sender", or offer its users a choice, there's no way to remove the "On Behalf Of" listing. But be happy in knowing, it's generally only Microsoft that shows this.

Other than all that, you have Gmail with your domain! Enjoy it!