How to help the old lady next door with her Telus email/Gmail/Chromebook

[mark13bc]

Hello,

Sorry in advance for the lengthy post.

My next door neighbor is elderly and a Telus internet customer, not tech savvy in the slightest but she can use email and Facebook, which are lifelines to her.  

When Telus migrated their email system to Gmail, we opened a Google account for her with her Telus email address.  While it works, of course she has the usual problem of no Google maps, docs, etc.  So when she gets emails that contain links to those things she cannot access them.  I have set up a new Google and Gmail account for her and we're discussing sending a blanket email to all of her contacts asking them to use the new gmail account address, in order to start inactivatating the Telus email account.  I have seen the posts in this forum about workarounds to the Telus/Google Maps problem, but not really seeing a surefire solution that will be user friendy to her and within my technical abilities to bring about (I'm stretching the limits of my brain already).  So does the email address change sound like the best solution?

Next, her old laptop died a few weeks ago and we settled on a new Chromebook for her since she doesnt use most of  Windows' features.  For now she uses her original Google account/Telus email, and I showed her how to change Users to go to the new Google/Gmail account.  Once she makes the aforementioned email address switch, everything should work per normal in the new Google/Gmail User account, correct? 

Sorry for the rambling but she has no one else to help her and anytime she's taken her computer to one of the local tech places it ends up doing more harm than good.  I'm hoping someone here with a good heart will answer my questions so I can continue to help her to the best of my ability.

I havent even gotten into the Zoom problem she's having with the link sent by her church every Sunday... one thing at a time.  😕

Thank you.

[DrPacman]

@mark13bc Wrote: While it works, of course she has the usual problem of no Google maps, docs, etc.  So when she gets emails that contain links to those things she cannot access them.  

I think that I would start by logging into the TELUS Gmail interface and hear on over to the setting section. Have a look under the Forwarding and POP/IMAP section and perhaps forward all the email to the New Gmail account that she has all the other various supported services that your looking for.

The other section for Accounts and Imports may help with the alias that the email are sent from.

If you find this post useful, please give the author a "Solution", or mark as "Kudo", if it solves your problem, thank you very much.

[mark13bc]

Thank you, Dr.  Your solution is one that I had thought of, but was not sure of the proper settings for the "export" and "import" sides.  But I can search for help with that.  Also, do you think that will work for map links in messages even though the original message was through telus/gmail?  I just hesitate to apply this fix if it's not going to work, because everytime I change things I have to teach her the new way.

[NFtoBC]

Could you teach her to copy/paste the links to a new browser window? That way no other changes are needed.

[jobrien]

Have you tried setting her up with a phone? I know this may sound redundant, but my mother is also elderly. And she finds the phone a lot easier to use and with a brighter screen, she's able to see it a lot better. A phone might help your neighbour with her Zoom issue a well, because once she learns the layout of the app, it should hopefully not change too often if at all. And I know the GMail app on any phone, Android or iPhone is very well maintained and has support for GSuite products.