How To Access Blocked GMail From School or Office

Are you a GMail addict and tired of your office or school administration blocking  access to GMail? Here is a guide with various tricks to unblock your favorite GMail and enjoy the full mail access at your organization.

1. Instead of gmail.com Use Different Address Like mail.google.com, google.com/mail, etc

Instead of using the URL gmail.com to access your GMail account, try other web address like mail.google.com, google.com/mail when GMail is blocked at your school/office. This trick is expected to work if the IT administrators has blocked gmail.com alone and left the rest of the domains open as they are not widely known to people. Here is the list of alternative address to access GMail

• http://m.gmail.com
• https://gmail.com
• http://google.com/mail
• http://mail.google.com or https://mail.google.com
• http://googlemail.com

2. Access Blocked GMail Using iGoogle

GMail is available as a gadge to iGoogle and you can use this gadget to access GMail. When you access GMail through iGoogle all the communication with the GMail servers is routed through iGoogle servers. So this defeats all the restriction and filters applied by IT administrators in blocking gmail.com domain.

To access GMail through iGoogle

1. Login to iGoogle using your Google Account
2. Add GMail gadget to iGoogle by following this link or by using Add Stuff on screen
3. That’s all. Start accessing your GMail inside iGoogle.

3. Access GMail Using Opera Mini Simulator

Use Opera Mini Browser Online Simulator application to access GMail in a small screen window. Opera Mini is a popular web browser for mobile phones. It allows users to work with live demo of Opera Mini that functions exactly like it would when installed on a handset.

Point your browser to http://www.operamini.com/mobile/demo/ and start accessing blocked GMail using the URL m.gmail.com.

Reading mails on mobile simulator is definitely not convenient as reading them on a full screen browser computer. But when you need to access your GMail urgently, This trick might be helpful to you.

4. Use Microsoft Outlook Or Other Mail Programs To Access GMail Using POP3/IMAP

Configure your mail clients like Outlook, Live Mail, Lotus Notes to access GMail using POP3 or IMAP protocol. This trick of accessing GMail when blocked is mostly useful for working professionals as they should be definitely using some mail client for official mail access.

You can find the instruction to configure POP3 and IMAP access for various mail clients over here and here

5. Launch GMail from Google Talk

At few organizations they block access to GMail but not to Google Talk. If that is the case at your organization, then you can launch GMail from Google Talk application. Sign in to GTalk and click on the envelope icon to launch access GMail.

6. Use Your Smart Phones

If you have internet connection on your mobile, you can make use of your mobile phone to access GMail.

GMail has an excellent native application for most of the mobiles like iPhone, Nokia, Android, Windows Mobile, etc. The ease at which you can read and reply to mails through GMail for Mobile is amazing. It is my favorite mobile application.

You can download GMail application for mobiles from Google

7. Use Proxy Web  Site To Bypass

Using proxy website to beat censorship is one of the popular ways for unblocking any kind of websites. When we try to access GMail using a web proxy, the web proxy hides our IP address and uses it’s own IP address to load the page.

For the list of web proxies refer to the article – 120+ Proxies For Browsing Web Anonymously And Accessing Blocked Websites.

8. Nothing Working? Then Bribe Your IT Administrator

If none of the above methods worked for you then take help of someone at IT department and get access to GMail. Bribe them :) Offer small gifts, drinks or something else they like.

Either you can ask them to grant access for your PC or get details of internal proxy server that allow GMail access.

I listed the methods that I tried and succeeded(except the last one) to unblock GMail when it is blocked at my workplace. What do you do to access GMail when it is blocked? Share your experience in the comments. We love to hear from you.

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