Folks seem to be happy that Google is finally rolling out the ability to have multiple Gmail accounts in the same browser.
All well and good, but it does't work for Google Apps or Google Docs, and it's driving me batty.
At this time, I have one regular @gmail.com account that I use for my personal email, as well as any Google service that isn't in Google Apps (Reader, AdWords, Voice, Maps, etc.) I find it easier to have one account for most of these services than juggle between accounts unless necessary. Supposedly Google is working on a way to bring Account-only services to Apps, and when that happens maybe I'll rethink my plan.
I use 6 different Google Apps accounts. One for Colorectal Cancer Coalition where I spend most of my day, one account each for momathome.com and judisohn.com (I don't use those for personal email anymore but I do deploy addresses for family members), and the others are for local organizations that I have volunteered to help with tech.
For a while I used a single account to read/reply to all the email. But that doesn't work well because 1. Google still sends email "on behalf of" one account when you send from another. Too many of my contacts are using Outlook to ignore this issue. There's a workaround if you combine POP email accounts, but not if you're using Google's own email which makes no sense. 2. I'd still have to load Docs, Calendar and Sites separately anyway so what was the point? and 3. it was harder to manage working this way on the iPhone.
For the most part, browsers have no problem maintaining separate email sessions for each Google Apps account. So I can be in my browser of choice and have a separate Gmail tab for each email address I check, each logged in and working fine. I don't have a problem with Calendar because I tend to combine all my calendars in such a way that no matter which account I'm looking at, I'm seeing the same calendars.
But there is no way that I know of to have a single Google Docs view that shows the content of all accounts. In fact, there can only be one session of Google Docs at a time when a document is open!
I get this screen constantly:
Problem is, there's a bug of some nature…no matter which account you select, the screen above typically just reloads. The only way I've found to get to Google Docs from here is to start signing out of the other accounts until the browser sees the "front" account as the one you're trying to reach.
Or, sometimes it happens that you can load the main Google Docs page but when you click on a document you get this:
Even though you have an active session for the user you want, and you clicked the document from the main Google Docs view of the right account, Google is only recognizing the last account signed in to actually get to the document. You have to peel back the layers to get to the right account.
Lately I've also been occasionally hitting a Google help page which says that I have to clear all cookies and cache to get to Docs. Lovely.
It's maddening.
The temporary solution? Incognito mode (similar to private browsing in Firefox or Safari). You know, the one that everyone snickers at as the "porn mode"? It's noted for not leaving any trace in cookies or history…but it also doesn't take any traces with it from already signed-in sessions.
Now when I want to open something in Google Docs, I right-click on the link and open it in Incognito right from the menu:
Neither Firefox or Safari have this right-click option to open a link in their private modes that I can find.
Works well. No matter which accounts are sign-in to the main window, I get no complaint when I open Docs Incognito. I just have to sign in to the right account in the new Incognito window.
I could always use separate browsers for each account (Firefox for one, Safari for another, etc.) but I find "going Incognito" a much better solution. I can even designate the extensions I need to work in Incognito windows (such as 1Password).
Anyone else doing the multiple account dance and have a better solution until Google fixes this once and for all?
Judi Sohn 
2 responses to “Multiple Google Docs in same browser – Incognito mode to the rescue! (it’s not just for porn)”
You can work around the “send on behalf of”. I just had to do this for my wife’s email:http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/send-mail-from-another-address-without….I wonder if that’s the work around you mentioned? If so, it worked for my wife’s account, though her main account isn’t a Gmail one. But I also tried it from my GApps account, setting a standard Gmail account as the default and it did work (no ‘on behalf of’).
Actually, the workaround is something like this for using it through Google Apps: http://www.lifestrikes.com/configure-gmail-to-use-google-apps-smtp-server/