Gmail Apparently Enabling IMAP Support

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1. Noah
   

   October 23rd, 2007 at 9:22 pm

   My wife and one of my sons have it on their Gmail account…but I’m IMAP-less for now.

2. MacShout
   

   October 23rd, 2007 at 9:35 pm

   I have it as an option on one of my accounts, but not all:

   http://img525.imageshack.us/my.....mapig4.gif

3. Amit Chowdhry
   

   October 23rd, 2007 at 9:35 pm

   I wouldn’t be surprised if GMail starts attaching contextual advertisements based on keywords in email bodies to compensate for those who no longer will use the web interface.

4. The Hater
   

   October 23rd, 2007 at 9:36 pm

   GMail is still a distant third. It’s amusing to see how many people think they’re #1 in the space..

5. dualsub2006
   

   October 23rd, 2007 at 9:42 pm

   @ The Hater

   Opinions are like assholes.

   For me, Gmail leads the pack. I can’t stand Yahoo or Hotmail though I am not certain who you think the top two are.

6. Rocky Es
   

   October 23rd, 2007 at 9:43 pm

   My GMail account opened (Sept 2004) was IMAP enabled today morning when I checked…
   It says Forwarding and POP/IMAP on the settings page…
   vooohoooo…..
   -rocky es

7. Chris Przybycien
   

   October 23rd, 2007 at 9:44 pm

   Why are you assuming most people don’t want to use the web interface? The majority of Gmail users are John/Jane Q Public not Fancypants Asshole McStartup. They don’t need enterprise douchebag functionality they just need to be able to organize and search their email. The Gmail interface has, for John and Jane, the best of both:

   a) labels for organizing even those emails which you just can’t find the right folder for and b) blazingly fast search even through gigs of email data

   Besides, using any desktop apps besides a web browser is so passe

8. Exchange3D
   

   October 23rd, 2007 at 9:47 pm

   I wonder how long till Yahoo finally gets it and allows POP/IMAP for free Yahoo mail accounts. Lack of POP access was the reason I switched from Yahoo to Gmail

9. King Cole
   

   October 23rd, 2007 at 9:49 pm

   I have it on my iPhone- it’s working smoothly.

10. Steve
    

    October 23rd, 2007 at 9:56 pm

    I have Gmail working on my Apple Mail and iPhone It has not been rolled out however for my Google Apps account.

11. Steve
    

    October 23rd, 2007 at 9:57 pm

    I have Gmail IMAP working on my Apple Mail and iPhone It has not been rolled out however for my Google Apps account.

12. Martin
    

    October 23rd, 2007 at 9:59 pm

    Well the real interesting thing would be if they would start importing accounts with IMAP to, anyone?

13. adam
    

    October 23rd, 2007 at 10:25 pm

    I logged out and back into my gmail account, and the imap option showed up… now it’s on my iphone. huzzah…

14. Deepak
    

    October 23rd, 2007 at 10:39 pm

    I use gmail because of the interface, and push everything into gmail, so IMAP has never been an issue. That said, I can see why many were looking forward to it.

15. Sean
    

    October 23rd, 2007 at 10:40 pm

    IMAP? POP3? Bah humbug I say.

    Learn to use Gmail the right way and it will rock your world.

    I never thought in a million years I’d be using web mail as my main email interface, yet here I am, and if you took it away from me, I might just die.

16. Joe Burnham
    

    October 23rd, 2007 at 10:46 pm

    I’ve got IMAP up and running with Mac Mail and everything looks great, from the speed of the sync to the label/folder connection.

    One problem I see right away is for users who use gmail’s POP3 feature for non-gmail accounts. While all the messages from all the accounts sync with gmail, the only e-mail address you can send from is your gmail account.

    The initial obvious work around here for offline e-mail writing would be to stash messages in the draft folder and then assign the appropriate “from” address when it sync’s into gmail.

17. Stewart Johnson
    

    October 23rd, 2007 at 11:06 pm

    I heard about this and thought, “cool, I can use Thunderbird!” — but then I realised that Thunderbird doesn’t thread messages as well as the gmail interface does, so I’m not sure I’d want to use it.

    Then I also realised that I haven’t been putting my mail in folders since I started using gmail, since the gmail search is so powerful I don’t need to organise my mail into folders to find anything. So if I used Thunderbird I’d have one big “Archive” folder, and I wouldn’t have search.

    So this isn’t really a great feature after all.

18. Arka Roy
    

    October 23rd, 2007 at 11:33 pm

    I actually chose GMail as my solution (I use Google Apps for my domain) specifically because I couldn’t find a decent IMAP host that fit my various constraints.

    I have come to love it and in contrast I now dislike mail clients. I fire up Thunderbird once a week or so, and use GMail’s POP access feature to download my mails for backup purposes only.

    I never send from Thunderbird, nor use it to manage mails, it’s purely a straight one-way backup tool.

19. Henry
    

    October 23rd, 2007 at 11:59 pm

    Mark, if you get IMAP before me I am going to be so p/o’ed — Count on it!!! I have an iPhone, damnit!! I’m special!!!1111one.

20. w00kie
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 12:37 am

    @Joe Burnham:
    Not true. You can setup different from addresses. Go to Settings -> Accounts -> Send mail as

21. The Hater
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 12:46 am

    @5: Third in terms of users, and again, it’s not even close. Opinions on the service itself is up to the user; I meant in terms of traffic. But hey, we all love Google, it’s so great and wonderful and everyone uses it..

22. Rob
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 12:53 am

    Might want to correct the misspelling… “other advertising tricks up there sleeves.” Their/there.

23. Arne
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 12:55 am

    i have set Gmail to archive all mails whenever i download them via POP. I only use gmail pop with my main home computer to fetch the emails, on every other pc/laptop i just use the web interface, so i dont have any duplicate emails.
    The downside is that when no internet connection is avaible i can only access the old mails on my home pc, but using imap i couldnt even do that.
    This works pretty good, i dont really need imap support.

24. Justin
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 1:05 am

    It’s enabled for two accounts of mine, working on one, the others are still showing the standard Fordwarding and POP screen.

25. LPF
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 1:12 am

    Don’t know what the fuss is about.

    Gmail is so powerful on its own, one doesn’t need an email client.

    Email clients require about 3 extra steps to access your mail, and then you have to do your own housekeeping with not that great tools anyway.

    Gmail is super-efficient and super-organised, with all the tedium taken care of for you. And because it promises not to delete any email ever and provides super-large capacity, there is really no need for a separate mail client.

    In fact, I use Gmail as my mail client. I can receive email from other addresses in one Gmail account, and can even specify which email address to use in the From: field when sending (contrary to what one commenter wrote). The conversation threading is cool. And the search mail function is something I use quite often, and it works wonderfully.

    Gmail forever!

26. Kyle
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 2:04 am

    My Gmail Account is now reporting I have available 4328mb of storage, is that normal ?

    Just I’ve never noticed it before ?

27. Riddle
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 3:15 am

    I have it. [Proof]

28. MyGoodFinds
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 3:57 am

    I’m fine without IMAP but it’s a nice feature to have.

29. Gaurav Kanoongo
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 4:39 am

    I was waiting for IMAP support on Gmail since long time, I wish they also provide support for Gmail Contacts (Address book) synchronization with IMAP clients.

30. ron
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 5:18 am

    gMail is so 90s…worst interface ever!

31. dualsub2006
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 5:24 am

    @21

    3rd in terms of users is a different story all together. That is a fact.

    I don’t know what Google is up to (who on the outside does) but I just have a feeling that they aren’t yet done. There would be a few ways that they could draw more users. Then again that may not be their goal. They live to make money off of ads and they seem to be doing a pretty good job at that.

    I look for something more from Google in the next while that will tie the whole thing together in ways that the other two can’t or won’t. Like I said, I can imagine a few things that they could do to convert more people to the Google way.

    I was fairly hardcore Yahoo Mail until I got that first Gmail invite. It was over from there for me and I know that there are ways that they could convert others who are less inclined to make a switch.

    Then again, like I said, being number one in terms of users may not be their goal. It is about the ads for them.

32. techmine
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 5:40 am

    There is no way to monetize POP service too. So considering this, Google should not worry about Ads. I never saw any ad on my web account

33. Keith Chan
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 5:45 am

    Still no donuts for me …

34. Phatph
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 6:00 am

    Want free IMAP today with unlimited storage? Use AIM Mail.

35. boon
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 6:01 am

    AIM Mail…LOL.

36. mrshl
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 6:11 am

    Mark, I’m not sure how one would get numbers to prove it, but anecdotally, I’ve noticed people are increasingly becoming reliant upon the Web interface for chat services. A huge portion of my pals (not techies at all) leave it on at work all day for the chat reason alone.

    To answer your other question, I’d imagine Google’s implementing IMAP because of the advantage it will give them in the mobile space. And there will be plenty of ad space on Google’s phone, I bet.

    For my final prediction, we should all prepare for a Google Mail desktop client which includes chat and leverages IMAP.

37. Tim Probst
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 6:13 am

    It’s great to hear that IMAP support is finally being rolled out for Gmail. This has been the main reason I have not used any desktop client with my Gmail account. I access mail from several computers so keeping the server and desktops in sync is important to me.

    Now, if we could only get HTML signatures in Gmail’s web interface, I would be a happy camper.

38. Lars Plougmann
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 6:18 am

    If you don’t have Gmail IMAP yet and your default language is not US English, changing Gmail display language to US English in General settings is likely to IMAP enable your Gmail.

39. Adam
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 6:21 am

    Gmail’s web interface is the only way to go. Even with IMAP (which I will use with my desktop) I will still primarily use the web interface. I’m addicted to the keyboard shortcuts.

    A question I have is how the IMAP functionality will work with the archiving function within Gmail.

40. THE1000LINKS
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 6:42 am

    IMAP is a good service. For me, I’m quite comfortable with the webmail interface, that I can access my mails anywhere.

41. Neal Goldman
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 7:51 am

    @ Arne

42. Neal Goldman
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 7:53 am

    @arne

    I use gmail pop the same way. When I download using my outlook client at home, it clears the inbox. When I’m at work, I use the web client. If I delete things from my home outlook, there’s still an archive in “all mail” on gmail. Imap will be nice to have the inbox be the same in both places, but it’s not a requirement.

43. Eric
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 8:30 am

    I just checked an have the IMAP feature for my Gmail account. I enabled it and will test it with Apple Mail tonight. I love webmail, but using a dedicated email client is SOOO much better so I’m stoked they finally implemented it!

44. James
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 9:56 am

    So if Gmail is just like any other ISP with POP and IMAP support…what’s the point? I’m getting 50+ GBs of storage space for $5/month with unlimited email address and domains cost $8/year. Google is free, but if I’m using standard desktop clients, the Gmail interface offers almost no value. We’re not talking much money here. Oh, and the ISPs offer Webmail too — without ads. What am I missing here?

45. Blake Brannon
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 10:13 am

    I hope they enable this before December when my school IMAP account will expire b/c I graduate!

    I use POP3 for gmail now and only use gmail.com when I am on a public computer. Even with IMAP enabled, it would still be the same usage.

46. Mike
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 10:18 am

    In response to James #44: spam filtering.

    That is the primary reason I switched to using gmail as my mailbox. I used to run my own mail servers and keep up with spamassassin, virus scanning, etc. but finally just decided to let gmail handle it. I still virtualize my email addresses but gmail is the end point.

47. Chris
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 10:40 am

    http://mail.google.com/support.....swer=75726

48. sam
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 10:52 am

    chris, i just laughed my ass off. fancypants asshole mcdouchebag — nice

    OK IMAP=GOOD. Why? BACKUP!!!! if you don’t trust google, like I don’t, you can download all your mail for a old fashioned backup. Also offline access is a no-brainer. Useful for long flights..

49. Chris Gilmer
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 11:49 am

    Thanks for the link Mark. There is also a great video on how to set up Gmail IMAP for iPhones. Its a little confusing as you have to select Add Other mail account, instead of adding a Gmail account.

    http://www.downloadsquad.com/2.....ail-video/

50. mav
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 1:57 pm

    I don’t really understand what the fuzz is about. Just because it’s google? Companies like AOL had this for quite a while now (um - 2004?). Has been free since. Personally I treat this as a standard requirement for a decent mail provider. Pop3 is something from the past

51. Blah
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 4:24 pm

    “The folks over at Download Squad have stumbled across persuasive evidence that Google is adding IMAP support to Gmail. While the option to use IMAP has not showed up in my Gmail account yet (or any other bloggers’ for that matter), they point to this Google help center page, which confirms the speculation.”

    My god. I’m glad that when something doesn’t come from this site, it’s speculation (despite help pages). Further, you can speak for all bloggers.

    You people are so full of yourselves and use this site to manipulate tech stocks. Your readers are suckers.

52. Joe Drumgoole
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 6:01 pm

    Monetising IMAP is straightforward for Google and goes with the “our (gmail) audience is massive” model.

    1. Most people won’t use it (the way most people don’t use pop mail).
    2. Those that do use it self select themselves as a particular market segment
    3. Those users are probably wide scale google users already, so by indexing their imap content you get to target a narrow segment even more effectively

    The bottom line for google is always,

    1. Keep you logged into google
    2. Allows us to index what you do for targetted advertising

    A modest price for free in most consumer’s cases.

53. Pete S.
    

    October 24th, 2007 at 6:15 pm

    Finally!

    I used Google Apps (Google-hosted services, like email, for my domain) up until recently when I switched to my web host’s IMAP server so I could use Thunderbird (I prefer it to every webmail interface, including Gmail’s) and still have access to mail remotely via webmail which Gmail + POP couldn’t do for me in any effective manner; I’d have to go back and mark messages as read/spam, archive/delete them, etc. Not efficient.

    While my host’s IMAP server is pretty good, their spam filtering sucks. It’s basically server-based SpamAssassin combined with client-side Bayesian filtering. Not nearly as good as Google’s spam filtering, even after feeding thousands of messages (spam and not) to the Bayesian filtering engine. It also meant that I’d have to use my ISPs crappy SMTP server.

    With Google Apps Mail + IMAP, I get all the benefits of Google mail (spam filtering, message organization, huge space for archiving important mail, backup MXs, better SMTP server that allows outbound messages to be threaded with inbound messages, etc.) plus some advantages of Thunderbird (S/MIME or PGP signing/encryption, more efficient interface, managing several accounts in a single window, faster responses to various things [opening a new composition window, for example], and so on).

    Google Mail’s interface is pretty much the best thing going for webmail right now, but until they add a good S/MIME or PGP interface that doesn’t require that they store my private keys, it doesn’t quite meet my needs.

    It also aids in mail migration…moving mail *from* a webmail service is not terribly easy. It’s made easier with POP, sure, but IMAP makes it trivial to backup or move mail from server to server. Once IMAP service gets added to my Apps account, I’ll switch my MX records back. If, for some reason, a different provider can offer better IMAP-capable service, then I can switch my MX records and move my mail over in a totally transparent fashion.

54. Andrew Wise
    

    October 25th, 2007 at 8:58 am

    I think it’s pretty easy to see ways to monetize Gmail IMAP support, to name a few:

    IMAP gives users a reason to go to gmail.com when they’re not on their home computers

    IMAP support integrated with Google Docs equals further integration into productivity software

    IMAP plus Google Calendar equals further integration into productivity software

    IMAP plus $5/mo/year support = a much better yahoo+ mail

    And the reasons go on..

55. Steve
    

    October 25th, 2007 at 6:41 pm

    I did some GMAIL IMAP protocol sniffing and ironically it appears Google has not implemented the IMAP SEARCH feature within their IMAP service; yet. No client search? Hmm.

56. Klifford Matthew
    

    October 25th, 2007 at 11:25 pm

    I tried to set up Gmail IMAP in Thunderbird but i cant connect or download messages. I followed the steps at google help but to no avail.

    Im using a proxy and does it have an issue? how can i enable gmail imap in thunderbird with a proxy?

57. Ashutosh Kadakia
    

    October 26th, 2007 at 2:32 am

    IMAP is great. Gmail is good. I can’t tear away from the Blackberry / Enterprise Exchange server combo. It works perfectly. You never appreciate it until you use it. Outlook Web Access is terrible, but Outlook 2007 on the desktop makes up for what little inconvenience I have when on the road when I need to open big attachments and am without laptop.

58. Dennison Uy - Graphic Designer
    

    October 30th, 2007 at 7:59 am

    I finally got IMAP on GMail and it’s sweet! Now I can use Thunderbird and not have “on behalf of blahblah@gmail.com” appear in the from: field anymore! Thanks Google!!