Yeah, yeah, it’s not Mac news per se, but we figure enough of you are also Google fanboys/girls that you may jump for joy upon the news. Gmail is gradually rolling out the IMAP protocol. IMAP, in case you don’t know, is an alternative to POP for accessing your email from external clients; its main advantage over POP is that it can keep the messages on your server and your client synchronized. View a message in your mail client and it shows up on the server as read. Most desktop clients, like Entourage and Mail.app, feature support for IMAP. Very handy, especially for those of us with mobile email devices, such as iPhones.
But thanks to the whims of Google, IMAP is rolling out somewhat randomly. My account still shows only the “Forwarding and POP” options, though that may be because I don’t really use the Gmail account for, well, anything. Will this make me drop my .Mac account? Not anytime soon, unfortunately: there’s really just not enough reason at this point in time (except for, perhaps, the improved spam filtering). But Gmail is now a viable backup for me, and that’s promising.
How about you, readers? Is this just icing, or is it a make-or-break feature for Gmail?
Probably depends on the person in question. Since I've been iPhonated, I have found that IMAP is a must. One of my work emails is IMAP, .Mac is IMAP, and I've set up my own domain's email as IMAP. I couldn't be happier with that setup, and would require that of any email account I use on a regular basis now.
As for Google's? Doesn't really matter to me. I take issues with their privacy policy and would never use them for any of my main email accounts. The only way I would use gmail would be for a trash-can type email account – to give out to questionable sources that require it for something else. But I can do that with my own domain or my own .Mac, so I wouldn't even go through the hassle when I can create my own even easier.
It's true!
(When you wish upon a star...)
Mine is still Pop3 too. I use it for middle account. It's not my Aol account, which is my main one, and my Hotmail which is my junk. I usually use it for my blog and for storage of Word Documents for classes.
I cannot adequately express my joy at Gmail moving to IMAP. This is something I have been waiting for a long time. Now I have one more reason to get an iPhone as soon as I move in May!
Great idea. I've been waiting on this feature for a long time and now it's working perfectly. Thank Google!
But the best part is that I can set up Gmail IMAP on my iPhone. I've just learned how to do it in this guide http://www.weshow.com/us/p/20767/set_up_gmail_imap_for_iphone
The hints are nice and setup is quick: we can do it in less then one minute. That's why I love technology.
I have set up my gmail account to be IMAP but it's not working so hot. I deleted all the messages in the inbox, all the trash, all the spam in my acct online. It now shows nothing there. Then I set it up on my apple mail -- fine -- just slow in recording the status changes of the messages but on the iPhone....yuck. I am still seeing 25 messages, which get replaced by more as I delete them on the phone. It's been like that all day. Where are these coming from?? It's all the old stuff I deleted and no longer show up online!
I didn't have the IMAP option until I logged out and logged back in again. Suddenly, it was there and I was in heaven. Sweet.
Before this, I could not use Gmail as my main email because I need to carefully store emails in folders, depending on subject matter. Now, with IMAP, I can see myself using Gmail as my email repository for life. I am thrilled. Truly.