Gmail goes IMAP: finally your mobile email client & Gmail fall in love
By Ryan Block 
posted Oct 24th 2007 1:36AM
posted Oct 24th 2007 1:36AM
It's absolutely no secret that Google has a few humble fans of their email service, whose prayers have finally been answered. G's giving its users free -- yes, free -- IMAP access to their inboxes; great for desktop users, sure, but the people most likely to benefit from this development are those on mobile email clients (especially those unable to use the Java Gmail app). Hell, Google knows it and even whipped up an iPhone setup page to help Apple users get the real Gmail experience (instead of that crap out of box implementation someone so wrongly thought we'd be satisfied with). How do you get IMAP enabled? Well, if you don't see it in your Gmail options, log out and back in again. Still don't see it? Wait. Wait, and check the blogs, friend.[Via DownloadSquad, thanks to everyone who sent this in]
And so the waiting game begins...
isnt this more evidence that google is making a mobile OS rather than hardware?
I just enabled it on my Gmail account and set it up with my iPhone. Wow, I've been waiting for this since I got my iPhone. Thanks Google for the continued free improvements to Gmail!
one of my account (primary) is activated, the other one isn't. This is great!!
I can finally just focus my attention on what's in the inbox and not all the other stuff!
Thank you Google. Does anyone know if this is in the plans for hosted gmail?
I've got it on my hosted account but not on my regular gmail account.
It's not showing up on my account.
If the POP/IMAP option isn't showing up for you, change your "Gmail Display Language" on the General tab of Settings to "English (US)".
I was using "English (UK)" and the option wasn't there. Enjoy!
Already set in English (US)...ARGGHHH!!!! I want this SOOO BAD!
Did that, still no joy. Maybe tomorrow.
Yes, I can confirm that that fix works for me. Nothing for UK English, But shows up on US English.
Changed the language, logged out and back in to Gmail, rebooted comp ;) no IMAP settings yet.
in response to frank, i'm sure Google is making the OS. however I'm also sure they've got some tech firm doing the hardware for them, and then they will brand is as Google hardware.
Hah! I turned on the computer to search for a solution for some gmail POP problems i was having, checked engadget like i normally do, and got this surprise! Awesome! I've wanted this for years!
!!
!
-Taylor
Ok, so Gmail is offering IMAP now, which is cool, but when will Yahoo announce their IMAP? I discovered late last week that I can get IMAP with my Yahoo mail, but I'm a Plus user, so I'm wondering if maybe that's how. (Settings are obvious: imap.mail.yahoo.com) I've searched their site to find anything official, but nowhere does it mention Yahoo supports IMAP.
Either way, I'm loving it on my Nokia N73! (Yeah, and my Palm Treo 750, but I only use that because work gave it to me.)
Only the yahoo plus users can use imap currently....
I have it enabled on my new account, but Mail on both my Mac and iPhone don't recognize that it is enabled! Its also a VERY new account... just started it hours ago
One out of my three GMAIL accounts has IMAP, saddly, its the one I use least .... =(
So I'm gonna go on waiting for something to happen...
Gotta go check if IMAP's there ...
Cheers
Phil
just saw this in the gmail help section:
"Don't fret if you don't see "IMAP Access" yet under the Settings menu. We're rolling it out to everyone over the next few days."
So no need to post comments saying you haven't got it yet - it may take a day or two before it shows up in every account...
What's the benefit of this?
The Gmail on my iphone works fine as is, what will IMAP give me I don't already have?
Duuuude.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMAP#Advantages_over_POP3
Why does NOBODY use the wikipedia?!?!?!?!?
Oh and yes, this does mean that on your iPhone you can command you're Gmail to archive a message. Whereas POP3 only supports client-side folders, IMAP4 supports multiple mailboxes.
Use the Wikipedia, ryan!
Neg2LD, how do I archive? I'm looking at https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=77657 and I don't see the word 'archive' on that page.
(sigh...)
By removing the INBOX label (which Gmail automatically places on items that are not SPAM and arrive in your INBOX) when you delete a message on your iPhone, it archives your message.
With IMAP IDLE compatible clients, think of it as push-email a la Exchange. THAT's how much better it is compared to POP3, Better than Exchange even because it's a multi-platform standard.
Now if we can only get a windows mobile native gmail app...
I just loaded this up on my iPhone, and color me unimpressed. It shows my labels as folders, but Google's way of threading messages doesn't translate back into messages in the IMAP lists, and it doesn't add up. Also, how are you supposed to "Archive" messages on the go, and have them show up in the labels still? I don't get it.
I currently use my Gmail account to forward to a real IMAP system, so that I get real individual emails. Until Gmail gets rid of this Archiving Labeling Threading concept, it will never work properly.
You just have to map your folders out. To see how check out:
http://www.gavinhall.org/2007/10/23/gmail-finally-adds-imap/
Justin, I was curious too -- how do I archive now? Do I still have to drop back to the Gmail web app?
Great news!
My account is not updated yet, unfortunately. How is the IMAP performance with a filled (~2GB) account? I have tried some other commerical IMAP providers in the past month but they all had dramatic IMAP performance.
This would be incredibly cool with Google Apps Professional, 25GB of email storage plus IMAP access.. :9
I've been a Yahoo Mail fan for years, but if they don't re-enable IMAP soon, I may just have to make the move to GMail
Will Gmail IMAP mean that when I send a message from my computer or from my iPhone that it won't show up in my iPhone's inbox? This is all I really care about. I know there are work arounds for this, but they are lame.
Have you turned off the "Always Bcc Myself" feature on the iPhone under Settings->Mail (at the bottom) this solves that problem too.
The problem with Google's IMAP implimation is, it continuously will download old mail. I have 3000 emails in my gmail account. When my iphone goes up to gmail initially it will download 50 headers. If I delete a few emails,it will go back up to gmail and download more mail even if its old!! Your account is continuously downloading old mail every time you delete one.
really sucks!
Is this true??? I remember I have always had this problem with GMAIL and iPhone when setting up a new account on iphone....it will download 50 at a time out of my MILLIONS of archived messages....I figured out how to solve this but is their a solution for the IMAP version???
I can't say for sure on the iPhone, but almost every mobile mail app I've used (Palm, Windows Mobile) has two settings to fix this. First is "Only display messages from the past TIMEPERIOD (2 days, 1 week, 3 months, etc)". The other option is "Fetch headers only" which is the option I go for. Having all four thousand emails available at a moment's notice is really handy. If I come across a message I need (in search / filtering) I just hit "Get the rest of this message" and it pulls down the whole message.
I think that the GMail IMAP is great, but I agree with Peteo and that is not my only problem. While it will mark messages as read (slowly) , it won't mark them as replied. The actions are limited and not fully compatible with Apple Mail (or the iPhone). I am going to stick with using .mac as my gmail IMAP, it is a more sophisticated IMAP server (that supports more actions). I love Google for gmail and now IMAP on gmail, but it is not quite ready for me yet.
Does it support push email like yahoo? I have imap available in my secondary gmail account so I tried it on the iPhone and I still have to go into the mail app to receive the messages. Right now I have to forward my gmail messages to a shell yahoo account so I can be notified of new messages immediately, and so I don't have to have it check every 15 minutes and kill the battery. But it's annoying because I have to continuously delete the messages from my yahoo and switch between accounts so replies are from my gmail account and not through the shell yahoo. I was hoping this gmail imap would relieve the problem. Doesn't seem like it right now but I'm trying to be patient.
Is this just a hiccup on my account since they just launched it or does imap not necessarily support psuh email? Is anoyone else's "pushing" the email to their iphone or other mail client?
IMAP =/= push
IMAP IDLE == push-email
sorry for the question, but what's the difference between POP and IMAP?
take it easy on me please. :)
anyone know if we can take advantage of the IMAP features on blackberries using BIS?
mainly being able to synchronize read/unread messages
This is great...I definitely need Gmail on the run. I'm really excited to hear that Facebook is also working on a plan to update their mobile features.
So happy!!! I have to do the silly rencent.me@gmail.com to get some sanity. IMAP will be great.
FINAL LIGHT: IMAP is an image of what is on the gmail server. So you can access your email from multiple applications whether mobile, desktop or laptop and the Inbox, Sent, Draft, etc. is always the same.
POP: You are just downloading what is on the gmail server so when another application accesses gmail the email it is looking for is gone because the another application already downloaded it.
And as quickly as it came, it disappeared. Of course after I set up all my macs and iPhone and everything is working properly, they take imap away and my account no longer supports it. WTF?!
Of course after I finally type my comment imap is reinstated on my acct...
same here
gone then back...not a promising start
I've been using Gmail as my shell/interface for my non-Google-hosted vanity domain, by forwarding from that domain to Gmail, and telling Gmail to use that domain as my return address.
I had a complicated imap workaround for my iPhone, in which I forwarded from my vanity domain to Gmail, then on to an "iphone@vanitydomain.com" email.
Anyone know whether Gmail's new imap is going to do me any good? I can't quite wrap my mind around what it means for me.