Better late than never! Google finally adds free IMAP support to Gmail (Learn how to set up IMAP). Don’t know what IMAP is? IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol which is the best way to access your emails from a third party Email client. It synchronizes your account information in an efficient way. Let’s say you read a new email using Gmail and then Starred that message from your iPhone and finally archived it from your Outlook Express. Now, check your inbox again using Gmail.com and see all those changes reflected in your account. Cool Isn’t?

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Sync your inbox across devices with free IMAP

For the past few years, we’ve offered POP access, which is similar to IMAP but lacks one critical feature: your changes made on other devices aren’t seen in Gmail when you log back in. Instead you are presented with a list of unread mail, and you must re-read and re-sort everything. For this reason, as soon as I started at Google, IMAP was one of the first things I asked about. Since then, I’ve seen countless blog posts, requests, chats, and just about everything else asking, “Are you guys ever going to do IMAP?” Well now I can say: Yes. Yes, we are doing IMAP. In fact, we are doing it for you for free on all devices and platforms.

Gmail Now Has IMAP Support

Once the configuration settings are changed, everything users do through e-mail on their iPhones and desktops will be immediately visible on the other device because the changes have been stored on a server. The feature works for several e-mail applications, including Outlook Express, Outlook 2007, Outlook 2003, Apple Mail, Windows Mail, and Thunderbird 2.0.

Gmail’s Latest Trick: IMAP, Therefore I Am

Google’s Gmail Web-based e-mail service is rolling out a terrific, free and overdue feature: The ability to synchronize your Gmail account to the desktop mail program of your choice. This includes more than just your inbox, such as all of your messages and all their labels, complete with records of which ones you’ve read, replied, forwarded or starred for follow-up.

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