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Gmail Adds POP3 To Email Accounts

VaultX writes "Gmail has recently added POP3 services to their free email accounts. This would allow someone to use gmail without ever seeing any of their advertisements. They are also providing SMTP, both POP3 and SMTP are forcing the use of SSL/TLS. Very interesting...now where's IMAP and what's the catch?" It's being phased in, though, so not every gmail account yet has POP access.

13 of 527 comments (clear)

  1. Free IMAP? by ted_nugent · · Score: 4, Informative

    I can't believe they would do that. It's just too resource intensive. If they did though, I think a lot of us would give up our self-hosted vanity domains. The gmail interface beats the crap out of squirrelmail.

    --

    Free the West Memphis Three!

  2. Re:The catch is.. by orion024 · · Score: 5, Informative

    From the gMail FAQ

    "Access: Free automatic forwarding. POP3 access is not yet available, but will be in the future for free or at a nominal fee."

    In other words, once they go live I would expect pop3 access to either be a paid service, or have injected google text ads.

  3. IMAP and Gmail by echocharlie · · Score: 5, Informative

    From http://gmail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answ er=10339
    Q: Does G-mail support IMAP?
    Gmail doesn't currently support IMAP access. As part of our ongoing commitment to give our users easy access to their email, we have introduced POP access. We look forward to announcing more features as they become available.

  4. Re:I am a bit reluctant. by bsdfish · · Score: 5, Informative

    I believe they've always stated somewhere in their documentation (FAQ, I think) that they were planning to add POP access, for which they may charge at some point in the future. I haven't seen any promises of POP being always free.

  5. Re:Where? by MindStalker · · Score: 3, Informative

    Its being rolled out, not everyone has it yet.

    Look in your Settings / Forwarding
    for a switch to turn on pop, if the switch is not there, you're just gonna have to wait.

  6. Re:Forwarding by ArbitraryConstant · · Score: 4, Informative

    They've stated that the forwarding service won't be free when the beta period ends. I suspect the same of POP3.

    --
    I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
  7. Unfortunately SMTP server rewrites From line by btempleton · · Score: 5, Informative

    I tried the SMTP server, since it would be very handy to have a free SMTP relay out there that uses userid/password for SMTP AUTH. Saves the trouble of the complex setup required in many mail agents to get this going at home.

    It works, but it rewrites your From: line to be user@gmail.com, which is OK if you are using gmail as your home base, but not OK if it is just one of your mailboxes. However, it's their server so they are free to put this limitation on it, I guess.

    --
    Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
  8. Re:IMAP? by Romeozulu · · Score: 4, Informative

    IMAP is much better, in that it only downloads the headers of the messages until you read the body. For someone that travels and has to dial-up and has moron co-workers that email large attachments around, this is a must.

  9. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Informative

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  10. Re:The catch is.. by neverkevin · · Score: 4, Informative

    I've used it and google has not added anything to the emails yet.

  11. Re:The catch is.. by abertoll · · Score: 4, Informative

    Or they know most people will still use the webmail when they're "on the go." Believe it or not, but a LOT of people like webmail, it keeps their mail centralized. This might be why they aren't offering IMAP ;) (but then again, most users don't know how to use IMAP)

    --
    "he drew his sword Ringil that glittered like ice... and he wounded Morgoth with seven wounds..."
  12. Re:The catch is.. by JPDeckers · · Score: 5, Informative

    Can confirm this one.

    Sent and received messages, and no ads where added.

    Furthermore, when you enable pop3, you have 3 options:
    * Enable POP for all mail
    * Enable POP only for mail that arrives from now
    * Disable Pop3 (Doh)

    You can also choose to
    * Keep GMail's copy in inbox
    * Archive GMail's copy
    * Trash GMail's copy

    Sending and receiving is done through SSL-ports, and sending requires authentication.

  13. Re:IMAP? by legirons · · Score: 3, Informative

    "IMAP is much better, in that it only downloads the headers of the messages until you read the body."

    From RFC 1939, the POP specification:

    TOP msg n
    After the initial +OK, the POP3 server sends the headers of the message, the blank line separating the headers from the body, and then the number of lines of the indicated message's body.