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Free IMAP On Gmail
A number of readers are writing in to tell us that Google is rolling out IMAP support for Gmail accounts. Several people say that some of their gmail accounts offer the IMAP option (in Settings, Forwarding and POP/IMAP) and others do not.
Are they out of "beta" now?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
All you need to do for a 'folder' is have a label that says "present in xyz folder." So to put a message in a folder you just tag it with that, and then the 'folder' itself is just a view that only shows messages with that tag. How the messages are actually stored on disk is irrelevant to the user. This means you can use database storage schemes that are much more efficient for large sites than flat files.
The obvious advantage to a user of tags vs folders is that you can have a single message in more than one psuedo-folder in a tag-based system; in a true folder-based system, you either need to make a copy of the message in order to store it in two folders, or you need to do something nasty with symlinks/pointers.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Cameron Simpson, DoD#743 cs@cskk.id.au http://www.cskk.ezoshosting.com/cs/
What is there that you can do with folders but not with labels? I never understood the resistance, personally. I've always considered labels more powerful and therefore better, but maybe I manage things differently than most people--I set up a bunch of filters and now every single message I get is appropriately labeled, then "archived" (so that it doesn't show up in my inbox).
That way, the few things left unclassified await me in the inbox (and I can filter them if need be), but everything else is under an appropriate label (and because I mark *everything* as read once I'm done with it, it doesn't really matter that there's one message with two or more labels).
hi - no offense to your viewpoint, but I find this unfathomable - at work, we use ms outlook/exchange and I despise organizing things into folders - the reason is that some things are applicable to multiple categories - for example, my company has multiple software products and each has a build and automated test cycle - so when product B is built, I get an e-mail about the build, and when it's smoke tested, I get another e-mail - I would like to label these as "product B" (for both e-mails) and "build results" and "test results" for the others, respectively - seems to me that you only gain functionality this way - using gmail's implementation as an example: you can then click on the label that says "product b" and see all the stuff (build and test results) for that product exactly the same way you would as if there were folders ... actually, I just thought of a difference: you don't get a folder hierarchy ... dunno, that doesn't seem like a huge loss to me - is that why you prefer folders? seriously - I'm baffled as to why anyone would prefer folders vs a label/tag system.... to each his own - cheers
-w
calling all destroyers
Except they only profit off me if I use their free service, or e-mail someone who does.
Also, gmail or not, anyone who e-mails anything even remotely private is an idiot. Google reading e-mail is the least concerning part of any unencrypted e-mail. It always strikes me as really odd when people complain about what Google does to the equivalent of electronic postcards.
Yes, they can build a program to process the mails you are sending through their service and target you with ads...
If you have an issue with an automated process accessing your mail and taking actions based on the content of it, you'd better not use a spam filter either... Infact, you probably shouldnt use email at all unless you can find a mail server which isnt a program.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Ever turned on a new feature on a few hundred thousand servers?
Thought not.
I assume that it will take up to a week for them to roll it out to everyone.
Standard cleartext email, the kind of stuff that all email clients send by default, is basically a plain text file. There is no encapsulation or encryption at all. There is nothing preventing anyone and everyone along the way from reading it - much like a post card.
If you don't want anyone reading your email you can use any number of encryption tools to make it harder for unintended recipients to read it - but not impossible.
And if you're worried about Google retaining a copy of every email... Well, so can every single mail server that touches that message. As it gets relayed from one server to the next there is absolutely no guarantee that your message is not retained. There may very well be servers out there retaining copies for all of eternity...backing them up to tape...printing them out...
Quite simply, if you are concerned about security and/or privacy, email is the last way you want to communicate with anyone.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
I'm sure that no small part of it was designing a way to handle the protocol. Since Gmail does labels instead of folders and archives mail to remove it from the inbox, it definitely acts a bit differently from the way that we traditionally think of mail. Mapping those functions to IMAP functions was probably non-obvious.