had it earlier on 2 of my 8 accounts, now not on either one :(

guess it's still beta too

Tank

oh man! I have been waiting for imap from gmail. I loved gmail already, but now gmail will rock even more. To bad my account isnt showing the imap feature yet :(

JoshHighland

Would IMAP be a good way to create a local backup of my GMail. Currently all my mail is on Google's servers and nowhere else. I worry about what would happen if I lost access to my account or Google accidentally deleted the data.

frobule

I think the best part of this is that I can upload all my email archives to gmail via IMAP and have access to them via the web.

Now if only Google would make a 'Better Gmail' client for Palm, WinMo, iPhone, etc. Mobile development is such a wreck (sigh).

leland_sabon

I don't think I'll be getting anything done today ... Been sitting here reloading GMail waiting for the feature to show up in my account ...

I was in the first round in invites in since some friends were the early developers of GMail, you'd think I'd get new features first ...

OriginalGabriel

This is great, but what I want is to be able to use the Mail Fetcher to check another IMAP account from within Gmail.

Barron

This is good news, but I actually prefer gmails interface to Thunderbird, which I use for my work email via IMAP.

Joshua Timberman

I may create a sitescope alert that emails me when I have IMAP enabled so I don't need to keep checking. Anyone got a quick perl script I can run on my desktop to check over and over again and help scrape HTML for me?!?! pleeze :)

Wired Dude Dave

I have been waiting a long time for IMAP to come to Gmail. I use Gmail to download POP e-mail from my personal account because it's easy to use and blocks spam effectively. Having IMAP will let me use mail.app with my personal account, which just makes me giddy.

I wish Google would hurry up and enable IMAP on my account now. Gmail IMAP and Leopard in the same week...that's what I call a good week.

whitlock

Personally I haven't got IMAP access on my accounts, but I don't care because I'm running my own IMAP server to amalgamate all my email accounts.

Xoke

It also means that the old convoluted ways of importing all your archive mail to gmail are all obsolute... here's the simplified new guide:
[www.zoliblog.com]

zoli

Ah, fo'get about the iPhone... This Thunderbird user is very VERY happy! Now I just need to re-adjust my tagging and backup behaviors...

Posco Grubb

Still waiting for them to flick the switch on my account :(

xxdesmus

@jaxun: I agree. I always label my messages and then archive them, so that means that for a message with two labels, I will have one copy for each label, as well as the extra copy in All Mail, plus another copy if it is starred.

It is still a great feature, and will now make it very easy to upload mail to Gmail without modifying any headers.

Now, time to clean up labels before attempting an offline sync!

Can't wait for cool TB extensions attempting to ease the limitations in Gmail/IMAP.

Irian

IMAP has been crashing my mail.app with a very small account (8MB) and it's very annoying.

followthelee_der

In Thunderbird, there is a "Gmail" folder under which you will find subfolders of all mail, drafts, spam, etc. If you move a message from the inbox to all mail, it is archived on the gmail web interface.

meuseman

@jhpope: Threaded is a wonderful feature of Gmail online. Here is what they have to say: "While we'd like to make your IMAP experience match the Gmail web interface as much as possible, some Gmail-specific features and terms, such as conversation threading and stars, won't appear in your client." Stars are flags however...

How is Google going to monetize the traffic now? No ads in a client... Hmmm. I do enjoy the online interface so I might just stick with that for now. I wonder if this move to IMAP will allow a Google Gears & Gmail integration in the future.

-specialk

kalebdf

And yes,(this should have been obvious to me), if you have both POP and IMAP enabled in your email client, you will get duplicate messages. However, it encouraging that they both work :? (Using Apple Mail).

proudmonkey

I see how the label feature is going to have some problems translating into a folders paradigm. A copy of the message for each label? Kludgy!

jaxun

@chillywilly: Works with my Treo 700p using Versa Mail. Just select "Other" and then IMAP. You will have to use the Advanced screen to set the right port numbers (993 IMAP and 465 SMTP) and check all the check boxes.

proudmonkey

Awesome! I always thought there really wasn't a point in having a mail client unless you can use IMAP, just too messy. :superb:

grimmdude

so far i still like using the web version. threaded messages suck/non-existent in thunderbird...extensions maybe?

jhpope

Does this mean Blackberry's will sync now too like they do with Yahoo? Lack of Blackberry as read sync has been a major annoyance for some people.

155

I'm assuming since IMAP is now implemented (not on my account! GRR!), I can upload messages to my gmail account now! Woohoo! Can't wait!

y3n0

@James: This is also a problem for me with Exchange. I also tried moving emails around in my folder structure, but nothing happened when I get back to my desk. All emails are still sitting in my inbox. I think I even caught it duplicating emails (ie it would sync the email move I did on the iphone to the "saved" folder or whatever, and when I get back to my desk there's the email in "saved" and also in "inbox").

dancemonkey

BAH mine's still not playing ball, tried logging out and in again but no joy :(

Gonzie

@MRMUSKRAT, When you use multiple labels in GMail, it seems to make copies in the corresponding folderS in Apple Mail. And it seems to copy the whole thread as seperate messages into the folers.

proudmonkey

@Ryamalia, The SMTP server (for sending mail) seems to be the same as is always has been under POP access. Hope they hook you up soon!

proudmonkey

Even better news from the FAQ: simply moving a message to the Trash from Inbox (on the iPhone or wherever) will archive it in Gmail! This is brilliant because it will let me move through my mail on my iPhone much more quickly. Fantastic!

showergrrl

I don't have the option to enable IMAP in my Gmail account yet but I went ahead and setup the IMAP info anyway in the Mail client on my mac. The incoming mail does not work yet but I am able to send outgoing Gmail messages from Mail.app.

That's pretty cool, but sort of strange that it works for outgoing without having to enable my account isn't it?

rymalia

I've been waiting for this day... Now I'm waiting again for it to be enabled. LOL! The IMAP feature on my PDA, PortableThunderbird as well as the clients I use at home *cough* work *cough* will be happy when my Gmail account(s) get IMAP added!

dalum

So if I'm right, here, it looks like in order to archive messages, all I need to do is "Move Message" -> "[All Mail]. I've only played with this a little as my primary Gmail account doesn't have the feature enabled yet (are they rolling it out in some predictable way?) but I am very, very excited.

showergrrl

bummer that it doesn't support Versamail on the Treos. But cool that it works on the iPhone and Mail.app.

Thunderbird is a good alternative to Outlook if you are needing a full-on IMAP-compliant mail program.

chillywilly

Working on my Gmail Hosted account. Must have shown up in the last two hours.

dnthomps

"Question for Gmail/IMAP users: If a message has TWO labels, does it appear in both folders in your IMAP client?"

Why aren't my messages threaded? ([mail.google.com]) says "Additionally, IMAP clients store a copy of a message for each label in which it appears."

mrmuskrat

What imap desktop clients do you prefer? I use Outlook for my desktop client but have been using it less since using Gmail to POP my email from my personal domain. I tried Outlook IMAP a while back and the interface wasn't very inviting. Is it time to try Thunderbird and move over my years of email archives, contacts, calendar info?

aerialsoul

I have tried it, but I am going to have to turn POP back on. During my 9-5 I connect my MacBook to EVDO and get marginal network performance. IMAP seems to need a lot of bandwidth to initally sync the GMail categories as Folders in Apple Mail. Also, since I have been using Apple Mail (via Gmail POP) for the last year, the folder scheme doesn't really jive with the categories in I used for gmail anymore. So, assuming I can get around the bandwidth issue (sync all folders once over highspeed net?) I will need to reconcile my foldering scheme.

So it works great, but I am not quite ready for it.

proudmonkey

So would this also mean that once I read an email on my Blackberry it will show that it was read in the Gmail inbox. That would be sweet.

brandonbeeson

Nice, Imap added, 4,5gb storage space now, and mobile support improved. (rawr)

MrFloris

I must confess that I'm an absolute noob when it comes to imap. The features described here seem nice, but I still got a couple of questions about it.
- If tags->folders in Imap, what about mails with several tags ? To multiple-tag a mail from your desktop client you'd have to copy it in each folder you want ?
- What about the "archived" mails. Is there a [Gmail]/Archive folder aswell ?

Thanks for the heads up, if someone can give me, and i'm very sorry if I just missed the answers to theses questions somewhere here.

Toupix

Hey, it's not just great for iPhone users too. My ATT Tilt is very happy regarding this news!

fuzzycuffs

This improves gmail on the iPhone quite a bit, however, I still have problems with the semi-imap support that the iphone has.

Is it just my server/phone config? I can delete an email on my pc (exchange) and it updates the iphone, but when i delete an email on the phone, it doesnt delete it from the server. Why? Does gmail imap do this?

James

@trampas:

Did you try using port 587?

Josh Smith

If you are trying to set it up on a Windows Mobile device you can specify ports in the addresses by doing the following.

imap.gmail.com:993
smtp.gmail.com:465

Still waiting for it to be enabled on my account :-(

Josh Smith

I have the option under my account, but either the server is down or my client's network is blocking port 465

trampas

This is absolutely the most rad news I have heard all year. Seriously. A just a few short days after getting the iPhone Mail.app running on my iPod touch.

Finally, email harmony across all platforms and applications.

codykniffen

I am turning backflips.

It_Figures

woohoo! it works! go gmail! no more deleting messages...

btumpak

As soon as it's enabled on my account, I'll give address book syncing over IMAP a try in Thunderbird and report back.

Gina Trapani, Lifehacker Editor

I hope they roll it out for gmail hosted accounts soon! I have two gmail addresses that aren't @gmail.com. Neither of them have it yet. My iPhone will love this, as I currently have to enable POP and delete everything twice. Plus I may start using Apple's Mail program instead of the web interface. But only if I can have threaded messages in Mail.. hmm

Scott D. Feldstein

Now if only they'd enable real time syncing of my address book contacts both ways...without using Microsoft...then I could get rid of my Yahoo account!

ahsrubbery

Now we need a non java client for Smartphones..

Wegmans

Yay!

Maybe I'll actually use gmail now.

wezelboy

Does IMAP download chats as well?

echak

I love my IMAP, but this is taking forever = (

codykniffen

Now I can sync my movable device with gmail, but what if movable device has not much storage as gmail does?
It's really annoying.

xujiyong

Yeah! I just kissed my iPhone. :)

GirlsCantWHAT

Working great for me. One question though; If I'm running this through Thunderbird and I have a few of my other accounts syncing with gmail (AOL, personal, work) and I reply to a message in Thunderbird through my gmail account, will it still follow the rules I set up for replying with the same account that the message was sent to like it does in Gmail?

(Boy that was a mouthful :)

illusionactor

Anyone know how Google is rolling out IMAP? I still don't have it on my gmail account but my friend whose account is new already have it.

BlackBeard

imap gmail today and leopard tomorrow. i think i might be sick.

badsandwich

oh wow,I just realised this means I can (easily) merge all of my pre-gmail emails into my gmail account now too.

badsandwich

the deal breaker for me might be the loss of threaded conversations. Without that, gmail is just another email program. I don't know. IMAP seems more like an offering than anything really cool.

gpzbc

does anyone know how this will affect blackberries?

jon462

@zoli: You can still configure IMAP for offline use, to have a backup for your email. You have to select the folders you wish to back up for offline use, and they will be downloaded too.

Irian

I agree. And I should clarify that I am trying it out in a desktop client. If I had a mobile device to use it with, I would probably be happy as a clam. But I would still say it was an unfinished product. That is, something to immediately satisfy all the iphoners.

gpzbc

@gpzbc: I'm like you, I actually prefer Gmail's web UI, so I won't be using IMAP for a desktop client. But the web experience is still clumsy for most mobile devices, so to sync the client apps on those IMAP is really hepful.
Plus, you can now easily upload all your email archives you ever had in email clients, using IMAP:
[www.zoliblog.com]

zoli

@frobule: IMAP won't give you a local backup. Your email is still stored on Google servers, and you need to stay connected to use it.
For local backup, you need good old POP.

zoli

wow!

This is great because everyone using multiple devices or sharing email addresses like info@domain.com and sales@domain.com will not miss a thing! I'm going to push Google Apps to every client I have and start speaking at events about the benefits to non-profits. I may even be ready to start using Thunderbird again. I agree the gmail interface is clean, simple and fast. With greasemonkey scripts automating things like signatures, it's hard to beat.

I remember when I got my *first* gmail account in the summer of 2004 and there were obvious things missing like the ability to save drafts. Google has learned a great deal about how people use email and has adjusted Gmail to fit. We've seen lables, "View Sent Email", Groups and integrated GTalk. I don't think I will ever stop singing Google's praises.

[www.urbansemiotic.com]

adria.richards

I think it's worthwhile to say that none of this is true outside the US. Here in Italy my Gmail settings still say only POP.

MichaelP

My accounts have this feature, and by default it's already on. It could be because I currently use POP on my account, so gmail set IMAP on automatically.

I have yet to get it to work.

netMASA

Finally, IMAP for Gmail! Can't wait for the next killer feature: the task list. Christmas comes early for us Gmail and Google Apps users ;)

Gonz