“Google has finally begun offering IMAP access for users of its free email service. The company on Tuesday offered instructions on how users can enable IMAP access on their accounts, allowing users to organize email into folders, save drafts, and access sent mail from multiple clients,” MacNN reports.
“The Mountain View-based company has [also] posted instructions on using the new IMAP features on Apple’s [iPhone],” MacNN reports.
“The documentation notes that Gmail’s IMAP service supports SSL for both incoming (i.e. browsing) and outgoing mail; however it is unclear whether the service currently supports the Blackberry-like ‘push’-style email, which notifies users upon receipt of any email. Currently, only Yahoo! Mail supports ‘push’ email notifications to the iPhone (rather than periodic/timed checking),” MacNN reports.
Full article with links here.
As someone who missed this kind of email from .Mac — this is the greatest update ever for Gmail.
Works flawlessly with my Google Apps domain account… great day indeed.
Push email would be good. Can’t see Google being left behind Yahoo for long, can you?
My Gmail account doesn’t have the section for enabling IMAP yet… 🙁
Sounds great, but I don’t see have an IMAP option in my gmail settings. Just as before the only options are Forwarding and POP. Perhaps this is a rolling release…? Any one else not have the IMAP option?
If you can’t see the setting for IMAP, change your language in your settings to English (US) and voila!
Just did it to my account and it’s working like a charm
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” /> Thanks Google! Wanted this for a while…
Awww.. a few weeks too late. GMail was such a disappointment for being a “partnered” service to the iPhone, that I left it behind and went to Yahoo.
Sorry, fellas. Try to stay on your game next time.
–Rob
Mine’s there.
Under Settings>Forwarding and POP/IMAP:
IMAP Access:
(access Gmail from other clients using IMAP)
1. Status: IMAP is disabled
Enable IMAP
Disable IMAP
2. Configure your email client (e.g. Outlook, Thunderbird, iPhone)
P.S. Jim is right. I just changed my settings to French and the IMAP option went away. It came back when switched back to English (US).
the whole change the language thing didn’t work for me. tried it several times
I think they roll the feature out slowly so not everyone gets it all at once. You should probably have it by the end of the next day or two.
I’m not seeing the IMAP option yet, either. Using Safari to access, USEnglish for language. No IMAP option.
I’m sure it’s not just a switch that they can push and everyone all of a sudden gets IMAP access. I think they are introducing it for everyone’s account in a sequential manner, meaning that some people are going to have it a little later than others.
Or google hates you. And me.
be careful about switching over to IMAP without first doing some cleaning up of your sent/junk folders.
Since Gmail keeps just about everything it will take Mail forever to import all of those old messages.
They’re rolling it out slowly: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/free-imap-for-gmail.html.
Yay for IMAP!!
@ Acetylcholinesterase
I still got nothin’. Under Settings>Forwarding and POP/IMAP, mine only says Under Settings>Forwarding and POP. Guess I have to wait a while longer. This is great, though, because Gmail on POP on the iPhone behaved very badly sometimes. Hope this clears it up.
@PC Apologist – I thought the same thing when I setup my yahoo acct. Difference is that Yahoo does not offer IMAP for Mail clients (OSX Mail, Thunderbird, Outlook, etc). Just the iPhone. This is where google comes in with IMAP support for both!
Awesome news from Google!
Maybe Google is working with Santa, ATampersandT and the NSA to determine who gets the upgrade. I have it on good authority that some of you have been pretty freakin’ naughty. <wags finger>
Maybe this will get rid of the dreaded “This message has not been downloaded from the server” problem that I get with gmail.
If you download your message from the server, you won’t get that error message.
If the phone downloaded the POP3 email header and say you later deleted the email from another mail client which removed the the message from the server and then tried to view that same message again on the iPhone, you would get that “This message…” error.
IMAP will definitely fix this! I’ve had the same issue with my Comcast POP account since iPhone Day 1. I tried Yahoo’s IMAP, but it is half ass. Works great on the phone, doesn’t work on a Mail Client such as OS X Mail, Thunderbird, etc. GMail finally has the full package!
Right you are — no Yahoo IMAP on desktop clients, but I just use webmail. Used it for GMAIL, too, and was maaaaad when they didn’t bother to offer (or even promise) a decent solution for the iPhone, after going to the trouble of sponsoring a special “Mail Account Type” on the iPhone.
This is great but I am already using Fastmail.fm which is really the best IMAP provider out there. I’d love to get IMAP for my gmail (when my account is enabled) but have been using Fastmail and it is still the most full featured out there.
I don’t work for them but am just recommending them as they work flawlessly with my Mac stuff. You can even do a WebDAV mount a-la .Mac for the file storage portion.
I know many/most have likely done this, but try logging out of your gmail account first.
This is what I did last night when the imap settings weren’t visible. Looged back in and bingo, when I went into settings it was there. Works flawlessly on my hacked iPod Touch.
http://iphone-support.blogspot.com : iPhone support, iphone tips, iphone tools