[kieran]

Google has turned on IMAP, not for all accounts yet though.

TUAW post

I'm going to try this out on my iPhone and see how I like it. I'm going to keep POP enabled for Mail.app on my iMac so I have a local copy of important emails, but have IMAP on the iPhone.

Does that sound like a good plan? Does anyone recommend anything differently?

[Eugene]

Why use POP at all? You can easily convert your Mail.app mailbox to IMAP and just copy important messages to a local folder.

I don't see the IMAP option on my Gmail account yet, otherwise I'd turn it on in a heartbeat.

[kieran]

Some people have been able to get this turned on for them by logging out and then back in, from comments on TUAW.

My account has always seemed to be one of the first to get a new "feature" turned on, whatever it may be.

[iThink therefore iMac]

IMAP isn't available on my account yet. They do have a section about enabling IMAP in the help section, so hopefully everyone will have this function soon!

[macuser256]

Yeah I don't have it yet either... frustrating.... i like IMAP

[MCQ]

Originally Posted by kieran23kk Google has turned on IMAP, not for all accounts yet though. TUAW post I'm going to try this out on my iPhone and see how I like it. I'm going to keep POP enabled for Mail.app on my iMac so I have a local copy of important emails, but have IMAP on the iPhone. Does that sound like a good plan? Does anyone recommend anything differently?

If you like to keep most of your e-mail around and don't delete very often, then you might be using a decent chunk of space on the iPhone depending on your mailbox size.

If the above is the case, I'd actually do it the opposite way - IMAP on your computers, and POP:recent on the iPhone.

[kieran]

I keep all the email I want to save on my iMac. I pretty much delete everything on my iPhone. I don't like to have them taking up space on the phone when they're already on my iMac at home.

I just like being able to read the incoming emails as I get them on my phone. I just hate going home and having to go through all of them again.

[macuser256]

I still don't have an IMAP option on my gmail account. What's the deal!?

[ghoti]

The intern has to get around to clicking the right checkbox for your account. But seriously, they seem to be rolling this out slowly, it's not showing on my account yet, either. It's a cool thing though, to be sure.

[julesstoop]

Gmail turns on IMAP

And IMAP should be very happy about this!

[Banana]

How to tell if you are a geek

#321. You can detect machine's mating behavior

[macuser256]

WHAT THE HECK!? I still don't have IMAP on either of my gmail accounts. Boo I'm very disappointed.

[digitaldave]

Originally Posted by macuser256 WHAT THE HECK!? I still don't have IMAP on either of my gmail accounts. Boo I'm very disappointed.

It'll take time. Patience .

[Xaqtly]

Yeah yeah yeah, patience. How long will that take?






(lifted from the Boot to the head sketch from The Frantics)

[iThink therefore iMac]

I'm hoping that I have access by tomorrow afternoon so that I can use it with Leopard.

[pscates2.0]

Can someone give a quick, 2-3 sentence, plain-English breakdown of POP vs. IMAP. I think I know the differences, but I may not be right on it all.

I'm a .Mac user, and my PowerBook and iPhone seem to sync automatically (if I delete or save an e-mail on my PowerBook, that action is reflected on the iPhone as well, and vice versa). They seem to mirror each other perfectly. Is that what this is about, vs. having to manually save/copy things over to different places?

Just pretend you're talking to a three-year-old from Neptune...

[tomoe]

They have 3 year olds on Neptune?

[pscates2.0]

You're talking to one. So answer the question...

Is this something unique - and desired - for web-based services? Others are POP-based, for the most part?

[kieran]

I was thinking the same thing Paul. I just need an easy to understand primer on what each one is and which one is better (in most opinions, I've seen people go nuts about how much better IMAP is).

I just want to know why I should use it.

[autodata]

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 Can someone give a quick, 2-3 sentence, plain-English breakdown of POP vs. IMAP. I think I know the differences, but I may not be right on it all. I'm a .Mac user, and my PowerBook and iPhone seem to sync automatically (if I delete or save an e-mail on my PowerBook, that action is reflected on the iPhone as well, and vice versa). They seem to mirror each other perfectly. Is that what this is about, vs. having to manually save/copy things over to different places? Just pretend you're talking to a three-year-old from Neptune...

With POP you download the new incoming messages to your local computer and do everything on the local machine. Your in box, sent emails, drafts, trash and everything else are all on your local machine and you only use the server to basically route the messages. With IMAP, it's more like using webmail in a browser, but instead of the browser you use your mail client. Everything is on the server.

There's a bit more to it, but the basic idea is that with POP everything happens on your local machine while with IMAP it happens on the server. You can still do stuff offline with IMAP, though, since you can set your client to keep a local cache of everything from the server.

[noleli2]

Hmm...the idea of using IMAP to locally cache all your mail got me thinking...could general IMAP access just be a happy side-effect of them planning to use IMAP from Google Gears for offline webmail access?

[sirnick4]

I WANT MY IMAP, GOOGLE!!1!1!

</rant>

[Mac+]

GMail goes IMAP... hmmm phone OS anyone?

[Xaqtly]

My account has IMAP now. Excellent.

[iThink therefore iMac]

Yep...Just enabled for me too. Perfect timing for Leopard tomorrow.

[macuser256]

FOOEY! my spam email account has it enabled now, but my real one... NO DICE!!! All i do these days is wait for technology. waiting for leopard... waiting for IMAP gmail... I'M SICK OF WAITING


</rant>

[FFL]

still waiting for mine to enable... but it's not a big deal, it's my "throwaway" address and I only check it via webmail every so often unless I'm expecting something.

[PB PM]

Works for me.

[Reid]

Originally Posted by autodata With POP you download the new incoming messages to your local computer and do everything on the local machine. Your in box, sent emails, drafts, trash and everything else are all on your local machine and you only use the server to basically route the messages. With IMAP, it's more like using webmail in a browser, but instead of the browser you use your mail client. Everything is on the server. There's a bit more to it, but the basic idea is that with POP everything happens on your local machine while with IMAP it happens on the server. You can still do stuff offline with IMAP, though, since you can set your client to keep a local cache of everything from the server.

This is a very good explanation of the technical aspects, but the big reason people really like IMAP's server-centric system is that it does a better job of syncing up the status of messages if you check your mail from multiple places. Here's what I mean...

POP: I get a message on Gmail, log into the webmail client at work, and read the message. 15 minutes later, my iPhone buzzes in my pocket with a notification that I have new mail; the same message, which I now have to read or delete on the iPhone. When I get home and open up Mail.app on my iMac, the message downloads and is still marked as "new"--despite the fact that I've already read it twice--so I have to mark it as "read" again, or delete it again.

IMAP: I get a message on Gmail, and no matter where I read it or delete it--webmail, Mail.app, or iPhone Mail, it will be marked as read or deleted in all the other applications I use to check my e-mail.

[Jason]

Still waiting. Do they work weekends?