POP3 and Antivirus Coming for Google's GMail

[MacBytes]

Category: News and Press Releases
Link: POP3 and Antivirus Coming for Google\'s GMail
Posted on MacBytes.com

Approved by Mudbug

[PlaceofDis]

almost brought a smile to my face, i have three Gmail accounts, one for friends and family, one for school/work stuff, and one for spam/newsletters that crap

POP3 will let me use mail or thunderbird to manage all three! yes! this is what i have been waiting for!

hopefully Gmail will only improve as time goes by

[rikers_mailbox]

POP3 support for GMail? How will Google continue to lure advertisers when e-mails can be viewed and saved client-side?

If it's true, that's a loss of a big revenue source for Google. . .

[nagromme]

Maybe ads get attached after the body?

(Ideally it would be done by embedding in a way that wouldn't be repeated in quotes. Maybe not possible. Perhaps a 4-color remote-served GIF... easily blocked )

[munkle]

The article hints that POP will be free but doesn't specify whether it will remain free, especially after the beta testing phase is done. If they provide free POP3 access that really would be something and might force other email providers to do the same, similar to what happened with increased storage. Free POP3 certainly would make GMail a lot more useful to me, here's hoping.

[Santaduck]

Originally Posted by rikers_mailbox

POP3 support for GMail? How will Google continue to lure advertisers when e-mails can be viewed and saved client-side?

If it's true, that's a loss of a big revenue source for Google. . .

yes i'm very curious how this will be implemented.

however, kudos to them for making gmail even more irresistible...

[Nermal]

It's POP, not IMAP. Usually with POP, you download your email and it gets removed from the server. It'll be interesting to see what Google does.

[bennetsaysargh]

i think that gmail is going to force better email for all because they are providing features that are just great. it says that calanders are planned somewhere in the future, iCal support? doe anyone know how to directly upload vCards to gmail? you have to use a different kind. does anyone have and hints on how to convert this? is anyone else having problems with their gmail and pop access? i can't seem to get it to work.

wow, that was the worst paragraph ever typed, and most confused one as well.

[macridah]

Originally Posted by Nermal

It's POP, not IMAP. Usually with POP, you download your email and it gets removed from the server. It'll be interesting to see what Google does.

Most email clients give you the option to leave messages on server.

[macridah]

The thing i like about gmail, is that on the web version, it keeps conversations (threads) of emails combined. This really saves space and time sorting through your mail. When you check your .mac account on the web, it doesn't combine the discussions to a thread. I wish the webmail and mail client were as identical as possible ... i know the webmail account should be able to combine email threads, gmail does. Come on .mac engineers.

[shamino]

Originally Posted by macridah

Most email clients give you the option to leave messages on server.

Yeah, but who would want to use that with a mailbox the size of GMail?

You go to visit a friend/relative, check your mail for the first time on their computer, and end up downloading 50,000 messages just so you can read the three new ones.

POP3 and "leave on server" really do not make for a useful long-term solution.

If you want a mail system where messages remain on the server, IMO, you really need to use IMAP or some other similar protocol.

[michaelrjohnson]

Originally Posted by shamino

Yeah, but who would want to use that with a mailbox the size of GMail?

You go to visit a friend/relative, check your mail for the first time on their computer, and end up downloading 50,000 messages just so you can read the three new ones.

POP3 and "leave on server" really do not make for a useful long-term solution.

If you want a mail system where messages remain on the server, IMO, you really need to use IMAP or some other similar protocol.

Exactly. Google's POP3 rollout is great, however, in order for it to be user-friendly by today's standards, IMAP is the only way to go. It allows for the use of a variety of methods for the user to check their email. Hopefully IMAP isn't far off!

[rikers_mailbox]

Here's another article with more details on GMail's rollout of POP3. One quote:

A*Google spokesman said while Gmail users were served up text ads that appeared next to the body text of messages, ads would not appear with messages downloaded via Pop3 to the client e-mail applications.

Wow.

[edesignuk]

Thing is, just by offering POP3 they save themselves money in not having to store peoples mail, so I can understand how they could do it for no cost and with no ads. But if they were to use IMAP they wouldn't gain anything anywhere (no ads, and no saving money on disk space).

[sjk]

Originally Posted by shamino

POP3 and "leave on server" really do not make for a useful long-term solution.

Really.

[munkle]

Here's a useful link from the good people at macosxhints on how to configure mail.app for GMail POP access.

My GMail accounts haven't been upgraded yet, keeping my fingers crossed!

[Sabbath]

Yay, my gmail is now working through POP. Although it has plenty of messages to download! This is great, a reliable free pop account with loads of storage!

[sjk]

Gmail POP3 seems to ignore the "Delete after Local Expunge" option in Mulberry, which I'd hoped would provide a way to selectively remove messages from Gmail without using the web interface.

Bring on IMAP support.

[rueyeet]

Originally Posted by shamino

POP3 and "leave on server" really do not make for a useful long-term solution.

Not only that, but the whole POINT of Gmail is to be able to leave all your messages in your inbox. I can see wanting to have new GMail messages show up in the same client as your other email accounts, but I wouldn't actually want to manage a GMail account that way. The whole GMail difference, to me, is the ability to accumulate messages endlessly, and manage them through labels, conversations, and search. It's actually a completely different way of doing email, and I don't think it's really compatible with either POP or IMAP in the long run.

[sjk]

Originally Posted by rueyeet

Not only that, but the whole POINT of Gmail is to be able to leave all your messages in your inbox.

Maybe that's your point, but after I've "processed" messages (with Gmail or any other mail system) I archive or trash them so they don't clutter the inbox(es).

I like not having to be concerned with folder hierarchies in Gmail but it's still missing some key features that could make it more efficient to manage large volumes of messages. Label hierarchies would sometimes be useful, while allowing conversations to retain multiple labels (like they currently can). And the ability to search/filter on specific header fields since that's often valuable metadata for determining how to handle messages.

I agree that Gmail doesn't interact well with POP and IMAP protocols.

[thecow]

What's wrong with just logging in through the web? Gmail has one of the best web interfaces that i've seen. Also, you don't really need to organize the emails because it has a search function.

[munkle]

Originally Posted by thecow

What's wrong with just logging in through the web? Gmail has one of the best web interfaces that i've seen. Also, you don't really need to organize the emails because it has a search function.

Simply because:

1) It takes longer to log on than to have new e-mail directed to your mail client.
2) POP will notify you as soon as you have new e-mail to save you from logging on constantly and logging on to check even when you don't have mail.
3) You have your messages off line, saving you from logging on just to read old messages.
4) You can draft messages off line.
5) Tighter integration with other iLife apps.
6) Easier and quicker to organise and search through your e-mail.
7) Better junk mail filtering.
8) Ability to control more than one e-mail address through one interface.

And on and on, So basically it comes down to time and ease of use, why would anybody rather log on through the web?!

[edesignuk]

Originally Posted by munkle

1) It takes longer to log on than to have new e-mail directed to your mail client.

Hmmm...not so sure, GMail is VERY fast.

2) POP will notify you as soon as you have new e-mail to save you from logging on constantly and logging on to check even when you don't have mail.

There is an official app from GMail for Windows, and several 3rd party apps for OS X that tell you when you have new mail without needing to login.

3) You have your messages off line, saving you from logging on just to read old messages.

OK, I'll give you that

4) You can draft messages off line.

And that

5) Tighter integration with other iLife apps.

OK, and that

6) Easier and quicker to organise and search through your e-mail.

No way, the way gmail organises your emails as conversations, and the search ability is fantastic!

7) Better junk mail filtering.

I get spam in Mail.app, none in my gmail

8) Ability to control more than one e-mail address through one interface.

OK, I'll have to give you that as well.

POP is now enabled on my account, but there's no reason for me to use it. The web interface is excellent, and it means everything is exactly the same no matter where I log on (contacts etc).

[sjk]

Originally Posted by thecow

What's wrong with just logging in through the web?

Who said anything was wrong?

Gmail has one of the best web interfaces that i've seen.

I agree, but my desktop e-mail environment is still more powerful/flexible/efficient than Gmail's webmail.

In Gmail, you can't open messages in a new browser tabs/windows directly from the main message list window. That makes viewing messages in non-sequential order awkward because you have to return to the list window between each message. Nearly every webmail interface works best for handling messages sequentially. I prefer interfaces that allow them to be easily handled in random order, too.

Also, you don't really need to organize the emails because it has a search function.

Maybe you don't.

E-mail search results can be too sloppy. And moving back and forth between messages/conversations and search results in the Gmail interface is inefficient, like I described above. I don't need (or even like) traditional folders but Gmail lacks saved searches (maybe call 'em smart labels) as an organizational tool. And search/filter criteria is too restrictive, as I mentioned in my previous post.

Sometimes it's useful putting certain things in specific places for the sake of making it easy to find them later without needing to search for them. Other times, when things don't "fit" anywhere specifically, it's useful having good methods to searc for them without concern for location. There's probably a spatial vs. non-spatial analogy in there somewhere...

I think Gmail's interface is fine for a certain subset of my e-mail but right now it's an insufficient complete replacement for handling all of it.

[Mike Teezie]

Grrr....

Mail won't connect to pop.gmail.com.

Everytime I open Mail, I get the welcome to Mail box, and it won't let me into any other preferences windows. When I fill out the info I can, I try to connect, and I get the spinning beach ball, and have to force quit.

Is it doing this because I have no other accounts set up within Mail?