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Can I have my GMAIL on both macs?

I

itou

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 16, 2008
222
0
Hi,

I've recently bought myself a Macbook Air and am now wanting to have my Gmail on BOTH macs (not necessarily synced in real time). I've already setup GMAIL to use IMAP but unfortunately, only one (whichever picks it up quicker) receives it and not both.

My Macbook Air is with me at all times during work and the Mac Pro is on all the time at home. I want the Mail app on both computers to have ALL my gmail messages at all times.

Is that possible?

-itou.
 
IMAP should allow you to do this. Make sure pop is disable as well on the setting page in gmail. I have this setup between my mac, pc, and blackberry and works perfectly.
 
I have setup Gmail on the Mail app on multiple computer as well as my iPhone. If you need the screenshots for my Mail app settings let me know. This way you can get all the labels in Gmail as folders in the Mail app. :)
 
a little off the topic but i hate mail.app...right now i am using a gmail app made from fluid that lives only in the menu bar and i love it but it does not itigrate with my osx...any body know of a better mail app besides thunderbird that is free?
 
aidricksdad said:
a little off the topic but i hate mail.app...right now i am using a gmail app made from fluid that lives only in the menu bar and i love it but it does not itigrate with my osx...any body know of a better mail app besides thunderbird that is free?
Click to expand...

So far haven't seen it. Gmail as a web app is the best there is by far. By not integrating with OSX, you mean it doesn't look like an OSX app or that you can't easily just click a mailto link and have it open the compose window in the Gmail web app?
 
He doesn't want IMAP. He wants POP.

I want the Mail app on both computers to have ALL my gmail messages at all times.
Click to expand...

POP will do this. Simply change your account details in mail to use Gmail's POP service and the aforementioned will be accomplished.
 
FRKT said:
He doesn't want IMAP. He wants POP.



POP will do this. Simply change your account details in mail to use Gmail's POP service and the aforementioned will be accomplished.
Click to expand...

I dunno, it sounds like he's after IMAP to me, but I'll grant you that they phrasing is a little ambiguous.

OP: Do you want both Macs to have constantly-update access to all e-mail currently stored in your GMail account, or do you want both Macs to have a copy of all e-mail ever received by your GMail account?
 
FRKT said:
He doesn't want IMAP. He wants POP.



POP will do this. Simply change your account details in mail to use Gmail's POP service and the aforementioned will be accomplished.
Click to expand...

This is incorrect. Once a pop email has been downloaded, it is gone from the server and stored on the local machine and therefore no longer available to be downloaded elsewhere. Imap always keeps the messages on the server and can be downloaded to multiple machines. Imap is what he needs. He must have just set something up wrong.
 
dangerfish said:
This is incorrect. Once a pop email has been downloaded, it is gone from the server and stored on the local machine and therefore no longer available to be downloaded elsewhere.
Click to expand...

This is also incorrect. POP clients don't always remove messages. They can be configured to, but there's no mandate that they tell the server to delete a message after retrieval.
 
You definitely want IMAP. I have the same setup. If you send an email from one machine it will show up in your sent folder on the other machine. Same with downloaded messages. And same if you send/receive through the gmail website. Everything is identical, which is what I'm pretty certain you're after.
 
dangerfish said:
This is incorrect. Once a pop email has been downloaded, it is gone from the server and stored on the local machine and therefore no longer available to be downloaded elsewhere. Imap always keeps the messages on the server and can be downloaded to multiple machines. Imap is what he needs. He must have just set something up wrong.
Click to expand...

That's configuration-speficific. I'm using POP with GMAIL. No mail is deleted in the process of downloading. In the end, it's all both online and local.
 
thank-you for all the responses.

i tried to configure both machines using IMAP and POP and have found IMAP what i'm looking for, although the constant need to sync with Gmail is quite annoying. i've also somehow managed to keep my mac pro's mail.app on POP and it keeps downloading the messages as if they're new. this is good - since that means i'll have the same copy of it on my mac pro as on the air.

at least for now, all three machines (including my blackberry) has gmail on it. i'm sure there are better ways, nor am i 100% sure i've done this correctly, but this is exactly what i need for now, and it works.

i did notice something funky with the IMAP on the air though... it created these bunch of folders that i had on gmail as "labels" that don't show up on POP. they're all in subfolders belonging to my Gmail IMAP they do get annoying. i've deleted all my labels but i still get his "to do" label that i have no idea what it does.
 
itou said:
i did notice something funky with the IMAP on the air though... it created these bunch of folders that i had on gmail as "labels" that don't show up on POP.
Click to expand...
The POP protocol is pretty basic. It was designed with the intent that your email server would only contain an "Inbox", and the "Inbox" would only contain new messages that hadn't been downloaded to your computer. It doesn't have support for server-side folders. And it's virtually impossible to use POP to keep the same email account in sync when multiple devices are used.

IMAP, on the other hand, was designed under the concept that all of your email would stay on the email server, and that you'd be using multiple devices to access it. So you can have server-side folders, and any action you do on a device (like move an email from your inbox to a folder) will eventually get synced back with the server, which in turn will then sync with the other devices that you use to check your mail with.

Most people only use POP when its the only option available (like with Hotmail).

The Mail app on your Mac will always create an Apple Mail To Do folder when you have an IMAP account. This will allow you to check your To Do's from other devices. For example, if you're on gmail, you can use www.gmail.com when you're not on one of your computers, and you can see anything in your To Do folder.

If you go into the "labs" area of gmail, you'll see a tool you can use that lets you control which gmail "labels" you want to show up as folders in IMAP.
 
ppc750fx said:
This is also incorrect. POP clients don't always remove messages. They can be configured to, but there's no mandate that they tell the server to delete a message after retrieval.
Click to expand...

Other way around. The POP protocol, by default, specifies that messages will be deleted after they have been downloaded.

Most (practically all) clients to override the behavior and allow you to leave copies on the server, but there is no mandate that they allow this.
 
portent said:
Other way around. The POP protocol, by default, specifies that messages will be deleted after they have been downloaded.
Click to expand...

No it doesn't. At least it doesn't in RFC 1939.

In fact, from section 8 of that RFC:

Code: 
      Clients must not assume that a site policy will automate message
      deletions, and should continue to explicitly delete messages using
      the DELE command when appropriate.
 
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