Gmail Introduces IMAP, Our Email Lives Gets Much Easier
How To Use IMAP With GMail
Gmail revolutionised free e-mail when it was first released, this week with the introduction of the IMAP e-mail access protocol they’ve just taken it to a whole new level.
What is IMAP
IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol and it is everything to e-mail access that POP3 is not. IMAP basically only allows one copy of an internet message (e-mail) to be kept. In short this means whatever you do to that message reflects across every e-mail client you use.
How Does GMail Introducing IMAP Benefit Me?
It all depends on how you access your e-mail. If like me you like to use Outlook, a Mobile phone, GMail’s web interface depending on where you are then it means no more duplicate messages or worrying if you’ve already dealt with an e-mail. Whatever you do in one client (e.g. your phone) will be reflected across the board. I used to spend 20 minutes every day just marking as read messages that I had dealt with, for mobile professionals the introduction of a free IMAP system is huge. Not only that but GMail provides you with more than enough storage to make it worth while. If you’ve only ever previously used POP3 to download a copy of the e-mail your in for a treat!