Gmail, provided by Google, is probably one of the best free email services in the world, not just because it’s free, or because it provides over 6.3 GB of email account space and growing, but because Gmail allows FREE access through the use of remote protocols like POP and IMAP. This means you can use an email client you already use to download and view all your mail accounts at once. Today we’ll walk through setting up Windows Mail on Windows Vista. These instructions could also be used for setting up Outlook Express on Windows XP, Windows 2000, or even Windows 2003.

Note: Before you can use POP or IMAP with Gmail, you must first configure your Gmail account to allow POP and IMAP. Click here for instructions.

Start Windows Mail, then click Tools –> Accounts.

Now click Add.

Click E-mail Account.

POP SETUP

The setup wizard will walk you through setting up both POP (POP3), and IMAP. First we’ll setup POP, then later in the article IMAP. There are differences. POP downloads a copy of the email to your computer. IMAP allows you to view email on the server without downloading it. Use your Gmail address, and enter pop.gmail.com and smtp.gmail.com as shown below. Check the box for Outgoing server requires authentication. Google uses authentication to prevent open SMTP relay spam. Choose POP3 for Incoming mail.

Once the wizard finishes you’ll see the General tab. You can change the label of your account to whatever you like. I used Gmail account POP. Don’t forget to fill in the Reply address, so recipients of you emails can hit reply and have your email already filled in.

Your Servers tab settings should look like the one below.

Under the Advanced tab make sure you change the port setting for SMTP to 465, and POP3 to 995. Gmail uses non-standard ports to avoid spam, and other abuse problems.

The POP, or POP3, protocol has a special feature. Rather than just downloading email to your machine then deleting it off the server, you can set it to leave a copy of the mail on the server for a specified number of days. This way you can collect email at work, and at home without losing any email.

Below is an example of an email collected from Gmail in Windows Mail using using the POP protocol.

Click Here for Page 2.

The Google free email service Gmail has grown exponentially in popularity since it was first launched, and one reason for this is the ability to use Gmail any way you want. Gmail allows you to stay organized by giving you the ability to collect your email alongside any other email service using programs like Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail, Eudora, Netscape Mail, Thunderbird, iPhone, and more through the use of POP or IMAP. There are some differences between POP and IMAP. POP allows you to remotely download mail from a remote server, and after downloading it your program, i.e. Outlook, can delete the mail on the remote server, or it can leave the mail on the server for a specified period of time. IMAP allows your program, i.e. Outlook, to remotely view your mail and the mail folders located on a remote server, drag and drop between folders, etc. IMAP is just a way to remote view your email and folders on the remote server, and does not download the emails, for that you’d need to use POP if you want a permanent copy.

Before you can setup your email client for POP or IMAP you’ll first need to configure your Gmail account settings to allow those protocols to be used. Click here to login to Gmail, then click on Settings in the top right corner.

Click on the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.

Enable both POP and IMAP. For POP you have several choices. I set it to Enable POP for all mail.

After enabling POP you’ll need to choose how you want Gmail to store your email, since you won’t be visiting Gmail much from now on. I selected keep Gmail’s copy in the Inbox. If you use POP you might set it to delete the mail after your email client downloads it, and if you’re using IMAP you can manage all you email as if you were logged in with Internet Explorer by dragging and dropping mail to another folder if you want. You can always change these settings later to suit how you want to keep your mail organinzed.

Now Save Changes. If you go back to the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab you’ll notice the Status: POP is enabled for all mail that has arrived since a specified date.

Now Gmail is ready to receive POP and IMAP requests from your email client. Don’t worry about filling up your account since Gmail currently offers 6.337 GB of account space, which increases regularly. This sure beats the 5 MB of email account space provided back when the web was first born.