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Use Gmail and IMAP to Access Your POP3 Email from Anywhere on Multiple Devices/Clients, and Get Great Spam Filtering at the Same Time

• You want to access your email from multiple devices such as a mobile phone, home computer, and the web.
• You want your mail to synchronize between all devices so, for example, a message sent from any device will show in the sent folder on all devices.
• You want better spam filtering.
• You want a backup of your email.
  

• You have one or more POP3 email accounts.
  
• You have the ability to forward incoming mail sent to the POP3 accounts to some other email address.
• You have some other email address, either another POP3 address or some other web based email address, to use as a secondary email address for Gmail.
  

• Create a new Gmail email address.
• Forward your POP3 email address to the new Gmail address.
• Configure the Gmail account to be able to send mail as your POP3 email address.
• Configure the Gmail account to enable IMAP support.
• Setup your devices to access your new Gmail account.
• Configure your devices to use the Gmail folders for Sent Mail, Drafts, and Junk/Spam mail.
• Copy your old mail into your new Gmail account.
  

• Visit Gmail and click on the "Sign up for Gmail" link.
• Fill out the form to create your new Gmail address.
• Enter your secondary email address. This address can be used to recover your Gmail password if you ever forget it.

• How you forward your POP3 mail will depend on where you get your POP3 email from. You'll need to do this part with whatever service you use to get your POP3 email.

• In Gmail, click on Settings and then Accounts. Click the link to add another email address, and enter your POP3 email address. Don't bother specifying another "reply-to" address, you actually want replies sent to your POP3 address.
• Check your Gmail inbox. You should receive a message from Gmail with a link. If you receive this email, which Gmail actually sent to your POP3 address, it means your POP3 address is forwarding to the Gmail account correctly.
  
• Click on the link in the email to verify that your Gmail account may send mail as your POP3 address.

• In Gmail, click on Settings and then "Forwarding and POP/IMAP". Choose the option to enable IMAP, and click Save Changes.

• In Gmail, click on Settings and then "Forwarding and POP/IMAP". Click on the "Configuration Instruction" link.
• Choose the instructions for whatever device you're using, such as your iPhone, Thunderbird, or Outlook.
• To ensure that your outgoing email appears to come from your POP3 email address, make sure to use your POP3 email address in the "email address" field, but use your Gmail address in the Incoming/Outgoing email address fields. This will ensure that the email appears to come from the POP3 email address, which Gmail will allow because you configured it above to allow it to send mail as this address. Using your POP3 address as your email address will also ensure that replies go back to your POP3 address.
• Configure the correct incoming port for your device according to the instructions.
• Configure the correct outgoing port for your device according to the instructions.
• Check that your incoming and outgoing connection is secure with either SSL or TSL, again according to the specific instructions for your device. Some devices, such as the iPhone, do this automatically.

• Depending on what devise you're using, the specific instructions will differ. The objective is to ensure that the mail is being saved or moved to the Gmail folder, and not being saved on the local client device. When mail is saved or moved to a Gmail folder, the folder with sync correctly with your other devices, so your sent mail, drafts, and trash appear in every device you're using.
  
• Check your new Gmail account using the device, and be sure that messages are arriving correctly. Do this by sending a message to your POP3 address from some other email address, and confirming that it's actually arriving in your inbox on the client device.
• Then configure the account to use the Gmail version of your sent, draft, and junk/spam folders.

• Use your existing email client to copy the messages from your old POP3 account into the folder in your Gmail account. If you've been using Thunderbird, this is as simple as dragging and dropping the messages from your old inbox to the new Gmail inbox. Same goes for the Sent mail folder, and any drafts you have.
  

posted by Kevin Watts |  Permalink |