Use Gmail As a POP3 Account

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Use Gmail As a POP3 Account
By Preston Gralla

Gmail is a Web-based e-mail service, but if you can also use your normal e-mail software to send and receive mail from it. It's a two-step process: First configure Gmail, and then configure your e-mail software to use Gmail.

In Gmail, click Settings and then click the "Forwarding and POP" link at the top of the page. The nearby screen appears.

If you want your e-mail software to retrieve all the e-mail you've ever received on Gmail, choose "Enable POP for all mail." Be careful before making this choice, because you could end up downloading hundreds of megabytes of mail when you make your first connection to Gmail using your e-mail software. Keep in mind that even if you have only a few messages in your Inbox, that's not all the e-mail you have in your Gmail account. You might have hundreds or thousands of messages in your Archives folder.

If you choose "Enable POP only for mail that arrives from now on," only those messages you receive after this point will be downloaded to your e-mail software.

Next, make your choice about what should happen to your Gmail messages: Should they be kept on the Gmail server, and if they are, should they be kept in the inbox or in the archived mail? Here are your choices.

Keep Gmail's copy in the Inbox

This will leave all new mail on the Gmail server, and leave it in your inbox. That way, even after you download it to your PC, it will stay in the Gmail inbox on the Web, as if you hadn't read it.

Archive Gmail's copy

This will leave all new e-mail on the Gmail server, but instead of putting it into your inbox, it will move it to your archived mail. So, whenever you visit Gmail on the Web, if you want to see the mail, go to your Archive.

Trash Gmail's copy

This will move all the messages to your Trash, where it will be cleaned out by Gmail on a regular basis.

Now it's time to configure your e-mail program to get your Gmail mail. You set it up as you do any other new mail account. For your POP3 server, use pop.gmail.com, and for your SMTP server, use smtp.gmail.com. When setting it up, make sure to tell your software to use a secure connection (SSL) for both SMTP and POP3.

Here's how you would set up Microsoft Outlook for POP3 Gmail. After you've enabled POP3 access in Gmail, launch Outlook and choose ToolsE-mail Accounts. Choose "Add a new e-mail account" and click Next. From the Server Type screen that appears, choose "POP3" and click Next. On the screen that appears next, enter your Gmail name, your e-mail address, and your username and password. In the Incoming Server (POP3) box, type "pop.gmail.com," and in the Outgoing mail server box, type "smtp.gmail.com." Check the box next to "Remember password."

Now, click More Settings and then choose the Advanced tab. In both the POP3 and SMTP sections, check the box next to "This server requires an encrypted connection (SSL)." When you do that, the port numbers for the servers will change. For POP3, the port number should change from 110 to 995. If it doesn't, type 995 in the Incoming Server (POP3) box. For SMTP, type 465 in the Outgoing Server (SMTP) box. Now click the Outgoing Server tab. Check the box next to "My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication." Select "Use same settings as my incoming mail server." Click OK. Click Next and then Finish. You should now be able to send and receive mail using Gmail.

Import Your Contacts into Gmail

You've most likely got dozens or hundreds of contacts in your existing e-mail software. The last thing you want to have to do is retype them all into Gmail. You don't have to, if you use this tip—you can import contacts into Gmail from your e-mail software. Gmail can import contacts in the comma-separated values (CSV) format, so first you have to export your contacts into a CSV file and then import them into Gmail.

How you export your contacts varies according to your e-mail software. In Outlook, choose File->Import and Export, and the Import and Export Wizard launches. Choose "Export to a file," click Next, and from the screen that appears, choose "Comma Separated Values (Windows)." From the next screen, choose your Contacts folder, and click Next.

From the screen that appears, give the file a name (a .csv extension will be automatically added to it), browse to the folder where you want to save it, and click Next and then Finish. Your contacts will be aved in the .csv file.

Now that you have the file ready, go to your Gmail account and click Contacts on the left side of the screen. Click Import from the upper-right side of the page that appears. Click the Browse button; then, navigate to the folder where you've exported your contacts, select it, and click Open. Click Import Contacts.

After a minute or more, depending on the speed of your Internet connection and how many contacts you're importing, you'll get a message telling you that your contacts have been imported, and listing the total number of contacts you've imported. Click the Close button. Now your contacts will be available in Gmail. To see them, on the Contact screen click All Contacts.

Source: [url=\"http://www.pcmag.com\"]PC Magazine[/url]