In what it is billing as "e-mail portability," Google Inc. is opening access to its Gmail e-mail service from desktop clients and mobile devices. On Wednesday, the company began providing free POP3 (Post Office Protocol 3) access on Gmail accounts. The rollout is expected to reach all users over the next two weeks, said George Harik, director of Googlettes, the name of the Google group overseeing its startup services.
"This [access] is an important part of e-mail because of all the things not enabled by Web-based e-mail," Harik said. POP3 access, for example, allows users to read Gmail messages while they are offline and on mobile devices that support the standard, Harik said. POP3 is a standard protocol for receiving e-mail and communicating between an e-mail server and client. Most major e-mail clients, such as Microsoft Outlook, support the standard, as do competing Web-based e-mail services such as Yahoo Inc.'s mail.
News source: eWeek
"This [access] is an important part of e-mail because of all the things not enabled by Web-based e-mail," Harik said. POP3 access, for example, allows users to read Gmail messages while they are offline and on mobile devices that support the standard, Harik said. POP3 is a standard protocol for receiving e-mail and communicating between an e-mail server and client. Most major e-mail clients, such as Microsoft Outlook, support the standard, as do competing Web-based e-mail services such as Yahoo Inc.'s mail.
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Ben Goodger has updated his Blog with some interesting stuff concerning the 1.0 release. Read the whole entry here.
This day has come a lot later than any of us originally planned, but that's the way software goes. I've learned a lot about a huge number of things in the process, have had the opportunity to talk to a lot of different people about their experiences with the software, etc. It's been a long road but we're finally here. No software is perfect, we did not fix every bug, implement every feature, but what we did do was create what we believe to be the best browser around. I want to thank you all again for the support over the past few years.
We also asked Ben what the progress was after 1.0 :
"After 1.0 we plan to resync our development work with the Mozilla trunk so that we can immediately pick up the great work that's been going on with Gecko since we've been away, continue our HIG compliance efforts for MacOS X, improve existing systems and plan for the next major release. The first interim release will be 1.1 in or around March 2005. ".

Hope it works good. Not as Spymac or most other 1gig mails.
Is it something like you have access to the mail in a client such as Outlook yet still have access to all the mail kept on Googles servers. E.g. if you format, set up the IMAP settings in Outlook you can see all your Gmail?
I've not really got a clue to be honest.
yes... i know you can configure pop3 to leave the messages in the server... but its still not synchronizing
fjv.
Roll on imap
You have the default folders which are normally Inbox, Sent, Drafts and Trash. These server side folders and linked to the folders in your client, Outlook for example. Any extra folders you make in the client are also made on the server and if you move a message on the client it also moves it on the server, etc.
Like I said it is basically a mirror of the email server. You can save a copy of the emails locally so you don't need to be online to read them and compose new ones, etc. so it has the benefits of a local client however it can also be accessed and be in exactly the same state via another client in a different location or via a web interface so it has the benefits of a web/non-local system.
It was designed for more business users/users who move around and use multiple computers however it is really helpful for when you format etc.
Until recently IMAP was not all that amazing as you had to archive off (remove from the server but store locally) old email as you had limited space (normally 100MB MAX, which if you are storing EVERY email on the server that can disappear quickly!).
As Gmail is offering 1GB space isn't really an issue. IMAP for Gmail would be an excellent email service. I hope Google offer a paid service for Gmail without them reading, sorry scanning, your email to display relevant ads.
£30 a year for an ad free service with IMAP and Gmail would rock the socks off all other email services. Right now all it is is an email service with a lot of space, a clever but not amazing design and privacy issues! I like the threaded message style but it screws up with messages from forums, etc. It needs a lot of work but it is in beta so I won't write it off yet
How about Fastmail? US$19.95/year for 600 MB or $39.95/year for 2 GB.
Edit: Post editor
Yea, I just checked my accnt again and it's all good-to-go.
http://gmail.google.com/support/bin/answer...py?answer=13278
I can imagine how many people are actually configurating their clients all for nothing right now. hehe
Google is using non-standard ports for the incoming and outgoing mail, coupled with SSL.
IMO this makes Google/Gmail even classier than most freebies!
You can see the port setup here
now just gotta wait for myway to do the same and i wont have to resort to webmail at all.
what im wondering i wether gmail via pop has to be html so that google can display their ads, or will plain text be possible?
(Actually it used to let you with the free in the past, but they changed that policy awhile ago.)
http://gmail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=13273
How to configure your e-mail client for Gmail:
http://gmail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=12103&query=thunderbird&topic=0&type=f
But, it's for mobile device ?
For the moment, with my phone and pda i use pop3 from yahoo,
but i try to not have more than 100 messages in my inbox or i put them in an other folders.
Otherwise it's very slow over GPRS.
But with GMAIL i have thousands mails in INBOX... i will be very slow on a mobile connection, or even with adsl if i never delete mails...
fjv.
fjv.
P.S. yes ActiveX really is installed, I've run all sorts of tests.
there u go...
thank you jackmortis@gmail.com for stealing my link... A@@
So there goes my invite... anyone else want to send me a PM with a link so that other people don't steal it before I get to use it.
At least you now know who to sign up for a bazillion of porn site newsletters and stuff.
Or better yet, other newsletters so the spam filter won't get triggered. *evil*
no thanks to jackmortis@gmail.com
Wheeeeeee!
hmmm...*hint*... google mail client
fjv.
I went to Settings and it's supposed to be settings for "Forwardings And POP Settings" but mine only saying "Forwarding."
Is there any instructions I need to do before I can get the settings to appear?
The rollout is expected to reach all users over the next two weeks
Anyways, great news! Hopefully it wont take too long for my account to be updated