Gmail Calendar Documents Photos Sites Groups Search More »
Sign in

Gmail

Help home

Hey, this is important: We’re changing our privacy policy and terms of service.

Enabling IMAP

You can retrieve your Gmail messages with a client or device that supports IMAP, like Microsoft Outlook or Apple Mail.

To enable IMAP1 in Gmail:

  1. Sign in to Gmail.
  2. Click the gear icon in the upper-right and select Gmail settings at the top of any Gmail page.
  3. Click Forwarding and POP/IMAP.
  4. Select Enable IMAP.
  5. Configure your IMAP client and click Save Changes.

Note: At this time, it's not possible to enable IMAP while using the basic HTML interface. Please use the standard view to see this option.

  1. IMAP: IMAP (Internet message access protocol) lets you download messages from Gmail so you can access your mail with a program like Outlook Express or Apple Mail. IMAP syncs the actions you take in Outlook Express or Apple Mail with Gmail so if you read a message in your mail client, it'll be marked as read in Gmail.

updated 09/21/2011

Related