Read Gmail messages on other email clients using POP

You can open your messages from Gmail in other email clients that support POP, such as Microsoft Outlook.

Step 1: Make sure that POP is the best way to read your emails

• IMAP and POP are both ways of reading your Gmail messages in other email clients.
• IMAP can be used across multiple devices. Emails are synced in real time.
• POP can only be used for a single computer. Emails aren't synced in real time. Instead, they're downloaded and you decide how often you want to download new emails.

Step 2: Set up POP

First, set up POP in Gmail

Important: After you've turned on POP in Gmail, it may take some time to download your messages to your email client.

1. On your computer, open Gmail.
2. At the top right, click Settings   See all settings.
3. Click on the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.
4. In the 'POP Download' section, select:
   • Enable POP for all emails (even emails that have already been downloaded)
   • Enable POP for emails that arrive from now on
5. Under 'When messages are accessed with POP', select what happens to Gmail's copy of the message:
   • Keep Gmail's copy in the inbox
   • Mark Gmail's copy as read
   • Archive Gmail's copy
   • Delete Gmail's copy
6. At the bottom of the page, click Save changes.

Next, make changes to your email client

Go to your client – such as Microsoft Outlook – and check these settings.

Incoming mail (POP) server	pop.gmail.com Requires SSL: Yes Port: 995
Outgoing mail (SMTP) server	smtp.gmail.com Requires SSL: Yes Requires TLS: Yes (if available) Requires authentication: Yes Port for TLS/STARTTLS: 587 If you use Gmail with your work or school account, check with your administrator for the correct SMTP configuration.
Server timeouts	Greater than one minute (five is recommended)
Full name or display name	Your name
Account name, username or email address	Your email address
Password	Your Gmail password

Troubleshoot problems

I can't sign in to my email client

If you can't sign in to your email client, you might see one of these errors:

• 'Username and password not accepted'
• 'Invalid credentials'
• You're asked to enter your username and password over and over

Step 1: Check your password

If you have these problems or can't sign in, first check to make sure that you're using the right password.

Step 2: Try these troubleshooting steps

• Update your email client to the latest version.
• Use an app password: If you use two-step verification, try signing in with an app password.
• Allow less secure apps: If you don't use two-step verification, you might need to allow less secure apps to access your account.
• If you've recently changed your Gmail password, you might need to re-enter your Gmail account information or completely repeat your Gmail account setup on your other email client.
• If the tips above didn't help, please visit https://www.google.com/accounts/DisplayUnlockCaptcha and follow the instructions on this page. If you use Gmail through your work, school or other organisation, visit https://www.google.com/a/yourdomain.com/UnlockCaptcha (in the web address, replace yourdomain.com with your domain name).

I want to download emails on multiple email clients

The easiest way to use Gmail on multiple email clients is to use IMAP. If you need to use POP instead of IMAP, set up 'Recent mode'. Recent mode shows your past 30 days of emails from Gmail.

Step 1: Turn on recent mode

1. On your email client's POP settings page, find the 'Email address' or 'Username' field.
2. Add recent: in front of your email address. For example, recent:[e-mail].

Step 2: Change your POP settings 

Change your POP settings so that your emails are left on the server.

• Outlook: Go to your accounts, click Advanced  Leave a copy of messages on the server.
• Apple Mail: On the 'Advanced' tab, untick the box next to 'Remove copy from server after retrieving a message', if available.
• Thunderbird: On the 'Server settings' tab, tick the box next to 'Leave messages on server'.

'Account exceeded POP command or bandwidth limits' error

If you see the 'Account exceeded POP command or bandwidth limits error', it's usually because your POP clients have been accessing your Gmail account too frequently.

To fix this, change your client's settings so it won't check for new messages too frequently.

I can't send emails

If emails that you've sent in your email client are stuck in your outbox, try these fixes:

• If you're sending emails through Apple Mail and you currently have 'smtp.gmail.com:[e-mail]' in the 'Outgoing mail server:' field of your settings, try changing the field to 'smtp.gmail.com' instead.
• Make sure that your SMTP settings don't have recent: on your email address.

My automatic replies aren't working

If you create automatic responses on your email client, such as an out-of-office response, it might cause issues, including:

• If you're using your email client on a computer and the computer goes offline, your automatic response won't be sent.
• When you receive emails that are sent to you indirectly, such as through a mailing list, the automatic response might show your email address when it replies to the sender.

To avoid these problems, try using Gmail's out-of-office or holiday reply instead of the one in your email client.

My emails are deleted from Gmail

If the emails that you read in your other email client are being deleted from Gmail, check your POP settings.

1. Visit the forwarding and POP/IMAP settings page.
2. In the 'POP Download' section, make sure that 'Archive Gmail's copy' or 'Delete Gmail's copy' aren't selected.
3. At the bottom of the page, click Save changes.

Emails aren't downloading correctly

After you've set up POP in your Gmail settings, your emails will become available in batches. It might take a while to see all your emails.

Note: Gmail will download a copy of every email that you send or receive, except for emails in chats, spam and the bin. To avoid duplicates, Gmail won't download emails sent within your email client, but you can still see them if you log in to Gmail.

If you continue to have problems with downloading emails, try using recent mode:

1. On your email client's POP settings page, find the 'Email address' or 'Username' field.
2. Add recent: in front of your email address. For example, recent:[e-mail].

If that doesn't fix the problem, try deleting your Gmail address from your email client, then re-adding it.

Option to change the POP setting is unavailable

After you've changed your POP setting, the update needs to be completed before you can change your settings again. When this happens, a status message displays in the Gmail POP settings menu.

'We are still working on enabling POP' error

If you attempt to download emails in windowed mode using POP while Gmail is still configuring POP for your account, this error message will show in your email client:

'We are still working on enabling pop for your account, so windowed mode is not available. Try again later or consider using POP3 in recent mode'.

To use POP while the setup is still in process, you can:

• Change your email client to use recent mode.
• Wait until the process is complete.
  • To check if the process is complete:
    1. On your computer, open Gmail.
    2. At the top right, click Settings   See all settings.
    3. Select the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.
       • If the process is incomplete: In the 'POP download' section, the option to enable POP will be unavailable. You will get a message that POP enablement is still in process.