Gmail on the desktop?

luckat

Well, the laptop, actually. How do I get Gmail on my computer and phone, not as webmail? Apparently it's crashed in its webby world today, but people who have it on their phones and computers can still get and send mail.

What SMTP and POP addresses and so on do I enter? Anyone use this?

Dont be at yourself

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=gmail+on+mail.app

luckat

NekkidBibleMan, thank you.

For me, it wasn't difficult. For you, perhaps more so; you had the chance to be kind and helpful or instead to choose to be patronising - and also helpful.

Which would Jesus choose :P

Mena

If you'd allowed the link nekkid posted to complete, you would have got all the way to this: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=13275

Should help.

luckat

It did help, thank you, Mena - I did follow the whole link. My Mail app is now downloading all the Gmail on the server ever addressed to me, going back to 2006.

mickoneill30

On my Gmail.
I clicked Settings at the top of the page.
Then click Forwarding and Pop.
I use IMAP. Your email stays up on Google but can be on your local client too.

I don't know what AppleMail is or if it's any good. You can configure those settings with Outlook or Thunderbird.

Mena

luckat wrote: »

It did help, thank you, Mena - I did follow the whole link. My Mail app is now downloading all the Gmail on the server ever addressed to me, going back to 2006.

Hah, that happened to me the first time as well. There is an option somewhere in the "options" to only download new mail "from now", though it never worked for me.

J-blk

You'll probably want to set up Mail.app for IMAP, not POP - especially if you tend to access your Gmail from other devices like a work PC or iPhone, etc. With POP, it will always download mails as "new" to your Mac, regardless if you have already read them on another device - but with IMAP, it keeps everything in sync, so if you read the mail online at work, it's considered read. Same thing if you delete mails, etc... Deleting them in Mail.app when using POP will not delete them from the server.

luckat

Hm. If you set it up as IMAP, what address do you give your incoming mail server, please?

Mail seems to have downloaded all my mail until May 2008, then stopped.

J-blk

luckat wrote: »

Hm. If you set it up as IMAP, what address do you give your incoming mail server, please?

The incoming server changes to imap.gmail.com - first enable IMAP on your Gmail account:

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=77695

Then set Mail.app up for it - minimal changes from POP:

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=81379

luckat

Thanks, j-blk. I suppose I'll have to move over to Mail altogether at some stage... I really don't like the way it makes filters - there's no 'any header' choice, the easiest one to choose when making a filter.

luckat

Incidentally, where does Mail put attachments? I must have a bulging folder of attachments somewhere. Eudora and the web version of Gmail just put them on my desktop.

luckat

Discovered what the attachments biz is - it only downloads them if you choose to do so. (Good feature.)

But I can't find that "only download mail from now" feature. Anyone know where it is?

J-blk

luckat wrote: »

But I can't find that "only download mail from now" feature. Anyone know where it is?

It's in Settings => in the POP Download section, you have these options:

- Enable POP for all mail (even mail that's already been downloaded)
- Enable POP for mail that arrives from now on
- Disable POP

There's no point enabling it now, as you already downloaded your entire mailbox and if you have switched to IMAP, it'll behave that way anyway...

luckat

J-blk, I can't find a Settings item - where is it, please?

Indeed there is a point. I don't want to use Gmail on Mail - I really don't like Mail, and it would only be for the once-every-two-years emergency when the Gmail website crashes. I don't like the thought of having to spend an hour downloading two years' worth of mail each time that happens!

J-blk

luckat wrote: »

J-blk, I can't find a Settings item - where is it, please?

Luckat, sorry but how did you even configure POP in the first place if you can't find the settings page? It's right here:

http://mail.google.com/mail/#settings/fwdandpop

luckat wrote: »

Indeed there is a point. I don't want to use Gmail on Mail - I really don't like Mail, and it would only be for the once-every-two-years emergency when the Gmail website crashes.

Why are you under the impression that only Mail.app can be used? Most people here (myself included) do indeed use it, but you can use pretty much any client (Thunderbird, Eudora, etc):

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ctx=mail&answer=75726

The Google support pages are some of the best I've seen and they really do include all the information you would need to get Gmail set up in your desktop mail client, to your liking...

luckat

Settings page?

Where is this in Mail? I can't see it at all!

Ohhh, wait, you're talking about changing the setting in the *web* version, so that it will work in Mail? Don't think that works.

J-blk

luckat wrote: »

you're talking about changing the setting in the *web* version, so that it will work in Mail? Don't think that works.

Why not try it, rather than assume it does not work?

I think you're a bit confused though - what do you think the POP and IMAP settings in Gmail are for anyway? They only affect how your mail downloads/syncs to another app and have nothing to do with the web version of Gmail itself. This is the only place to make any changes to how that behavior is set.

In your mail client (be it Mail.app, Thunderbird or whatever), all you need to do is set up your incoming/outgoing servers, user name and password, which you clearly have already done, otherwise you wouldn't have been able to download any of your mail up to now.

If you want to change settings for how the mail is downloaded though, that's all done from Gmail's settings...

luckat

J-blk wrote: »

Why not try it, rather than assume it does not work?

Thanks, J-blk, tried it and it did work.

Though I'll have to come back to you in two years when Gmail next goes down and affirm that it only downloads that day's mail then!

Melted M&M

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=gmail+on+mail.app

LOL:D: