Gmail Users Get POP Access

By Jim on November 11th, 2004

I think it’s great that they are offering this but I won’t use it.

POP, or Post Office Protocol, lets you download messages from Gmail’s servers onto your computer so you can access your mail with a program like Microsoft Outlook Express or Netscape Mail, even when you aren’t connected to the Internet.

* Over the next several weeks, we are introducing POP access to all of our users. To make sure the feature is fully stable, we’re giving users access to POP in phases. Once POP access is available to you, a ‘New Features!’ link appears at the top of your account, along with a ‘Forwarding and POP’ tab on your ‘Settings’ page.

I don’t use local email clients at this point. It’s just easier for me to do everything through my browser these days. Still, POP access will no doubt come in handy to a lot of Gmail users. Hats off to the Google people for providing it. And for free (at least for now) too. It’s a good deal.