Configuring IMAP access for your Google Apps email address is very similar to configuring it in Gmail. However, any time you’re asked for your username during the configuration process, you’ll need to enter your full email address, including your domain (username@your_domain.com). All other settings are the same.

AdrianCJY.com switched from POP to the IMAP protocol to retrieve our email from several different computers and we think that this is yet the best protocol ever and we run on Google Apps. No drawbacks. POP (Post Office Protocol) mail downloads your mail to your hard drive, while IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) keeps everything — even your sent mail — on a server. In short, IMAP gets you e-mail portability without having to use a Web-based e-mail interface. And theoretically, any e-mail address can support POP or IMAP — the administrator or Internet service provider (ISP) just has to support IMAP.

IMAP currently is supported by one of the largest free email provider – GMail. Short of a web-based solution like Gmail or Yahoo Mail, IMAP’s the way to go. Check with your email service provider to see if they provide IMAP support. For corporate users, you might consider to sign up a 99.9% up time email hosting from 1.com.my and they support IMAP.

Of course, Google is already good enough whereby, it captures what ever a user sent from a PC into the server’s Sent Items too. Just that, IMAP adds a feature for a two way communication whereby mails in the servers can be controlled on a PC. Unlike POP, IMAP offers two-way communication between your web Gmail and your email client(s). This means when you log in to Gmail using a web browser, actions you perform on email clients and mobile devices (ex: putting mail in a ‘work’ folder) will instantly and automatically appear in Gmail (ex: it will already have a ‘work’ label on that email the next time you sign in).

IMAP also provides a better method to access your mail from multiple devices. If you check your email at work, on your mobile phone, and again at home, IMAP ensures that new mail is accessible from any device at any given time.

Finally, IMAP offers a more stable experience overall. Whereas POP is prone to losing messages or downloading the same messages multiple times, IMAP avoids this through two-way syncing capabilities between your mail clients and your web Gmail.

If you’re trying to decide between using POP and using IMAP with Gmail, we recommend IMAP.

 

	Incoming Mail (IMAP) Server – requires SSL:			imap.gmail.com Use SSL: Yes Port: 993
	Outgoing Mail (SMTP) Server – requires TLS:			smtp.gmail.com (use authentication) Use Authentication: Yes Use STARTTLS: Yes (some clients call this SSL) Port: 465 or 587
	Account Name:			your full email address (including @gmail.com) Google Apps users, please enter username@your_domain.com
	Email Address:			your full Gmail email address (username@gmail.com) Google Apps users, please enter username@your_domain.com
	Password:			your Gmail password

Can’t figure it out those technical steps ? No worries, here’s the step-by-step guide :
For Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 Users
1. Tools > Account Settings > New..

Select Microsoft Exchange, POP3, IMAP, or HTTP

 

2. Ignore all the settings above, it is only applicable for POP3 account setup NOT IMAP

Tick “Manually configure server settings or additional server types”

 

3. Enter the particulars into the relevant text field. For Google Apps users, please enter full email address including @domain.com in the E-mail Address and User Name section:

Tick “Remember password” and “Require login using Secure Password Authentication (SPA)”

 

4. Next, click on the “More Settings” button and go into “Outgoing” tab

Tick “My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication” and check the radio button with :Use same settings as my incoming mail server”

 

5. Go into “Advanced Tab”

Choose SSL and IMAP server key in 993 while for SMTP Server, key in 465 with SSL connection. Click “OK”

 

6. You will be returned to the Change E-mail Account page, click on “Test Account Settings …”

You should expect something similar where “Log on to incoming server” and “Send test e-mail message” are completed with a green tick in front of theses two tasks. Click “Next” then “Finish”.

For the first time, click on “Send / Receive” button or shortcut key F9, and it shall start synchronizing all the email messages with your server. Before start sending your first email message, you have to set the Sent Items folder which is located in the server instead of using the Outlook local server. This will help you to store a copy of message sent on the server upon successful sending

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A question from our friend : Why after pressing the DELETE key, the messages are only moved to the GMAIL\Trash folder with a streikethrough line but not deleted yet, even when I go into Google Mail, it is still there.

Answer : Go to Edit > Purge >Purge Marked Items in “Trash”, this shall sync the folder in your computer with GMail.