It’s been about 3-weeks since word about the Gmail Mail Fetcher emerged, and finally my account has the feature for me to use! In fact, several of my Gmail accounts have the feature. Ashley’s account still doesn’t have it, so don’t be surprised if the feature isn’t in your Settings quite yet.
The feature is a simple concept, yet is the only online email service that I know of offering it. Basically Gmail acts like an Outlook email client since it is able to retrieve emails from up to 5 other POP3 accounts. Here is a quick walk through on how the feature works:
First, you’ll need to go to the Settings -> Accounts option and in the “Get mail from other accounts” area click “Add another mail account“:
Now you need to type in your account information and preferences:
Now when you go back to the Settings screen it will show you details about the account, including an option to immediately check the account for new emails:
Choosing to view the history will show the last couple of checks that Gmail made for the email account:
From the looks of it, Gmail automatically checks the email account for new messages about every 5 minutes, which is a lot better than I had expected. There are some things that I think Google could do to improve the service though. First off, there should be a “Check mail now” option available from the homepage so that I don’t have to go into the Settings to manually check for new mail. Sometimes I am expecting a new email, such as after ordering something, and I would find it useful if the “Check mail now” link was more easily accessible. Maybe some sort of drop-down menu for checking a specific account would work?
The other thing is that the 5 email account limitation is very generous but Google should have a better way of retrieving mail from other Gmail accounts. They should offer you 5 non-Gmail accounts, and 20 Gmail accounts, or something along those lines. If you are adding a Gmail account, they should disable some of the features like entering in the POP server, since Google knows that it is their own server. Actually, if you’re retrieving mail from another Gmail account, POP3 shouldn’t even be necessary since Google could provide the email account with the proper credentials to directly access the mail account.
I’m still unsure of whether I’ll actually use this feature because I do like to have the separation between my email accounts. Not only that, but I find myself forwarding mail from my other Gmail accounts because that is more instantaneous than having the mail fetched. Regardless, Gmail is one of the few email services that lets users forward mail without having to pay. Heck, Google is still one of the few online email services that doesn’t make you pay for POP3 access.
Congratulations to Google and the Gmail team for beginning the process of rolling out this feature!
News Source: Google Operating System
Yahoo! has had this feature for a while. In the old Yahoo! Mail, other accounts you can retrieve mail from are listed above your folders, and you can click on one of them to retrieve mail from that account. If you want to forward, right next to the “From” in the compose mail window is a drop-down menu with all of the accounts listed. They don’t limit you to Yahoo! accounts, either. I know these features are in the new version, too, but I haven’t bothered looking (I only use GMail now).
I’m still waiting for this on my accounts, but you’ve just answered a very important question: that it works across other email accounts. If so, this could be the long-awaited solution for those trying to consolidate several gmail accounts into one (i.e. transfer old email).
Huh, you’re right that Yahoo does do this. I never really thought to look there. It says the automatic forwarding is only for the Pro account though that costs $20 per year.
I usually just set forwarders, but I’m sure this will be useful.
It’s not in mine yet. This is something that I would use.
Sorry, but as priorly mentioned, Gmail is only following Yahoo!’s path, rather than pioneering ahead, with this feature. I was even surprised, though, to see that its free. Its too bad Yahoo! charges for most everything else, though. Gmail will always be ahead when it comes to free features.
I think that Gmail is doing a little of its own pioneering along with adding popular features from other email services. I know a lot of people that only use Google Talk from within Gmail so that is one feature that was useful and unique. Of course, Yahoo! is supposed to be integrating their instant messenger with Yahoo! Mail Beta, so I guess you can say that everyone copies off of everyone?
Oh, sorry about the forwarding thing. I have AT&T internet, and Pro accounts come free with that. And yes, everyone always copies off everyone else, not only with e-mail, not only with the software industry, but in every major industry.
Frankly speaking, I don’t understand your point of view. Firstly, why to use fetcher for obtaining mail from other Gmail accounts? You can use forwarding if you want read all mails at one point. On the other hand, forwarding from non-Gmail accounts doesn’t have to be enough since many mail servers don’t even offer such a feature.
Secondly, why to add another button to the already crammed real estate of Gmail homepage, in order to obtain messages from other account via the fetcher? Isn’t it better to integrate such a function into the Refresh link?
Anyway, can’t wait for the feature to appear in my account. It’s one of few I’m really missing and I’ve suggested to Google.