Google giveth, and Google taketh away. Two long-standing options are being faraway from Gmail, they usually each relate to the way you entry messages from different, non-Google electronic mail accounts via the Gmail interface.
The options we’re speaking about are Gmailify and POP entry, and if you happen to depend on them to consolidate a number of electronic mail accounts into your Gmail inbox, you are going to must discover a completely different method. Whereas Google hasn’t given any causes for the modifications, it is seemingly that it needs to simplify Gmail, in addition to encouraging customers to spend extra time checking their Google inbox fairly than any others.
Based on Google, these options will likely be closed to new customers from the primary quarter of 2026. For current customers, the performance will stay till “later in 2026.”
This is what you must know, and what you are able to do subsequent.
Gmailify
Gmailify is a service that Google launched in February 2016 that lets you import messages from Outlook or Yahoo accounts, after which add some further Gmail-specific options on prime. It provides spam filtering utilizing Google’s algorithms, and it provides Gmail’s inbox group guidelines, so electronic mail is routinely organized into tabs like Social and Updates.
The function makes use of a type of IMAP (Web Message Entry Protocol) know-how to fetch emails from different accounts and allow you to work together with them. IMAP is a normal manner of syncing emails—it is what fashionable desktop electronic mail purchasers use—however Google utilized some particular tips to get it working via Gmail on the internet and the Gmail cell apps.
After the shutdown, the perks that Gmailify introduced with it are going away, so you will not get the spam sorting and the class sorting for emails you’ve fetched from different accounts. You possibly can nonetheless entry third-party accounts via Gmail and IMAP—however with out the additional Gmail magic, and solely on cell. For quite a few technical causes, IMAP is difficult to implement on the internet, and one thing Google most likely does not suppose is well worth the funding.
Accessing different accounts in Gmail on Android or iOS was accessible earlier than Gmailify arrived, and can proceed to be accessible. From the app, faucet your profile avatar (prime proper), then Add one other account. Whereas Gmailify solely labored with Outlook and Yahoo accounts, Google’s customary IMAP implementation ought to work with nearly all third-party electronic mail platforms.
When utilizing IMAP, the emails out of your different accounts will seem within the Gmail interface, and may be learn and replied to from there. Nevertheless, they will not really be saved in your Gmail account or rely in direction of your Google storage. Every thing will get synced immediately too. So, for instance, deleting a Yahoo electronic mail in Gmail for Android would additionally delete it out of your Yahoo electronic mail inbox.
POP Entry
POP (Put up Workplace Protocol) is an outdated customary for accessing emails that has successfully been changed by IMAP now. Given its age, it is no shock actually that Google is retiring the function in Gmail. Nevertheless, POP has been a dependable, straightforward, and efficient manner of getting messages from third-party accounts into Gmail through the years.
