Gmail has become one of the most popular email systems in recent times. He managed to unseat Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail itself some years ago. And, according to statistics provided by Google, at the end of 2018 it had 1.5 billion active users, while, according to comScore, it had more users than Hotmail at the end of 2012.
It is true that we do not have more recent figures (it is estimated that this year Gmail could reach 4 billion users), but it is evident that it has managed to position itself as the most popular email platform, not only because it is free or because its ease of use, but for its enormous stability, hardly having any type of technical incidents.
Although today we can comfortably check our Gmail email through the application that Google has developed to install on our mobile phone (Android or iOS), receiving instant notifications every time a new email enters us, it is still possible to access the same from the official website of the service. However, what to do when we want to receive emails directly on our desktop computer?
The key is to configure IMAP , changing the SMTP configuration in order to be able to read Gmail messages in other mail clients, as for example it could be the case of Apple Mail or Microsoft Outlook. In fact, when we use IMAP, it is perfectly possible to read the different Gmail messages on different devices, while the messages are synchronized in real time.
How to set up IMAP
1. Check that IMAC is activated
On your computer, open the official Gmail website. In the upper right corner, click Settings , and then click See all settings .
Now click on the Forwarding and POP / IMAP tab. Within the “IMAP Access” section, you must select the section dedicated to Enable IMAP . Finally, click on Save changes .
2. Change SMTP (and other settings in email client)
Now it is necessary to update our email client with the information indicated by Google, to configure it correctly. To do this, it is necessary to look at the specific parameters related to the Incoming Mail Server (IMAP), and the Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP).
Here is a useful table that could serve as a guide:
- Incoming mail server (also known as IMAP): imap.gmail.com / Yes requires the use of SSL and the port to configure is 993.
- Outgoing mail server (or TMP): smtp.gmail.com / Yes requires both the use of SSL and TLS (as long as the latter option is available). In turn, it also requires authentication and the port for SSL connectivity must be 465, while the port for TLS connectivity must be set to 587.
It is also necessary to complete some basic elements, such as the full name or display name, the complete email address and the password that we have put to access our Gmail mail (when we configured it at the beginning, in case we had not changed it more late).
From now on, if we have configured everything correctly, you will begin to receive your email from Gmail directly in the application you have chosen for this purpose.
