Charles on… anything that comes along

I’ve got a Gmail account, but ever since it was announced that it would have IMAP, I’ve been waiting for it to show up in my settings. You know, you have to go there and see if it offers it to you, and then rejoice.

Except day followed day followed day and - no sign. I’d check in (because I only downloaded Gmail via POP) and still no settings for IMAP.

Until I found this Google Mail FAQ: “Why isn’t IMAP available in my Gmail account?“:

If the option to enable IMAP isn’t available in your Google Mail account’s ‘Forwarding and POP’ settings, you can enable IMAP for your account by simply enabling POP access.

Which I’d already done. So, wait, I should be able to create the IMAP account by just setting it up.

And lo… it works. Set up, ticking over nicely. One downside: you get all your spam downloaded as well (into a folder called “Spam”), though that does make it easier - I guess - to review whether anyone you know has been caught in its clutches.

One thing, though. I’ve no idea how Google thinks it’s going to make any money from Gmail if it offers IMAP. I didn’t know with POP for Gmail. Neither way shows you any adverts. Maybe it’s a come-on for an upsell to paid-for Gmail. But hmm, it seems a pretty thin sales line. Why buy it when you can get 4GB.. and rising.. for free with IMAP? Beats me.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• Gmail POP remains broken. What next? (updated) (5 October 2006; score: 60.71%)
• Gmail invites - I got them if you want them (23 March 2005; score: 59.66%)
• Gmail praise: cool front page, excellent spam filtering (17 April 2005; score: 54.94%)