This series is dedicated to specific e-mail providers on the internet. In this installment, the service provider concentrated on will be Google’s Gmail.

Gmail, launched in March 2004, has grown to be one of the most-used free e-mail services on the internet. While it doesn’t have a large of a userbase as Yahoo! Mail or Hotmail, it’s still a force to be reckoned with.

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Setting up Gmail with an e-mail client

One of the biggest advantages to using Gmail is that POP and IMAP access are both offered for free by the service.

What this means to you is that if you don’t like using e-mail in a browser, you can using it alternatively in a mail client instead.

In this article, we’ll be using the Microsoft Outlook Express 6 client that comes freely provided with Microsoft Windows XP (in the next upcoming articles, other clients will be used.)

In Gmail…

We need to enable IMAP first.

1. Login to Gmail
2. Click Settings (located at top right)
3. Click the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab (in the orange section)
4. Next to IMAP Access, tick the option for Enable IMAP, then click Save Changes.

Using Microsoft Outlook Express 6

1. Click Tools, then Accounts.

2. From the window shown above, click Add then Mail.

3. From the Internet Connection Wizard (shown below), type in your name and click Next.

4. On the next screen, type in your Gmail e-mail address (shown below) and click Next.

5. On the next screen, select your incoming server as IMAP. Type in your Incoming mail server as imap.gmail.com, and your Outgoing mail server as smtp.gmail.com, then click Next. See image below for example.

6. On the next screen, enter your account name as your full Gmail e-mail address. Then enter your Gmail password below. See image below for example.

7. On the next screen, click Finish.

8. You will go back to the Internet Accounts window at this point. Single-left-click your Gmail account (labeled as imap.gmail.com) and click the Properties button to the right.

9. At the imap.gmail.com Properties screen, select the Advanced tab. Set your Outgoing mail (SMTP) port to 465 and check This server requires a secure connection (SSL). For the Incoming mail (IMAP) port, set this to 993 and check This server requires a secure connection (SSL).

See image below for example.

10. From the same screen, click the IMAP tab. Set your Root folder path as [Gmail] (and yes this includes the brackets). Set your Sent items path to Sent Mail. Set your Drafts path to Drafts.

See image below for example.

11. Click the Servers tab.

12. Check the box for My server requires authentication.

See image below for example.

13. Next to the box you just checked, click Settings.

14. Enter in your full Gmail e-mail address and password.

See image below for example.

15. Click OK.

16. Click OK again.

17. Back at the Internet Accounts window, click Close.

18. You will be asked if you want to download folders from the mail server. Click Yes.

19. Outlook Express will download folders…

20. Your folders will be listed.

21. Click OK.

22. Your Outlook Express should look similar to this:

23. Click File, then New, then Mail Message.

24. Address a test mail to yourself.

25. Click the Send button. It will take a few seconds to send the mail.

26. Click the Send/Receive button. Your new mail should near-instantly arrive.

You’re done!

Tip for greater speed:

Right click each folder (i.e. Inbox, Sent Mail, Drafts, All Mail, etc.), select Synchronization Settings and then Headers Only.

When you do this, Outlook Express will not download the entire contents of each mail message each time it’s loaded. This speeds up both Gmail and Outlook Express considerably when using Gmail’s IMAP.

Next up.. Mozilla Thunderbird and Gmail!

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