I received several emails lately in which I was asked to explain how to set up email clients correctly so that they would connect to Gmail using Pop3.
The POP3 configuration of Gmail is fortunately not that difficult: The major problem that most users run into is that POP3 has to be enabled on the Gmail web interface before they can actually configure their clients to connect to the service using the protocol.
Failure to do so will only result in connection errors.
Enabling POP3 in Gmail is therefore a two-step process. POP3 needs to be enabled on the Gmail website first before the third-party email client can be configured to connect to Gmail using the POP3 protocol.
Enabling Gmail POP3
Open the Gmail homepage, log into your Gmail account and click on the cogwheel icon in the top right corner of the screen and then on settings in the context menu to load the Gmail preferences.
Now select the [Forwarding and POP/IMAP] link which should open a page just like the one you see below on the screenshot.
You basically got two options here to enable POP3. The first Enable POP for all mail (even mail that’s already been downloaded) enables POP3 on Gmail for all email messages even those that have already been retrieved while the second, Enable POP for mail that arrives from now onm enables POP3 from that moment on which means that old emails are not retrieved.
A click on the Save Changes button will save the changes and allow POP3 connections.
Gmail POP3 Data
It is time to create accounts in the email client now that POP3 has been enabled for Gmail. The procedure is different depending on the email client at hand, and some clients may support Gmail so that you may only need to enter your email address and password to create the connection.
Below are the values that need to be entered into the email client.
- Email Address: Enter your full Gmail email address
- Password: Enter your email password
- Incoming Server: pop.gmail.com
- Incoming Server Port: 995
- Use SSL: Yes
- Outgoing Server: smtp.gmail.com
- Outgoing server (SMTP) port: 587
- Encryption: TLS
You can check out the help pages over at Gmail that contain configuration assistance for various popular email clients.