Gmail to adopt IMAP

Google Inc. has launched a new IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) service for Gmail that will allow users to sync Gmail with their e-mail clients.

"It keeps the same information synced across all devices so that whatever you do in one place shows up everywhere else you might access your e-mail," said David Murray, associate product manager, in a blog post. "For example, I can read an e-mail in Gmail, then move it to the 'Starred' folder on my iPhone, then archive it by moving it to 'All Mail' in Thunderbird, then see all of those changes on my BlackBerry or any of [these] devices for that matter."

As with many things Google, Gmail's IMAP implementation is not quite finished. It lacks a few important features, and in our initial tests, we found it to be painfully slow.

"Our primary focus is on our users and the user experience," a Google spokesperson says, "and we're focused on building the features that are most important to our users. We'll be updating our IMAP implementation as we go, in response to how our users use it and what they request."

To use the new service, users should click on the "Forwarding and POP/IMAP" tab in their Gmail Settings and turn it on.