Google has just added a new feature to Gmail.. and it’s one I’m sure you’ll like! The new Mail Fetcher will allow you to “fetch” mail from other non-Gmail accounts! Yes… non-Gmail accounts. It seems like everybody has multiple email accounts these days; one for work, school, home, etc. This is a great solution for those who don’t use a program such as Outlook, but need to check multiple accounts daily. You’ll be able to add up to five different accounts. As always, Gmail doesn’t just implement the feature for everyone right away, rather they implement it over a period of time. I have yet to see this feature in my account (check yours, you may have it already!), but here’s how it works:
Simply click on Settings (found at the top of the Gmail page), and click on Accounts. If you already have this feature, it will have an option that says get mail from other accounts. Then you’ll click to Add another mail account. It will guide you through the process of adding other accounts. Because Gmail offers an insane amount of storage for a free service, you can bet this will surely attract lots of people. Gmail has other attractive features that have made it the preference over other free services such as Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail, like the labeling and archiving system. With the new service, you have the option of automatically labeling all of the messages that you receive from a non-Gmail account.
If you’re considering having Gmail fetch mail from other Gmail accounts, you’re better off fowarding them instead. Gmail offers forwarding of other Gmail accounts for free by going to Settings and clicking on “Forward.” This way, you’ll still have your five non-gmail accounts available to use for fetching.
Gmail says that it checks the other accounts on a regular basis which makes me wonder how often it will actually check. I’d imagine it would be every hour, but I’d love to see Gmail add a “fetch mail now” feature so that you could have it check whenever you want. It would also be nice to be able to set the time interval that you’d like it to check it such as 5 minutes of 10 minutes. I think this could possibly be the one thing that would keep people from switching over from something such as Outlook which gives you the option to set the time interval, or to ”check mail now.”
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Tags: Google
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Does anyone know if this will work on other web based mail systems, such as Hotmail or Yahoo?
Dang, I don’t have it yet. This sucks, but then again IO don’t have a use for it: I have my school set up to forward any mail to my gmail account, my cell phone sends any pics received to my gmail account, and I stopped using yahoo and hotmail.
CoryC: I am pretty sure this will work for other web based systems like Yahoo.
No, it works only for POP3 accounts. As everyone should know, Yahoo Mail and Windows Live Mail (Hotmail) don’t have POP3 support. Yahoo Mail Plus (a paid service) includes POP3.
I have been waiting for this feature since I got my Gmail account back in 2004! I’m so happy that it will be added. But as of now mine doesn’t have it yet :cry:. I guess it takes a few days before the new options roll out to every account.
Did anyone notice any down time in a big while? Why not move out of beta and become avaible to more people.
Google has always said that they are skeptical about opening it up to the world because of all the spammers that will create accounts just to spam people.
I have it in mine…..
Just found it today.
Lucky duck.
This is a cool feature - I don’t have it yet but I’ve been wanting it ever since Uni told me I couldn’t forward emails from my Uni webmail (which sucks) to GMail. Now I won’t need too! I shall post this on my own blog as and when I get the feature.
The feature has been announced last week and I still don’t have it :cry:. Last night my Gmail had a hour down time and I was actually happy about it. Thinking that it would rise from it’s ashes with the fetch feature…
Got disappointed this morning; it’s not here yet. I’ll have to wait.
I don’t have it either…so don’t feel too bad.