Organizing Your E-mail
the smart and simple way
Now you must be checking your mail on gmail by going to gmail.com and then entering name and password and then checking each mail...That's quite tedious isn't it?
What if you could know which messages you got in your inbox without opening your browser?What if you could mark them,star them,delete them,move them and download them with the convenience of a normal desktop application? Sounds funky doesn't it? Let's try it out.
First of all let me explain you the technology behind it.
We access our mails from our desktop by connecting to the server of the mail client which are mostly POP3 or IMAP these days
POP3
POP stands for Post Office Protocol and it is an IP layer for accesing and downloading your mail.POP3 is an improvement over POP.Although it is mostly used these days it has some downslides such as we cannot download just the headers ..That means that we will have to download all the mails instead of knowing which one is read and which one is unread.Googlemail and Gmail use the POP3 servers.
IMAP
IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol and is an improvement over POP3 as it overcomes the problem of headers...We can download only read mail/unread mail any way we like.IMAP4 is the latest version of this protocol..Hotmail uses IMAP4 and now Gmail has also started IMAP.
Now the configuring Stuff (pretty simple)
See there are a lot of mail clients available in market the top ones being Outlook(with windows),Thunderbird(by Mozilla,multi-platform) and Eudora(with mac)..
Eudora is not much satisfying with its free version so we rule out that option ...We will see how to do that with Thunderbird 2.0 and Outlook express
For gmail users you have to enable POP/IMAP access first..
Gmail users POP or IMAP?
Well this is the common confusion among many people..which to prefer POP or IMAP.Well the answer is quite simple
IMAP :It downloads only the headers of your mail(it can also download the whole mail if you configure it to) ..It is very powerful as you can change the status of your mail,move,delete and star your mail.So in short any changes to your mail from your desktop mail client(that's thunderbird,outlook etc) will reflect on your original mail in your main mail inbox. Say you get a new mail you read it from your desktop client say Thunderbird them the status of the message will automatically change from unread to read on your INBOX at gmail.com. Cool isn't it? That's why many Gmail users were dying for this feature which was present in AOL too
POP:Well POP is not as powerful as IMAP it just downloads all your mails or just your unread mails and then lets you view them on your desktop clients.Good if you have a nice and fast connection
My Choice: IMAP
Enabling POP access in Gmail (skip if you are going for IMAP)
Go to your Gmail account and go to Settings(top right corner of the screen) then Click on the Forwarding And POP/IMAP tab...Click the radiobutton which says Enable POP for all mails---(do it if you have small number of mails say 10 to 20 or an unlimited connection) .If you have many mails already probably above 100 or so click on the button that says Enable POP only for mail that arrives from now on...
Second option is When messages are accessed with POP ----Change it to keep Gmail's Copy in inbox
And for forwarding keep it disabled and then you're done with the settings
If you don't understand any part u can follow this link Google Help Center
Now that you are done with configuring...
Enabling IMAP access in Gmail
Go to your Gmail account and go to Settings(top right corner of the screen) then Click on the Forwarding And POP/IMAP tab.Click the radiobutton which says Enable IMAP.
For a better explanation refer here Google Help Center
Thunderbird 2.0
You can access your mails by either Outlook Express in your XP or Download Thunderbird Thunderbird Download (best option)
Gmail POP on Thunderbird (skip if you are going for IMAP)
Now If you have downloaded thunderbird then settings are really easy for gmail
All you gotta do is
1)Install Thunderbird
2)Goto File>New>Account select gmail
3)Enter your name say John Smith...Enter your mail id say john_smith click next and you are done!!!!
Now
if you have hotmail or yahoo you have to download the webmail extension from here Webmail Site
to download it just right click and save it to your desktop(or any place you prefer)...
Now if you have yahoo and hotmail account download the yahoo and hotmail and yahoo extension by the same procedure and save it to the same location as webmai extension(for better sorting)..
Then open thunderbird goto Tools>Add-Ons click on Extensions Tab on top and then click on Install...Locate the webmail extension and then install all the extensions.
Now that you are done restart thunderbird and then configure
Gmail IMAP on Thunderbird
Here is a Picture by Picture explanation to Configure IMAP on Gmail
Configuring Thunderbird for IMAP
Now testing time !! Save All the settings by clicking Ok and then Click on the Get Mail button on the top left.
)If it asks for your password then enter the password of your gmail account.Remember if you are on a private and secure computer.Try Sending a test message(not me).
If you see your mail headers being downloaded & mail being delivered then Success!
But still a little configuration is left to be done which Google has not mentioned but is important
Now if all you mail is being downloaded and all your settings are working then goto Edit>Account Settings>Copies and Folders check the "Place a copy in" checkbox and Click on the button "Other" below the Sent Folder on button:Here Choose the Sent mail folder of your gmail inbox [Gmail]>Sent mail
Again the lower menu which is Drafts and Templates click on Other and choose
[Gmail]>Drafts
You can also set the junk settings that way if you want in the same way but [Gmail]>Spam
Thats done !
Hotmail on Thunderbird
1)Goto file>New>Account...Select webmail then next
2)Type your name and your mail id say example@hotmail.com
3)For incoming username type your email id say exampl@hotmail.com then click on next and done!
Yahoo on thunderbird
same procedure as for hotmail
Now that you are done click on get mail
I also suggest u try these extensions https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/search?q=minimize+to+tray&status=4
which help you to minimize thunderbird to tray..First install minimize to tray and then minimize to tray enhancer
The You've got mail Style
Most of us wondered that wish we could have a mail client which speaks "You've got mail" when we get a mail like in the movie You've got mail
To do this download the wav file from my downloads page Downloads and then keep it somewhere in your comp so that you will remember
Now open thunderbird goto Edit>Preferences then in General tab check Play a sound and click on Use the following sound file then browse for the You've got mail wav file you just downloaded(if you did!) then OK and then done!...Now you'll get an alert everytime you check your mail
OUTLOOK Express
well its free with xp but I don't find it that good though here are the settings for gmail...
I see it as an option for people who can't download Thunderbird for some reason
Gmail IMAP on Mutt for all the command line junkies !!
What is Mutt?
Its a really nice command line mail client on linux and alsow windows(huh!).
How to Configure it for Gmail Imap?
Create a .muttrc file in your home directory and copy the following
set imap_user = 'youremailid@gmail.com'
set imap_pass = 'your password'
set spoolfile = imaps://imap.gmail.com:993/INBOX
set folder = imaps://imap.gmail.com:993
set record="imaps://imap.gmail.com/[Gmail]/Sent Mail"
set postponed="imaps://imap.gmail.com/[Gmail]/Drafts"
set header_cache="~/.mutt/cache/headers"
set message_cachedir="~/.mutt/cache/bodies"
set certificate_file=~/.mutt/certificates
Change the first two values matching your mail account. Then done!
Well thats all hope you liked it
Post your doubts and feedbacks here
Thanx!