POP is a standardized, RFC-compliant protocol that any email service or client can choose to be compatible with. Gmail users can use POP to sync their email from Gmail to any compatible mail client, such as Outlook, Apple Mail, or Thunderbird.
Starting in March 2025, Google Workspace accounts no longer support less secure apps, third-party apps, or devices that ask you to sign in to your Google Account with your username and password. You must use OAuth to let these apps and devices access your account. Third-party email apps that are no longer supported include Microsoft Outlook and the mail app on iOS and MacOS. For detailed instructions and information, visit Transition from less secure apps to OAuth. For the latest dates, visit Google Workspace Updates.
Gmail users can use POP in normal mode or recent mode:
- If you're syncing your mail to one mail client, use normal mode.
- If you're syncing mail to a few different mail clients, use recent mode.
A POP session starts with your email client (Thunderbird, Outlook, Sparrow, etc.) asking your Gmail mailbox for a list of messages that haven't yet been downloaded. After Gmail provides the list of messages to your email client, your client begins downloading them.
In POP normal mode, Gmail provides a list of about 250 of the oldest messages that have not yet been downloaded (spam and trash are excluded). Once a message is downloaded, Gmail marks it as 'popped'.
Messages sent from an email client don’t appear in the POP mail client in normal mode, but they do appear in recent mode. Messages sent from email clients are marked as popped, so they aren’t downloaded into the inbox of POP email clients.
Note: Messages sent from the web UI appear in the POP mail client in both normal and recent mode.
What happens to my messages in Gmail after they've been popped?
That depends on which option you select in the When messages are accessed with POP setting in Gmail. You can choose to archive, delete, mark as read, or keep your messages in your inbox.
- Sign in to your Gmail account.
- Click Settings
See all settings.
- Click Forwarding and POP/IMAP.
- Click the Down arrow
next to When messages are accessed with POP and choose an option.
- Click Save changes.
Regardless of which option you choose, any downloaded message is marked internally as 'popped' and will not be downloaded again. If however, your mail client crashes unexpectedly, the message will be re-downloaded.
After your client downloads the messages, it asks Gmail for a list of messages again. Gmail again provides a list of the next oldest 250 conversations that haven't been popped yet. Eventually, your mail client will download all of your messages in Gmail, although this process may take a while, depending on the size of your Gmail mailbox.
A POP session starts with your email client (Thunderbird, Outlook, Sparrow, etc.) asking your Gmail mailbox for a list of messages that haven't yet been downloaded. After Gmail provides messages to your email client, your client begins downloading them.
In POP recent mode, Gmail presents all messages from All Mail (spam and trash are excluded) from the last 30 days. This means that multiple POP clients can download the same messages, and they will all see all messages (as long as they check the mailbox at least every 30 days).
What happens to my messages in Gmail after they've been popped?
When using recent mode, 'popped' messages (downloaded in normal mode) will still be shown to mail clients. This means that even if one POP client (that uses normal mode) marks a message as popped, another POP client (that uses recent mode) will still be able to see the message (unless you've set Gmail to delete messages that have been downloaded via POP in the When messages are accessed with POP option, in which case the message will be sent to Trash after it's been downloaded by the POP client in normal mode).
Unlike in normal mode, you must set your POP client to leave messages on the server (and not delete them), because when a POP client issues a DELE (delete) command in recent mode, it is sent to Trash in Gmail, regardless of the user's When messages are accessed with POP setting. If one of the POP clients deletes messages, they won't be visible to the other POP clients ever again (unless moved out of Trash).
After a message has been moved to your mail client from Gmail, you can't re-download it to any mail client in the future. For example, if you have to remove and reinstall your mail client from scratch, you can't download previously 'popped' messages unless you select the Enable POP for all mail (even mail that's already been downloaded) option in Gmail settings.
- Sign in to your Gmail account.
- Click Settings
See all settings.
- Click Forwarding and POP/IMAP.
- Click Enable POP for all mail.
- Click Save changes.
After enabling this setting, Gmail clears the 'popped' status from all messages. Your mail client will then see the oldest 250 messages in your mailbox, assuming you're using POP normal mode, and can download them again as explained above.
If you select the Enable POP for mail that arrives from now on setting, Gmail will simply mark all messages currently in your mailbox as 'popped'. As a result, your mail client will only download messages that you receive after choosing this option.
