Find solution
What's my POP server?

Whats the best desktop client to use for multiple Gmail accounts?

  • Whats the best desktop client to use for multiple Gmail accounts? I have 3 gmail accounts. One is my account that deals with real people, one is for mailing lists and forum notifications, and one is my work email. I'd like to access them via IMAP because I read all 3 on a desktop, laptop, and iPhone, and I want it to all stay in sync. I originally used Outlook 2007 to do this. I liked the software, but multiple times a day I would get a popup message that said "IMAP Server has timed out". This is a documented issue with Gmail and Outlook over IMAP, and nobody seems interested in fixing it. I dealt with this for several months, and finally got fed up. Now I'm using Thunderbird. I love it, but one of the accounts (my work account) regularly pops up a message asking me for my password. I type in the correct password, and it asks for it again, and then after a few times it gives up and says "Invalid Credentials." Sometimes restarting Thunderbird fixes it, sometimes it doesn't. I've tried clearing the CAPTCHA (google's suggestion for fixing the issue) and changing the frequency with which my accounts check for new messages so they all check at different times and are all more than 15 minutes every check. All I want is a program that won't pop up an error once a day with a problem. I want a desktop client so I can read email when offline (I spend a lot of time with my laptop offline and need to access emails I have already received). Is there a client that will do this with GMail effectively? Both the Thunderbird issue and the Outlook issue seem well documented on the internet and no solutions have been found. Thanks!

  • Answer:

    I've found Thunderbird to be far more stable with Gmail IMAP if I limit the number of cached connections. Under Account Settings, for each account: click Server Settings, then Advanced, and set "Maximum number of server connections to cache" to 1.

jeffderek at Ask.Metafilter.Com Visit the source

Was this solution helpful to you?

Other answers

My wife uses http://www.digsby.com/features.php for exactly that purpose, and it works great for her.

cerebus19

Is there a reason why you can't have them all funnel into a single account? Gmail has the ability to reply to the address where the email was received. And you can also select which email address to send new messages from via a dropdown menu. I manage multiple email accounts through a single Gmail account and unless you're worried about people checking the email headers, no one is the wiser. Tack on http://gears.google.com/ and then you have offline access to Gmail as well.

junesix

I've heard good things about the new Zimbra mail client from Yahoo, but I have not used it personally.

COD

Gmail has the ability to reply to the address where the email was received.This is subtly incorrect. Google has the ability to set the From: field (which I'm assuming you meant) not to the address at which the e-mail was received, but to the address set in the message's To: field. This is imperfect, because many e-mails will not have the To: field set, and you end up with the default address.

qvtqht

I just use Firefox and the https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1320 extension for both my Gmail accounts and my Google Apps for Your Domain accounts.

JaredSeth

I use Alpine, PC-Alpine, and sometimes Thunderbird. I get frequent problems connecting to Gmail, but not to other hosts. Frankly, I think that Gmail just has a crappy IMAP server that breaks much of the time. PC-Alpine lets me watch the IMAP session as it goes over the wire, and sometimes Gmail's IMAP server throws up errors like "system failure" to the simplest requests (like logging in) for no apparent reason. I think you will have problems no matter what client you use. For once, I don't think it is Outlook's fault.

grouse

I'm on a Mac, so not much help, but I use http://www.mailplaneapp.com/, which has good support for using multiple accounts at once. Even better are the built-in labeling shortcuts, which eliminate the need to mouse over to the pulldown menu. Keyboarding = much faster. Doesn't solve the offline issue, unfortunately. But for that, I just keep a copy of Mail.app running in the background, so that when I'm out of wireless range, I can just refer to the stored messages there. I actually haven't used it for months, since with the iPhone I'm never really out of range except on planes.

crabwalk

Related Q & A:

Just Added Q & A:

Find solution

For every problem there is a solution! Proved by Solucija.

  • Got an issue and looking for advice?

  • Ask Solucija to search every corner of the Web for help.

  • Get workable solutions and helpful tips in a moment.

Just ask Solucija about an issue you face and immediately get a list of ready solutions, answers and tips from other Internet users. We always provide the most suitable and complete answer to your question at the top, along with a few good alternatives below.