Google Gets Even More Serious About IMAP Mail

Just days after Google launched the silly Mail Googgles, the company has introduced a more serious e-mail tool called Advanced IMAP Controls for Gmail through its Google Labs division.

Advanced IMAP Controls will let you fine-tune Gmail's IMAP settings, finally letting us get rid of some annoyances with Google's first set of IMAP controls.

If you're one of the 100 million-plus Gmail users and use IMAP for checking your email, whether it's with Outlook, Apple Mail or on your mobile phone, you're going to like this. Google Labs just made our lives easier with this new nifty feature.

Many e-mail clients, such as Outlook or Apple Mail tend to choke when you sync your Gmail "All Mail" label with your computer. The Advanced IMAP Controls will help you get rid of this annoyance and lighten the sync process.

Once the Advanced IMAP Setting feature is enabled from the Settings/Labs tab, and then go to Settings/Labels, you can select which folders and labels from your account will be synchronized with your local client. This way, only your folders of choice will be downloaded on you local machine and checking new e-mail is set to get speedier.

Deleting messages via IMAP has been by now a quite annoying process as well. When you deleted a message, it wasn't actually deleted, but "marked for deletion," which put in some sort of limbo state, where the message was still present but deleted later.

Thank to the Advanced IMAP Controls, now Gmail won't let deleted messages linger in that state anymore, but actually deletes them (auto-expunge) from the folder instantly. Still, if you prefer the old style two-stage deleting process, you can select "Do not automatically expunge messages" from the "Forwarding and POP/IMAP" tab in Settings.

So unlike Mail Goggles, launched earlier this week, the Advanced IMAP controls feature is a serious enhancement to Gmail, that can help you get rid of headaches when you try to put in order you Gmail account. Nevertheless, if you use Gmail's IMAP sync from your mobile phone, this new feature won't make too much of a difference for you, unless it's the first time you sync Gmail with your phone.

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