This is old news now, but important enought that I believe its worth a rehash. For a ton of users who prefer downloading their mail directly to Thunderbird, Outlook or a smartphone using the pop3 protocol this is huge news: Google is now supporting the IMAP4 protocol.

Heck, its big news if you use just one device and also check your email on gmail.com you'll appreciate this.

This is a replacement to the pop3 protocol and is much more sophisticated. One major feature is the server maintaining a list of which emails have been read on any one of the clients. So, if you've got a laptop and desktop both syncing to gmail your probably used to having to delete the same spam twice. This is eliminated. Also, marking messages read just one time on any one system is all thats necessary.

All Gmail accounts are supposed to be updated to support IMAP4 very soon, if not already. If you are using pop3, trying switching to IMAP4 and look for the superiority.

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