Using IMAP on Gmail
October 26th, 2007
I heard that the IMAP feature on Gmail doesn’t come to all its users. Well, in that case, I can consider myself lucky since the IMAP feature on my Gmail account is active. But of course, sometimes luck comes with a catch. In my case, it’s the speed.
Actually, with my current line of work, I’m not a too mobile person. 75% of our clients are abroad, so we basically communicate with them using emails or instant messengers. In another word, we are required to be stationery on our workstations with a good internet connection and that’s it. But even though I’m not that mobile, I could appreciate if, let’s say, I have to check my emails on the road using my iBook, or the iPhone (should I got it by the time it gets here), the mailbox syncs automatically with all of my machines at work, at home, and on the road.
With that thought as my main expected holy grail, I enabled the IMAP feature on my Gmail yesterday, and hoped that I will have a perfectly synced email wherever I am. And yes, the truth hurts, eventhough that we now have a 768k connection, it doesn’t seem to be fast enough to manage the IMAP connection from Gmail. What I get? A constant wait when moving from one mailbox to another, another constant wait when syncing the email info everytime I read a mail, or flag it, or whatever.
As much as I wanted an IMAP feature to simplify my email chores, now I simply have to go back using the good old POP because of the time constraints. What can you say? Indonesia is probably in its baby steps toward the broadband era, but it does still sucks.