Thank you, Google. You’ve just turned what was a really good email
account into an amazing one… perhaps the holy grail of email…
Let’s consider…
It’s free.
It’s fast.
It’s huge. Not unlimited, but more than most people need. and growing.
It’s got a great web interface that works with all types of computers.
It’s searchable. (duh, it’s Google)
It’s got good spam filtering.
It allows the use of other email addresses, like for your own domain
name.
… and if you want, you can set it up AS your domain name instead of
gmail.com!
Integrated chat, labels, starring and threading, among other goodies.
It’s got POP access. Free POP access.
and now… drum roll… Gmail has IMAP!!!
Now, for those of you who are less of a geek than me, just know that
IMAP is better. WAY better if you ever check your email from multiple
places. Two computers? no problem, IMAP keeps your mailboxes, all of
them, in sync. Need webmail when you’re travelling? Cool, your
changes, deletions, organization, sent messages will all appear
naturally on your Mail program when you get home! Once it’s set up,
you’ll never have to delete a message twice again. You’ll never have
to BCC yourself just to have access to your email somewhere else.
Lots of paid email hosts still don’t offer IMAP. It puts greater
demand on the server but duh, as email users put greater demand on
their email…. and begin to carry it around in their pocket… this
is the way things will be moving… and thanks to Google for seeing
that!