Gmail will no longer POP3 your domain email - from 2026
bikegremlin
ModeratorOGContent Writer
Not sure how many of us will be affected, but from the start of 2026 Google will no longer work for free as a domain email client. Heads up fellow LESbians.
The announcement:
Comments
Also:
Thunderbird - on Windows, version 143.0.1 (64-bit) - apparently won't let you configure both [email protected] and [email protected]
It "thinks" those two are one same account when trying to configure an additional email account.
Yes.
Quite frustrating.
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What about Outlook Email client?
Ympker's VPN LTD Comparison, Uptime.is, Ympker's GitHub.
Never liked it - but haven't tried it today.
May try if Thunderbird doesn't get patched.
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welcome to the future where you pay more for less. doesn't sound like progress to me.. more enshitification
---> ritlabs.com
That's unfortunate. For the past few years I had my mike@ email linked to my personal Gmail web account. But I also just forward emails too so I guess I'll switch to that.
Recently setup Spark email client too on Windows and iOS, pretty great email client. Used Thunderbird before.
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I also consider replacing it with something else.
The options I found so far:
A lot of other alternatives on the market, but many of them are "cloud clients" (especially on Android) - they will fetch all your emails to their servers
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Does https://www.betterbird.eu fix that issue?
Betterbird.
My pronouns are like/subscribe.
To Google...
Please stop the planet! I wish to get off!
Yes.
YES!
Thank you.
To my shame, I was not expecting any help with this after googling - just wanted to share the info with fellow admins who have many client stuff configured to "use the Gmail I already have on my phone..."
As our old saying goes: "Two heads are smarter than one."
Anyway, I could configure phone mail client on IOS to leave messages (without deleting them from the server after POP3), and Thunderbird/Betterbird to remove messages after X days - so that all the other phones and computers have enough time to get the same emails before they are removed from the server to preserve storage space.
Will be testing how that works over the following weeks before making adjustments on client infrastructure.
Edit:
Here it is, a work in progress - and yes, I had to make that cover picture LOL
https://io.bikegremlin.com/38226/my-email-setup/
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That looks good! The only downside that it is paid and high price.
The graphic on their page made me chuckle:
haha
With the big text below saying:
"Which party would you join?"
LOL
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Don't we all have a bit of wikiHow under the surface?
My pronouns are like/subscribe.
its worth the money. use it already over 20 years ,guess since version 1.63
Are you on the free plan?
I’m using thunderbird now it’s so slow at everything. I still use outlook classic for my day job because that email is a Microsoft account. I’ve used outlook for 20 years and would still use it for my personal imap accounts if they didn’t start that whole ingest everything into outlook outline.
Just wondering whether this restriction is documented somewhere. I don't necessarily doubt what you say, but it seems like a very odd restriction, almost like a bug
"A single swap file or partition may be up to 128 MB in size. [...] [I]f you need 256 MB of swap, you can create two 128-MB swap partitions." (M. Welsh & L. Kaufman, Running Linux, 2e, 1996, p. 49)
As far as I can tell, it is a bug.
A regression in fact (used to work, now no longer works in the latest verions).
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Indeed, it seems like a regression
I suspect that the latest Extended Support Release version (from July 7th) wouldn't have this bug:
https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/140.0esr/releasenotes/
In any case, if I were an otherwise happy Thunderbird user, I probably wouldn't jump ship so quickly
"A single swap file or partition may be up to 128 MB in size. [...] [I]f you need 256 MB of swap, you can create two 128-MB swap partitions." (M. Welsh & L. Kaufman, Running Linux, 2e, 1996, p. 49)
I had set up my personal email with MXRoute and was importing it into Gmail via POP3 so I could read it on both iPhone and Android.
It's really sad that it's going to stop working.
https://io.bikegremlin.com/10364/website-gmail/
Maybe it would still work if I used IMAP?
( ๑´•ω•)۶”ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ ʕ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʔ
You can use IMAP (your emails will remain stored on the MXroute server though, so depending on storage space you need it may not be ideal),
or you can use POP3 - just configure clients to not remove the emails from server until X days have passed (14 is usually enough, 30 if you wish to be on the safe side - like not touching my work computer while on vacation and similar).
In a bit more detail:
https://io.bikegremlin.com/38226/my-email-setup/
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It used to be cool over a decade ago - haven't used it for a long time.
Now, comparing the current versions, Betterbird looks like the better option.
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I've never used Betterbird, but it's based on Thunderbird ESR
"A single swap file or partition may be up to 128 MB in size. [...] [I]f you need 256 MB of swap, you can create two 128-MB swap partitions." (M. Welsh & L. Kaufman, Running Linux, 2e, 1996, p. 49)
I think outlook could be an alternative?
https://www.open-xchange.com/products/ox-app-suite-cloud this works aswell costs around 1.5 euro per email
Yes I don't pay for their paid plan. I used Thunderbird for years, basically 10+ years (and Outlook for some time before they did the cloud shit). But the UIX and performance is just better with Spark. I was going to use Outlook again actually before I found Spark, then I noticed what you mentioned that Microsoft pulls all mail data and stores it on their servers... so... nope.
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Good Google doesn't need to know everything everyone does every second of every day. You can place a bet they were crawling those pulled emails as well.
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It is a well known fact that google crawls your emails. How else do you think they use AI to detect spam in your emails?
Never make the same mistake twice. There are so many new ones to make.
It’s OK if you disagree with me. I can’t force you to be right.
I installed Thunderbird on Android, but as expected, it's a hassle if I can't manage everything in Gmail — the biggest problem is that Android kills the app in the background, so the notifications don’t come through properly like with the Gmail app.
By the way, I've been using "Thunderbird — on Windows, version 143.0.1 (64-bit) — which apparently won't let you configure both [email protected]" for years on my PC — mine are .COM and .ME though."
( ๑´•ω•)۶”ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ ʕ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʔ