How to read Gmail mail

After reading my guide on how to create Gmail emails you just proceeded to create an email account through the well-known Google home service. You find it very convenient and for the moment you have not encountered any kind of problem but would you like to be able to manage your correspondence even from traditional clients such as Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird or Apple Mail? No problem, it can be done very easily. How? Well, take a few minutes of free time to read this tutorial on how to read Gmail mail and you’ll find out right away.

All you have to do is enable the use of IMAP and POP3 protocols in your Gmail account and configure yours email client using the parameters shown below. I know, it seems like a difficult thing to say so, and instead I assure you it’s really child’s play. The important thing is to type correctly all the addresses and port numbers used by Gmail to communicate with remote servers.

How do you say? Would you like to access Gmail also from smartphones and tablets but you don’t know which applications to use? No problem, I’ll help you with that too, it’s very easy and it only takes a few minutes, really. But now let’s ban the chatter and try to take the real action. Enjoy your reading and have fun!

Index

• Read Gmail from computer
  • Choice of protocol
  • Client configuration
• Read Gmail from smartphones and tablets
  • Gmail app
  • Other apps

Read Gmail from computer

Do you want to find out what you need to do to be able to read the emails you receive on your Gmail account with one of the many ad hoc programs available for your computer? Well, then follow the instructions below and you will see that in no time you will have no more doubts about it.

Choice of protocol

As anticipated at the beginning, to use Gmail in programs such as Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird or Apple Mail you must use the IMAP protocol or the POP3 protocol. The first is more modern and is designed to work on multiple devices at the same time, in fact it synchronizes incoming and outgoing messages on all devices in use; the second is older and is designed to run on a single computer. It even provides for the deletion of messages from Gmail servers once they are downloaded to the PC (unless you activate a special backup function that prevents them from being deleted).

To use the IMAP and POP3 protocols in an email client, you must first make sure they are enabled in the Gmail settings. How you do it? Very simple: connected to your e-mail box on mail.google.com, click on the button with the gear icon located at the top right and select the Settings item from the menu that appears.

In the page that opens, select the Forwarding and POP / IMAP tab, put the checkmark next to the item Activate IMAP to activate IMAP or next to the item Activate POP for all messages to activate POP3 and presses the Save changes button located at the bottom of the screen to save the settings.

Client configuration

Now you can open your favorite email client, start the procedure for adding a new email account and configure the program using the data you find below.

IMAP

• Incoming mail server (IMAP): gmail.com, Port: 993, Requires SSL: yes.
• Outgoing mail server (SMTP): gmail.com, Port: 465 or 587, Requires SSL: yes, Requires authentication: yes.
• Full name or display name:[your name]
• Account Name or Username:your Gmail address (e.g. name @ gmail.com ).
• E-mail address : your Gmail address (e.g. name @ gmail.com ).
• Password: Gmail password.

POP3

• Incoming mail server (POP3): gmail.com, Port: 995, Requires SSL: yes.
• Outgoing mail server (SMTP): gmail.com, Port: 465 or 587, Requires SSL: yes, Requires authentication: yes.
• Full name or display name:[your name]
• Account Name or Username:your Gmail address (e.g. name @ gmail.com ).
• E-mail address : your Gmail address (e.g. name @ gmail.com ).
• Password: Gmail password.

If you do not know how to start the procedure for adding a new e-mail account in your client, follow the instructions for all the most popular programs in the category listed below.

• Microsoft Outlook– Go to the menu file > Impostazioni account > Nuovo and fill out the form that is proposed to you with the “coordinates” IMAP / POP3 / SMTP of Gmail.
• Mozilla Thunderbird– Click on the button Menulocated at the top right, go to the menu Nuovo messaggio > Crea un nuovo account email and fill out the form that is proposed to you.
• Apple Mail– Go to the menu Preferenze > Account, press the button +in the window that opens and fill out the form that is proposed to you.

In case you encounter any problems or if you think you need more details, I suggest you take a look at the specific guides provided directly by the big G team for configuring Gmail via third-party clients. To read the guide relating to the configuration via the IMAP protocol click here, while to read the information relating to the POP3 protocol you can click here.

Note:  In the event that two-step verification is activated on your Google account, in order to read Gmail mail through the appropriate client, you may be required to create a specific password for the client you intend to use. If you don’t know how to do this, you can help yourself by following the instructions I have provided you in my article on how to authenticate your Google account.

Read Gmail mail from smartphones and tablets

As mentioned at the beginning of the guide, it is also possible to read Gmail mail from mobile. To do this, you can use the official app made available by Google itself or you can contact one of the many third-party applications. The choice is up to you, based on your preferences and needs. Below you will find explained how to proceed both in one case and in the other.

Gmail app

If you are interested in understanding how to read Gmail from your smartphone or tablet, I recommend that you use the official Gmail application for Android and for iPhone / iPad, which also activates push notifications on iOS (where normally they are not enabled for Google accounts).

To use it, download and install the app using the links to the Google Play Store and the App Store that I gave you a moment ago, then start Gmail by pressing the application icon that has been added to the main screen of the smartphone or tablet. you are using. At this point, if the Google account is already in use on your device, you will be shown a screen through which you will have to select the profile you want to use by turning the relative switch to  ON and then tapping the End button located at the top left.

If, on the other hand, on your smartphone or tablet you are not already using a Google account, once the main screen of the Gmail app is displayed, fill in the fields displayed by putting your e-mail address and the password associated with it and confirm your willingness to want to access the service with such data by tapping on the appropriate button.

In both cases, you agree to receive notifications from the app by pressing the appropriate button that is shown on the screen and then press the Go to Inbox item at the bottom left. Within moments, you should be able to view and manage all your correspondence right from the Gmail app on your device.

Other apps

If Gmail does not satisfy you and you are looking for an app capable of giving you that surplus you need, you can also use the Gmail Inbox application always available for Android and iOS which allows you to use e-mail as if it were a to-do list. Alternatively, you can install a third-party email client, as in the case of the excellent  MailDroid for Android or  Spark for iOS.

To be able to read Gmail mail using third-party apps on mobile devices, you clearly have to worry about configuring the service using the settings of the application in use. In most cases, the configuration procedure takes place completely automatically so after pressing the option to add a Gmail account, just type the e-mail address, password and any code for authentication to two factors and it is immediately possible to start using the mailbox.

Sometimes, however, the automatic configuration is not sufficient or in any case it is not proposed and it is therefore necessary to enter “manually” all the necessary parameters and configure Gmail via IMAP / POP3. Contrary to appearances, this is not a complicated operation. In fact, all you have to do is enter the data that I indicated in the previous lines, when I explained how to read Gmail from a computer, and that’s it.

For example, if you want to configure the use of Gmail on iOS with the “standard” Mail app, just go to the Settings screen  (by pressing the gear icon on the home screen), first select the Mail item and then that  Account from the menu that appears, tap on  Add account and select the Google logo in the new screen displayed. Then you have to fill in the form that is proposed to you by entering your Gmail address in the E-mail field, the access password of your account in the Password field and a name to describe the account (eg.  Gmail ) in the field Description.

After filling out the form, press the Yes button to authorize iOS to synchronize with your Google account and, on the next screen, choose which items to synchronize between the account and your iDevice between Mail, Contacts, Calendars,  Reminders and  Notes. Finally, tap on  Save and that’s it.

Once the configuration procedure has been carried out correctly, you can start using your Gmail account simply by tapping on the icon of the mail app of your choice that you find on the screen of the device you are using which also contains all the other applications.

Note:  Even in the case of using Gmail on a mobile device, if two-step verification is enabled on your Google account, in order to use the Google home mail service, you may be asked to create a specific password for the client that is yours. intention to use. If you don’t know how to do it, you can help yourself by following the instructions in my guide on the topic that I pointed out to you in the previous lines.