Gmail + Thunderbird: Easy way to sync?

July 13, 2007 8:29 AM

GMAIL + Thunderbird. What is the best way to synchronize these? Also, is there a way to sync labels?

Basically, I mostly just use Gmail on the web because I can't find an easy way to sync it using Thunderbird. I'd really like to change this, given that I prefer emailing using a desktop client. Changing email providers is not something I really want to consider. Any ideas?

I've already read these questions. Thanks for your help!

posted by Mave_80 to computers & internet (7 comments total)

You want to download your GMail emails using Thunderbird? This is a built in feature of Thunderbird 2.0. Just create a new account and select GMail. Enter your account information and turn on POP access on your GMail account.
posted by demiurge at 9:17 AM on July 13, 2007

No, you can't really easily "sync" GMail with anything. You can download your messages via POP3 into whatever you like, but your tags and organization will be gone (in the new copies on your computer). You also can't (easily) upload changes back into GMail.

If you're OK with not having your changes show up in the webmail, you can just download everything and only use the web-based interface occasionally, with no expectation of having stuff sorted... But flipping back and forth while keeping all of your changes is not really a feature of GMail.
posted by anaelith at 10:00 AM on July 13, 2007

Full instructions from Google here
posted by kenchie at 10:30 AM on July 13, 2007

The problem with accessing GMail through a desktop client like Thunderbird is that it is only a POP account, which means it only downloads the messages, there is no synchronization.

Some of us forward all of our GMail to another IMAP mail account in order to emulate this functionality. Instructions here and here. The second link talks about tagging the mail too.

(The only issue with this method is that your sent mail doesn't show up as sent on your IMAP account, because you'll be sending it through the GMail account. To fix this, I BCC myself and set up a Mail Rule to move any messages from myself to my Sent Mail.)
posted by daser at 10:43 AM on July 13, 2007

I haven't done much research on it, but you may want to look into this guide which was featured all over the blogosphere a few days ago.

Looks like someone figured out how to do gmail over IMAP using a few third-party websites.
posted by ThFullEffect at 10:55 AM on July 13, 2007

Gmail now has IMAP access, which allows you to sync everything except your Gmail address book; and for that, there's GCALDaemon.
posted by flabdablet at 8:21 PM on March 7

Zindus is a better option than GCALDaemon for syncing Thunderbird contacts with Gmail - it's an add-on rather than a standalone installed application.

I don't need to mess around with a separately stored application and that is one less server app. on my system that I have to maintain. The Zindus add-on approach IMO is better as there is no third party dependency.
posted by syncaholic at 6:46 PM on April 17