Download Gmail mails through POP on two machines

I have been using Gmail for some time and love the program. Since my cell phone (W700i - I’m a poor man ) is GPRS enabled I always wanted to have access to my emails when on the move. Since I was sick for about a week the need for accessing emails on my cell phone arose. However, when I tried downloading the emails from the same Gmail account on to my desktop the mails were not downloaded. If an email has been downloaded via POP on to one machine the same mails cannot be downloaded on another machine.

So I started looking for solutions so that I could download the mails on to my desktop. One solution is to use IMAP but then the size of my inbox is so huge that syncing the inboxes on two machines would take a lot of time and bandwidth.

Another solution I found has been developed by Gmail and I recommend that. All you need to do is that on the second machine while setting up the account, in the user name field where you would use your Gmail address (eg. someone@gmail.com) add ‘recent:’ to the username (eg. recent:someone@gmail.com). Depending on the email client you are using do the following

In Outlook, on the Advanced tab, check the box next to Leave a copy of messages on the server.
In Outlook Express, on the Advanced tab, check the box next to Leave a copy of messages on server.
In Apple Mail, on the Advanced tab, remove the check next to Remove copy from server after retrieving a message.
In Thunderbird, on the Server Settings tab, check the box next to Leave messages on server.

That’s it! You are done. For detailed explanation please visit http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=47948. This feature also works on custom domains if you are using Google Apps with Gmail.

Small enhancements like these make Gmail an excellent service. Unlike other email service providers the Gmail team takes feedback and adds features which I’m sure will make Gmail the most widely used email service.