IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol. It is a method of accessing email messages. In effect IMAP allows the user to view email using popular mail software ( such as Outlook, Thunderbird and Apple Mail ) without downloading (and deleting) the messages from the mail server. Unlike the more widely used post office protocol (POP), IMAP messages remain on the mail server and can be accessed from multiple machines.I am not sure when IMAP access was turned on when I logged into my main Gmail account to change the POP setting I noticed that the screen was different. Google normally has some king of "New features" thing in the upper right hand corner of the page. They do this for Google Docs and Spreadsheets as well. There was nothing on the main page to indicate something was new.

In my Gmail account IMAP was enabled by default. The Gmail team has provided configuration instructions for the most popular mail clients. I use OS-X Mail.app to read my Gmail ( I use the browser elsewhere ). Under POP I had to suffer with my mail being archived whenever it was downloaded. With IMAP I will be able to keep my Mail.app view and web view synchronized. That means if I read or delete a message in Mail.app it shows up as read or delete in Gmail.

 One thing I did notice is that my list of labels appeared as IMAP folders in Mail.app and the list of IMAP folders including the Spam bucket. I think this is a great idea and is what the user community would expect. I think Google has once again upped the ante when it comes to email.