Proud Geek

(Update 11/26/07: Chatter has been updated, and this has been fixed! See related blog post and updated instructions on how to configure Chatter.)

(Update 11/20/07: A new beta version of Chatter Email fixes problems with Gmail’s IMAP. I’ve begun using Gmail once again, and I love it!)

(UPDATE 10/30/07: Problems with how emails look after going through Gmail’s IMAP has forced me to go back to Fastmail. See related blog post.)

Gmail now allows people to connect via IMAP — effectively giving people the “power” to instaneously push Gmail emails to their mobile devices, computer programs, and favorite webmail services. And if you’ve been a regular reader of my blog, you know how much an advocate I am of using Chatter on Palm Treos, using Gmail AND Fastmail.fm. Now that Gmail offers IMAP, you can just drop Fastmail and use Gmail by itself.

Wonderful! I’ve been so looking forward to moving from Fastmail to Gmail.

Here’s how you can set Chatter to do IMAP with Gmail (at least until Chatter is updated to automatically configure Gmail with IMAP):

1. You need to configure Gmail to allow IMAP. Within Gmail on the computer screen, click on “Settings” then the “Forwarding and POP / IMAP” tab. Then click on “Enable IMAP”. (NOTE: if you don’t see this yet, then try logging out and then into your Gmail account. Sometimes this will do the trick. If you still don’t see this, then wait a bit longer …)
2. Within Chatter on your Treo, pull down the top menu and select “New Account”
3. In the “Quick Setup” window, under “Choose the account type …” drop-down menu, select “Generic IMAP Account”
4. You’ll be taken to “Account Definition.” Under the “Define” tab, fill in the following. Name: (type in a nickname for this account); IMAP Server: (type “imap.gmail.com”); Login Name: (type your email address including the “@” — i.e., “johndoe@gmail.com”. If you have a Google App account, use the account domain name and email — i.e., “john@johndoe.com”); Password: (type your Gmail password)
5. Under the “Deliver” tab, make sure the following boxes are checked: “Sync Messages”, “Keep Flags Synced”, and “Use SSL”. Everything else is up to you.
6. Under the “Other” tab, the settings are up to you.
7. Under the “SMTP” tab, and after saying yes to “Do you want to create a SMTP profile?”, set the following: Server: (type “smtp.google.com”); Login Name (make sure your gmail email address is spelled correctly here); Password (type your gmail password); Return Address (same as your gmail email address); Full Name (type whatever full name you want here). MAKE SURE there is a check next to “SSL”.
8. Click on OK.
9. Chatter should now connect to Gmail — and you will now be able to receive and send emails via your Gmail account.

Update: here’s the official announcement from Google about Gmail getting IMAP.

Update #2: here’s my original blog post explaining how to set up Chatter on your Treo with Fastmail and Gmail. I’ll do a new blog post soon with this info, but leaving Fastmail out. Bye bye Fastmail, you were good to me, yet it’s time to say bye.

Update #3: here’s an official blog post from Palm saying that while Versamail won’t work nicely with Gmail’s new IMAP access, Chatter will indeed work well.