Make Gmail a little friendlier

Almost all of our clients are now using email from Google Apps Gmail. It's an excellent system, particularly now that it supports IMAP. IMAP has many benefits, such as allowing you to sync between machines easily.

But Gmail doesn't set up IMAP quite like the standard. Thus, email programs like Thunderbird, Apple Mail and Outlook have needed some tweaking.

But now, Gmail has a way of controlling how IMAP works. It's experimental, so use with caution, but so far, I like what I see.

Here's how to set it up.

1. Log in to the web interface for your email account at http://mail.YOUR_DOMAIN_NAME.com/
2. Go to Settings at the top right of your screen.
3. You'll see several tabs. Look for one called Labs. If you don't see it, cut and paste the following address into your browser's address bar, and press Enter.
   
   https://mail.google.com/mail/?labs=1#settings
   
   This will enable the Labs tab.
4. Now click on the Labs tab, and look for Advanced IMAP Controls. Click Enable, scroll down and click Save Changes.
5. You will now have several new options available to you (see the link below for details). But the one that is probably most useful is "Show in IMAP." In Settings, go to the Labels tab. If you don't want to see, say, the Starred or Spam folders in your email program, uncheck the corresponding box. That's it!

More information about Advanced IMAP Controls is available from the Official Gmail Blog. As I said, this is experimental, so use with caution. But you might like the results.