Is IMAP not showing in your Gmail Settings?

As of October 2007, Google have enabled IMAP support for Gmail, but it wasn’t showing in my settings. I did some searches and no-one had a workaround other than “wait, your server probably isn’t updated yet”. Well I think I have a fix, and it’s easy.

IMAP is a much better way of handling mail when you need to access it from multiple clients (like phone, computer, web etc) and keeping it synchronised.

I thought there had to be an easier way, so after some deductive reasoning I decided it may not be server based but language based. So I looked in my settings and found my language was set to English (UK) – note “Forwarding and POP” which should say “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” if I had IMAP support.

Gmail Screenshot (Language UK)

So I changed my language settings from English (UK) to English (US), hit the save button and that fixed it for me – IMAP was now available. I am gathering if you have it set to anything but English (US) it may not show.

Gmail Screenshot (Language)

I hope this helps others to get it working.

Update: Seems this only works if IMAP is enabled on your account, but you can’t see it due to the language setting not being on English (US). It’s worth giving it a try though because the language setting seems to hide it, but just a heads-up it may not work for everyone.

Regards,
Shane.

3 thoughts on “Is IMAP not showing in your Gmail Settings?

  1. i’ve tried your method, but still no luck, i even try switching the browser from firefox to IE7. i’m still looking for a better way, thanks anyway!

  2. Sorry, didn’t work for me. I tried it several times over the last few days, and got nothing.Perhaps if it’s enabled on your account and you’re not set to US English, it won’t show up, but if it’s not enabled at all, you’re sol.

  3. Sorry to hear it’s not working for you. It seems the language setting just hides the option if it is already enabled on your account (so worth trying just in case). I’ve updated the article to state that it may not work for everyone.Thanks,Shane.

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