nixCraft 🐧Oct 2
Heads up! Gmail will no longer support checking emails from third-party accounts via POP. https://support.google.com/mail/answer/16604719?hl=en
Learn about upcoming changes to Gmailify & POP in Gmail - Gmail Help

Gmail will start removing support for the following features: Gmailify: This feature allows you to get special features like spam protection or inbox organization applied to your third-party email

Show threadThe Incredible Laser
@nixCraft POP in 2025 is wild. If you're still using it, you should reconsider
Oct 2 at 11:14amWeb
Show threadBrokarOct 2

@IncredibleLaser @nixCraft
I use POP when i can.
I have also set all my IMAP accounts to "delete after download" in Thunderbird.
I don't want my emails to linger on an IMAP server longer than necessary, esp. with all companies now using the modern "AI" to sift through everything.

But that's just me. You do you.

Show threadThe Incredible LaserOct 2
@Brokar @nixCraft there should be only one company able to go through your mail with AI (two of you include the sender's provider), and if they want to do that, they're able to do so before any of your clients see the mail, regardless of protocol. If you care about this issue, do not use mail for anything where AI access is a problem
Show threadLeelooOct 2

@IncredibleLaser @nixCraft
Why don't you suggest some alternatives?

My requirements:
- Good for bulk fetching, not for reading mails on the server.
- Orders of magnitude simpler than IMAP.

Show threadThe Incredible LaserOct 2
@leeloo @nixCraft there isn't much because email is a bad protocol most people / organizations don't want to invest into. However there is JMAP
Show threadLeelooOct 3
@IncredibleLaser @nixCraft
Which nothing supports, so back to POP3.
Show threadThe Incredible LaserOct 3
@leeloo @nixCraft Well, not with GMail…
Show threadLeelooOct 3
@IncredibleLaser @nixCraft
Nor with any other email service that I know of. Now with fetchmail or any email program that I'm aware of.
Show threadThe Incredible LaserOct 3

@leeloo @nixCraft I was just pointing out that POP3 isn't going to work with Gmail either.

Anyhow, my provider has JMAP support (unsurprising since they're the original authors of the protocol).

The issue with POP for me was always that you lose your single source of truth, it's mostly designed to operate with a single client per mailbox. For a good reason, there are no modern communication protocols that operate in a similar fashion

Show threadLeelooOct 3

@IncredibleLaser @nixCraft
We are talking about alternatives for pop3 because gmail is removing pop3 support, and you decided to point out that pop3 doesn't work with gmail anymore?

And I just got around to read the Wikipedia page about JMAP. HTTP and JSON garbage. So it's neither simple nor an alternative.

With POP3 I have exactly my single source of truth: My inbox, where everything gets collected (by fetchmail).

Show threadThe Incredible LaserOct 3

@leeloo @nixCraft my point was that if you dismiss JMAP because of provider support (fair), then POP also has issues as Gmail has just removed it, per the news.

Also I'm not sure how JMAP is so less simple than POP3. At least it's stateless and the underlying protocols are well-understood and offer security guarantees.

I mean yeah you probably won't be able to use it manually via telnet (which was probably possible with POP3) but I don't consider this a valid usecase today

Show threadLeelooOct 3

@IncredibleLaser @nixCraft
Working in IT, I have been in the situation that the only thing that could get on the network was the router, so the only way to read mails was telnet from the Cisco command line on the console port.

Broken networks are not something that only happened in historical times.