Many of us would like to use our GMail accounts in Evolution, and to a lesser degree Thunderbird and KMail. Here is a step by step guide on how to configure Evolution, Thunderbird and KMail to access you GMail account.
The first step is to log in to your GMail account and to click on Settings and click on the Forwarding and POP tab. Under POP Download select Enable POP for all mail and click Save Changes.
Log out of GMail and go to your UBUNTU or Linux install.
Evolution
Start Evolution
If you have not used Evolution before, or haven’t set up an account the New Account Wizard will launch. Click Forward.
Type in your Full Name and your Gmail Email Address and click Forawrd.
Select SMTP as the Server Type. The Server is smtp.gmail.com. Encryption is TLS, Authentication is Plain and fill in your full Gmail Email Address. Click Forward.
Give your account a name, it does not have to be anything Logical. Click Forward.
Select the current Time Zone and click Forward.
Click Apply.
If the New Account Wizard doesn’t launch, then in Evolution go to Edit – Preferences and click on Mail Accounts. Edit the info so that it matches the information above and you will be able to send and receive GMail.
Thunderbird
Start Thunderbird
Select “File,” “New,” Account, the New Account Wizard will launch. On the window that pops up select “email account,” and next.
Then type in your name in the top box, and your full GMail email address in the bottom, and click next.
On the next window select “POP” as the type of incoming server, then name the incoming server “pop.gmail.com”.
It doesn’t matter if “Use Global Inbox is enabled” is checked, it makes all of your email accounts report to the same inbox, check it or uncheck it as you wish, and click next.
After that make your user name is the same as your email address and click next
Then type in an account name (eg: inbox, gmail, home) this is what you click on to access this account and can be whatever you want, and click next.
Click Finish.
Next click on Edit – Account Settings in Thunderbird and from the menu of the new window select “server settings.” Click SSL and the port will automatically switch to 995.
Click on Outgoing Server (SMTP) and specify smtp.gmail.com as the outgoing mail server, and select SSL as the encryption and the port will automatically switch to 465. Type in your full GMail email address and click ok.
Kmail
Start Kmail
Go to “Settings,” then “Configure Kmail”
Click on accounts
Click “Add”
Select POP3 on the window that pops up and OK
On this window type in whatever you want your account to be called under “Account Name.” Then type your login, which is your entire email address, and your password. Next for the host type in “pop.gmail.com,” and change the port to 950. Change the rest of the settings to your liking.
Then on the top tab, arrow over to “Extras” For encryption select “Use ssl for secure mail download,” and for Authentication Method, select “Clear Text.”
Here’s how to configure gmail outbound in Kmail.
Go to settings, configure kmail
Go to accounts and sending
Go to add, on the box that pops up select smtp and OK
The host is smtp.gmail.com
The port is 465
Check the box that says server requires authentication
*Your login is your email address (with the @gmail.com at the end)
Type your password
Go to security and check the ssl box.
Click OK, then apply
Go to identities, click modify, and type in your email address.
You can find the full article with screenshots here
I just noticed that thunderbird 2.0 has gmail listed as one of the types of email accounts. So the instructions are now *really* easy:
Start Thunderbird
Select “File,” “New,” Account, the New Account Wizard will launch. On the window that pops up select “gmail,” and next.
Then type in your name in the top box, and your full GMail email address in the bottom, and click next, then click finish.
I absolutely appreciate this post and I don’t know what I would have done without it. However, I would like to offer some constructive criticism about one thing that I noticed. In your post above, you did not mention what to do in Evolution mail when it came to the “Receiving Mail” screen where a user is required to fill in pop.gmail.com among other things.
I thought it was necessary to point this out because it may be hard for some less technically inclined people to understand why something wasn’t included in the article above.
No worries though, your article aside from that small mistake was very helpful and I thank you for your contribution.
Sincerely,
Trevor B.
Great post, helped me get Kmail going when google was down for a bit here in Thailand.
Thanks,
Eric
I configured both Evolution and Thunderbird. Thunderbird is running quite smooth,but when i am trying to send a message in Evolution an error message appears “broken pipe”.Please help me.I thank for your contribution.
Thanks,
Binoy
The problem is that Evolution doesn’t communicate with smtp.google.com … I’ve tried everything, and nothing I find online helps…
Matt yes that’s because smtp.google.com needs you to set a high port for communication. Here is Google’s info on setting up clients for accessing it.
Incoming Mail (POP3) Server – requires SSL: pop.gmail.com
Use SSL: Yes
Port: 995
Outgoing Mail (SMTP) Server – requires TLS: smtp.gmail.com (use authentication)
Use Authentication: Yes
Use STARTTLS: Yes (some clients call this SSL)
Port: 465 or 587
I don’t see anywhere in Evolution to configure the port numbers, only the server name and authentication type!
I think the port for Kmail is incorrect.
I have always used 995 our incoming mail.
in server configuration —-> pop.gmail.com:995
the same for smtp server….
Great post!! It Works!!!
Thank you guys!!!
cheers.
Thanks friends IT’s working properly..
Thasnx a-lot buddy.
The syntax for adding a port number is:
pop.gmail.com:995
smtp.gmail.com:465
Hi,
I configured the evolution as per the screenshots, when i tried to send my first mail..it showed a message saying the default key ring is not accesible..it asked for password.. i typed in my user password (ubutu), it still showed error…i clicked on deny and the message never appeared again for send mail i sent.. the mail went through though.. could you please explain what is the the default key ring and why evoultion tried access it ?
by the way iam using ubuntu 8.04
a constructive critism..in latest evolution the receiving mails setups comes first
the user has to selct pop and pop.gmail.com and ssl encryption..
Thanks in advance
Excellent post. I couldn’t figure out why gmail was not downloading all messages. It turns out that I had forgotten to enable POP for all.
Thanks,
Scott
Wow! Thank you! I always wanted to write in my site something like that. Can I take part of your post to my blog?
I don?t usually reply to posts but I will in this case. I?ve been experiencing this very same problem with a new WordPress installation of mine. I?ve spent weeks calibrating and getting it ready when all of a sudden? I cannot delete any content. It?s a workaround that, although isn?t perfect, does the trick so thanks! I really hope this problem gets solved properly asap.
Great post, works like a charm.
thanks a lot.
Hi,
for Evolution, in SMTP settings, encryption type: SSL worked for me. Maybe you should correct the post.
yes its really great i get help.
in my evolution SSL working.. tls not working
so use ssl.
thanks
using Evolution 2.28.3:
thanks to cbuckridge for
The syntax for adding a port number is:
pop.gmail.com:995 -did not need
smtp.gmail.com:465 —-worked w/ SSL encryption enabled (thanks Farshad)
thanks to all
Unfortunately simply adding the port :995 and :465 is not working for me.
I ran the command dig smtp.googlemail.com (Mozilla Thunderbird uses this address and it works) in a terminal to get the ip address witch is 74.125.93.16 and plugged it in with the port :995 for imap and :465 for smtp and it works great.
To test i added dig smtp.googlemail.com and dig imap.googlemail.com to my /etc/hosts and used the url:port method and it did not work.
So, my guess is that for Evolution to work with url:port you must use IPaddress:port
Thanks
#EDIT
Unfortunately simply adding the port :995 and :465 is not working for me.
I ran the command dig smtp.googlemail.com (Mozilla Thunderbird uses this address and it works) in a terminal to get the ip address witch is 74.125.93.16 and plugged it in with the port :995 for imap and :465 for smtp and it works great.
To test i added 74.125.93.16 smtp.googlemail.com and 74.125.93.16 imap.googlemail.com to my /etc/hosts and used the url:port method and it did not work.
So, my guess is that for Evolution to work with url:port you must use IPaddress:port
Thanks
Thanks! It finally worked. I think on all of the others I had typed my password wrong, so it just wouldn’t authenticate.