This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

syncing email on two computers

  • 2 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 546 views
  • Last reply by divalent

more options

I have two desktop computers each running Thunderbird to handle a gmail account. Using POP. If one computer receives an email, the other won't (and vice versa), so one computer ends up with a subset of emails that I've received, and the other has a different subset. I like both computers to have the complete set of incoming emails.

I do have both set up to leave messages on the server.

Any ideas how to get this to work as I want?

Thx

I have two desktop computers each running Thunderbird to handle a gmail account. Using POP. If one computer receives an email, the other won't (and vice versa), so one computer ends up with a subset of emails that I've received, and the other has a different subset. I like both computers to have the complete set of incoming emails. I do have both set up to leave messages on the server. Any ideas how to get this to work as I want? Thx

Chosen solution

Ideally, you would be using imap and not pop.

Unfortunately, gmail is a bit of a pain and only allows one set of pop downloads. Happilly, there is a way around this :) https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7104828?hl=en under Troubleshoot problems section: 'I want to download emails on multiple email clients ' The info in italic is quoted: It's easiest to use Gmail on multiple email clients using IMAP. If you need to use POP instead of IMAP, set up "Recent mode." Recent mode shows your last 30 days of emails from Gmail. Step 1: Turn on Recent mode In your email client's POP settings page, find the "Email address" or "User name" field.

  • Right click on mail account in Folder Pane and select 'Settings'
  • Select : 'Server Settings'

Add recent: in front of your email address. For example, recent:example@gmail.com.

Step 2: Change your POP settings Change your POP settings so that your emails are left on the server. Thunderbird: On the "Server Settings" tab, check the box next to "Leave messages on server."

No need to worry about the second step as you say you already have this setup. Make sure both computers have the same settings.

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (2)

more options

Chosen Solution

Ideally, you would be using imap and not pop.

Unfortunately, gmail is a bit of a pain and only allows one set of pop downloads. Happilly, there is a way around this :) https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7104828?hl=en under Troubleshoot problems section: 'I want to download emails on multiple email clients ' The info in italic is quoted: It's easiest to use Gmail on multiple email clients using IMAP. If you need to use POP instead of IMAP, set up "Recent mode." Recent mode shows your last 30 days of emails from Gmail. Step 1: Turn on Recent mode In your email client's POP settings page, find the "Email address" or "User name" field.

  • Right click on mail account in Folder Pane and select 'Settings'
  • Select : 'Server Settings'

Add recent: in front of your email address. For example, recent:example@gmail.com.

Step 2: Change your POP settings Change your POP settings so that your emails are left on the server. Thunderbird: On the "Server Settings" tab, check the box next to "Leave messages on server."

No need to worry about the second step as you say you already have this setup. Make sure both computers have the same settings.

more options

Thanks a lot! That worked (although the slight downside is that it reloaded all messages from the last month, even ones that I had already, so I have a lot of duplicates now.)