New messages are not fetched via POP from Gmail

Question

I use a local mail client (Opera's) to automatically backup all my mails from GMail. I set it up once and I forgot about it. Today it occured to me to check how the backing up works and turns out the last mail downloaded from Gmail is from March this year.

I checked the POP settings in GMail and it says: POP is enabled for all mail that has arrived since 9/14/04, so it seems OK.

When I initate a POP sync in the mail client it connects, authenticates (so authentication works) and says there are no new messages, though I've sent and received hundreds of messages since March using the web interface.

If POP is enabled for all mails since September 2004 and authentication works then what else can be the problem, so that new messages are not fetched?

Answer 1

The way POP can work by default means that once a message is downloaded it will no longer appear in the original mailbox (I.e. Gmail checks for new messages, grabs them from pop.Tom.com and now the inbox in pop.Tom.com is empty).

If you found an old client in one place, I suspect you have another one that is grabbing your mail.

To confirm, change your pop password, update it in your gmail settings and then send a msg to the pop mailbox. If it works, you'll need to track down the client that has been downloading your mail.

Answer 2

I was having the same problem and couldn't find the answer anywhere online.

What I ended up doing is, from Gmail, going to "Mail Settings -> Forwarding and POP/IMAP" and then clicking on "Enable POP for all mail (even mail that's already been downloaded)" and then saving.

It worked for me. Good luck.