Gmail is quietly eradicating a characteristic that would cease emails from reaching your inbox

With regards to electronic mail suppliers, Google’s Gmail is without doubt one of the hottest all over the world. So when it instantly decides to shake up its companies, it might have an effect on lots of people. And to begin off the brand new 12 months, Google is doing precisely that.

Google has announced that it’s going to finish assist for POP3 on January 20, 2026. Meaning in the event you at the moment use POP3 to fetch emails from third-party accounts into your Gmail inbox, this setup will cease working.

“Gmail will not assist checking emails from third-party accounts by POP,” Google defined. “The choice to ‘Examine mail from different accounts’ will not be obtainable in Gmail in your laptop.”

Google quietly shared the information in a support page update, the place the corporate additionally introduced “modifications” to Gmailify — a characteristic that lets third-party electronic mail accounts benefit from Gmail instruments like spam safety and inbox group. Nevertheless, the change Google is making right here is sort of drastic, because it’s merely shutting Gmailify down altogether, saying it “will not present assist” for the characteristic. Like POP3, Gmailify assist will finish on January 20, 2026.

Why is Google doing this?

Google says resorting to its cellular app or automated electronic mail forwarding are options

In its assist web page put up, Google did not clarify why it determined to finish assist for POP. That stated, one cause being speculated is safety (by way of TechRadar). The POP3 protocol requires sharing passwords in plain textual content, which is not precisely probably the most safe strategy — particularly in 2026. Additionally, shutting down POP may simply be one other method Google is attempting to persuade customers emigrate to Gmail for all their electronic mail companies.

As for Gmailify, Google did not provide an official clarification for shutting that down both. However because it was carefully tied to POP as a companion characteristic, it appears Google determined that with POP on the best way out, Gmailify goes with it. Gmailify launched in 2016 to carry Gmail’s options to different electronic mail accounts customers nonetheless use, like Yahoo! Mail and Outlook, however 10 years later, it appears Google has determined that if folks need Gmail options like spam safety, they will have to migrate to the service fully.

Moreover, whilst you’ll not be capable to fetch emails from third-party accounts into Gmail in your PC, Google says you possibly can nonetheless use the Gmail mobile app on Android, iOS, and iPadOS to learn and ship emails from different accounts. These connections depend on IMAP, which is mostly thought of safer than POP because it helps encryption.

When you primarily use Gmail on a PC, the one answer Google recommends is organising automated electronic mail forwarding to proceed receiving messages from third-party accounts in your Gmail inbox as soon as POP assist ends. Providers like Outlook and Yahoo! Mail assist this.

Gmail’s assist for POP and Gmailify ends on January 20, 2026, so in the event you depend on each options, you continue to have a while to search out another earlier than Google absolutely pulls the plug.

In different Gmail information, Google has additionally been testing the power for customers to change their Gmail address, although the tech large hasn’t confirmed whether or not that characteristic will ultimately roll out to everybody.