Windows Mail and Gmail

I use Windows Mail to view emails from my Gmail account. I set it up and have been using it without any problems for a couple of years.

However, when I opened Windows Mail today, I was prompted to enter my User Name and Password with the following message:

"Logon to pop.gmail.com

Please verify that both the user name and password are correct for your mail server."

I enter my user name and password and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. When it does work, it starts downloading emails from back in 2009.

Is this a problem at Gmail's end, as I haven't made any changes to my email account?

Thanks

 

I suggest you sign in to your gmail account via web browser and review your settings there. I'm also inclined to think you should change your password if you haven't recently done so.

In Windows Mail, do you have your gmail account set to "Leave a copy on the server"? That seems to be the way you have it set since it recently started downloading emails from back in 2009. So, in addition to signing in to gmail via web browser to check settings, check your settings in Windows Mail. If you have it set to "Leave a copy on the server" and that's not what you really want, then change it.

In deciding whether to change the setting in Windows Mail from "Leave a copy on the server" to not "Leave a copy on the server", consider whether you use only one computer to access your email. If you have it set to not "Leave a copy on the server", then downloading to Windows Mail deletes the messages from Google's mail server.

 

"Leave a copy on the server" is unticked already. I've checked the set up in both Gmail and Windows Mail and it's all set up correctly as per the instructions on how to set up Gmail in Windows Mail on the Gmail site.

 

I can't help with the specific problem you now have, but since Gmail offers such vast storage - 7-8GB in my case - have you considered not using an email client at all? I have been using Gmail in Win 7 without any installed client for a couple of years now, and use Gmail's offline feature to ensure there is always a complete record of my mail on my own comp as well as on Google's.

Just food for thought.