When Does Gmail Stop Fetching POP3 Email? The 2026 and 2027 Dates Explained

If you used Gmail's "Check mail from other accounts" option to pull mail from a POP3 server, that feature is being switched off. You probably just want to know when.

Google is removing POP3 fetching in stages:

• Gmailify was switched off in January 2026.
• Since the first quarter of 2026, new people can't set up "Check mail from other accounts" at all.
• If you already have it set up, it keeps working until January 2027, then it stops.
• Anything already pulled into your inbox stays where it is. You don't lose old mail.

So if Gmail is currently fetching your POP3 mail, the date that matters to you is January 2027. All of this is from Google's support page, which is about the only thing Google has published on it. The communication has been minimal and a bit vague, with no clear in-product warning and dates that have shifted in the telling, so treat the specifics as best-known, not final. I'll update this post if they change.

What's actually being switched off

Partly because Google has said so little, there's a lot of confusion about this online, so it's worth being precise. Two things are going.

The first is the "Check mail from other accounts" setting, under Settings, Accounts and Import. That's the bit that logs into an external POP3 server and pulls new mail into Gmail for you. The second is Gmailify, which layered Gmail's spam filtering and categories onto a linked account.

What's not going anywhere is POP and IMAP access to Gmail itself. You can still connect Thunderbird, Outlook or Apple Mail to your Gmail account exactly as before. The only thing changing is Gmail reaching out to fetch from someone else's POP3 server. So if you've read that "Gmail is dropping POP3" and panicked, it's only the fetching of other accounts that's ending, not POP or IMAP on your own Gmail.

Does this affect you?

It does if Gmail is currently pulling mail from a POP3 mailbox. Usually that's one of:

• an ISP address (Comcast, AT&T and the like) you've been reading in Gmail,
• a work or domain mailbox on an older POP3 host, or
• a few separate POP3 accounts you've funnelled into one Gmail inbox.

If you're not sure, open Settings, Accounts and Import in Gmail and look under "Check mail from other accounts". Anything listed there is what stops fetching.

Will you lose your existing emails?

No. Mail that's already been fetched into Gmail stays put. The change only stops new mail arriving, so you won't lose anything, you just won't get anything new from that POP3 server once the cutoff reaches you.

What to do about it

You've got a bit of time, so it's worth picking the option that actually fits rather than rushing.

Provider-side forwarding is the simplest, if your POP3 provider supports it. It only handles new mail, and forwarded mail sometimes lands in spam because Gmail sees it arriving from your provider rather than the original sender, but it's free and quick to set up.

Adding the account to the Gmail mobile app over IMAP works too, but only on your phone, not in the Gmail web inbox.

A desktop client like Thunderbird is the right tool if you mainly want to pull an old mailbox across once. It's manual and doesn't keep syncing.

Or you let something fetch from POP3 and import into Gmail on a schedule, which is the closest thing to what the built-in feature did. I've written a longer comparison of these options, and a bit more background on the change itself.

That last option is the gap I built PopRelay to fill. It logs into your POP3 server on a schedule, pulls anything new, and adds it to your Gmail using the Gmail API. There's no forwarding relay in the middle, so none of the spam-filter or SPF/DKIM headaches that come with forwarding. It only ever asks Google for permission to add messages and labels, so it can't read or delete the mail you already have, and your POP3 password is encrypted before it's stored. It's from the same people behind 33mail.com, which has been running since 2011.

If that sounds like what you're after, you can set it up in a few minutes. Either way, sorting something out before January 2027 means the switchover happens when you choose, not when Gmail quietly stops delivering.