Gmail is ending Gmailify and POP3 fetching: here are your options
Google is pulling the plug on "Check mail from other accounts" and Gmailify. What exactly changes, when, and what is the smartest route for your old address?
What changes — and when
Google is winding down two features Gmail has long used to pull in mail from other addresses. "Check mail from other accounts" (which uses the older POP3 technology to fetch messages from your previous provider) and Gmailify (which layered Gmail features like spam filtering and inbox tabs over an external address) are both going away.
The timeline according to Google itself: since the first quarter of 2026 new users can no longer add a connection, and existing connections keep working until January 2027. After that, fetching stops for good.
Good to know: everything already imported into Gmail stays put. This is only about new messages no longer being fetched after the cut-off.
Who this affects
This hits everyone who had an old address — from a previous provider, a hosting package or a custom domain — flow into Gmail. You will recognise it as "Check mail from other accounts" in your Gmail settings. Do nothing, and from January 2027 you silently miss every message still arriving at that old address.
The alternatives, side by side
Forwarding at your old provider: Google's own advice. It works, but forwards all the spam too, and you stay dependent on (and paying for) the old mailbox.
The Gmail app on your phone: it can keep showing external accounts through a modern connection — but only on Android and iPhone, not in Gmail on your computer.
A mail program such as Thunderbird or Outlook: brings all your accounts together on your own computer, but you lose the single web inbox you were used to.
A collector inbox at another service: providers like GMX, web.de and Fastmail still offer a fetch or import feature.
Or the structural route: move your old mailbox over completely, once, and phase out the old address. Then the whole fetching question is behind you — whatever feature Google switches off next.
Why a one-time migration is often the cleaner route
Forwarding and fetching are band-aids: they keep an old address artificially alive and break the moment a provider changes something — exactly what is happening here. One full migration fixes it at the root: all your old mail, folders included, ends up in the mailbox where you actually work.
Gmail still has its own one-time import on the web, but it only fetches mail and contacts and lets go of your folder structure. We copy your complete mailbox one-to-one — every folder, every message — and you see for free, up front, how much there is to move and what it costs.
The route works both ways: merge your old address into Gmail, or use this moment to leave Gmail for your own domain or a European provider. Your old mailbox stays untouched; we only copy.