Although Google's popular webmail service has long offered POP support, accessing an account via IMAP was not possible until today. Gmail users are beginning to see an IMAP option enabled by default in their account settings, which will make the service more useful to those accessing e-mail remotely.

Google has put together detailed instructions on how to make IMAP for Gmail work with a number of clients, including Apple's iPhone. The advantage of IMAP is that it keeps e-mail data synced across multiple devices, so any changes made remotely instantly appear on the Web and elsewhere.