Google removes another feature.
Major 2026 update: You don’t.
I don’t either, anymore.
Google is removing a key feature that this approach relied on. See: Gmail Is Removing “Check Mail From Other Accounts” for more details.
So what can we do instead?
No more "Check mail from other accounts"
Google removed the Gmail feature that let you collect email from other accounts. That means Gmail can no longer be your one-stop inbox. Your choices now are to check each account separately, use a desktop email program, or switch to a (possibly) paid service that still lets you combine multiple accounts in one place.
Do nothing
If you have multiple email accounts, visit them individually.
- Visit Gmail.com to access your Gmail account.
- If you have multiple Gmail accounts, you can open them in separate tabs.
- Visit Outlook.com to access your Outlook.com/Hotmail/other Microsoft account email.
- Visit mail.yahoo.com to access your Yahoo! mail.
And so on.
Gmail can no longer consolidate access to multiple email accounts in a single interface.
Use a desktop email program
On the other hand, most desktop email programs are explicitly designed to provide a single interface in which to access multiple email accounts.
Desktop email programs include programs like Outlook (classic)1, Thunderbird, emClient, and many more. These programs run on your PC and can be configured to access any email account that supports POP3 or IMAP protocols. Most do.
These programs run on your PC. You can certainly set up the program on multiple PCs or even use different email programs on different devices. Each is independent of the others.
Use a different service
Another approach, if you want to retain the benefits of a single web-based interface for all your email accounts, is to use a service that still supports the feature Google is removing.
FastMail is one example. While it isn’t free, it supports:
- Checking email from other accounts. (FastMail checks your email account stored elsewhere for new messages and imports them automatically.)
- Sending email from other accounts. (FastMail sends email “From:” other email accounts by connecting to those accounts directly.)
- Hosting email for any domain you own. (FastMail can “be” the email account provider for your other domains. For example, FastMail currently handles all email for askleo.com.)
This does require creating a new account at FastMail. You can then abandon your Gmail account or, more pragmatically, deprioritize its use.
What about forwarding?
I used to recommend configuring your non-Google email service to automatically forward to your Gmail email address. For example, I’d configure leo@somerandomservice.com to automatically forward to my Gmail address.
I no longer recommend this.
The problem? Unless you have really good spam filtering on that non-Google email service, it will forward spam along with legitimate email to your Gmail account. The Google servers may perceive this as if the spam were originating from the non-Google service and take punitive measures to slow, or even block, email from arriving.
Do this
If you’re using “Check email from other accounts” in Gmail, at some point, it’ll stop working. You’ll need to do something different. Options include:
- Using a desktop email program.
- Using a replacement service that still supports checking other accounts.
- Opening each account in a separate browser tab.
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Footnotes & References
1: Note that the newer Outlook program that comes with Windows does not fit the bill — it’s a glorified interface to your account online, not that different from just visiting Outlook.com. You’d need the classic Outlook program, which is part of a Microsoft 365 subscription.
Hi Leo,
I send and receive emails (currently) with Gmail. Mostly send because ThunderBird or Apple Mail will receive my emails but I can only send using Gmail.
Addresses ……..@charter.net can’t be sent unless I use Gmail. Multiple times checking the Outgoing Servers is setup correctly both ThunderBird and Apple Mail.
You did a video about POP mail servers. Could you expand on that sometime? Charter uses SMTP Outgoing mobile.charter.net.
As a side note, I’m usually outside of the US.
Thank You
Google has given us a bit more time to migrate:
https://support.google.com/mail/answer/16604719?hl=en&sjid=3641951717648461632-EU#zippy=%2Cwhat-is-the-timeline
“We’ll stop support for new users by the first quarter of 2026. Existing users can still use the feature until it’s turned down later in 2026.”
Found while reading the discussion at
https://www.jwz.org/blog/2025/12/today-in-google-broke-email-2/
Can’t say I’m surprised.
Hopefully, they’ll chicken out and not remove that feature. If they dump it, they may lose users.
“Note that the newer Outlook program that comes with Windows does not fit the bill — it’s a glorified interface to your account online, not that different from just visiting Outlook.com. You’d need the classic Outlook program, which is part of a Microsoft 365 subscription.“
Microsoft has announced that Classic Outlook will reach end of support in 2029, so there’s still plenty of time to transition. End of support doesn’t mean it disappears from your PC — it just stops receiving updates. I’ve been using Thunderbird since it first came out, and for most people it does everything they needed from Outlook, without the bloat and without tying you to Microsoft’s cloud‑centric direction.
Another option is to use the (free) Vivaldi email client as that supports multiple accounts. I use Vivaldi browser occasionally. I haven’t used the mail client. It’s free and the organisation behind it is not Google! Maybe worth a try.
Leo:
I ask if this also impacts the ability within Gmail to “forward to” in the settings, which sends gmail messages to another address. It seems this change is different; more the “reverse” where Gmail won’t go GET the emails from another source?
In this scenario, Gmail is not “checking mail from other accounts,” but is set up to forward email TO another account. Still the case, to your knowledge?
Still the case, but not recommended. Forwarding forwards everything, including spam, and this runs the risk of having your account’s reputation negatively impacted.
That’s a completely different thing. They would have announced it if it were so, and they haven’t made that announcement.
Thanks to the both of you. It didn’t seem to make sense if you securely log in to your Gmail, activate the settings section to forward IMAP and then it can’t be forwarded when it’s been happening all along. I think the setting is still in the Gmail settings for that purpose.
Windows Live Mail still works well for me. I’ve been using it for many years and it supports having many email accounts to send and receive from.
The whole reason for using Gmail, for 15 years, was to utilize their spam filter — supposedly the best (free) @ that time.
Any alternatives?
Finally reaching my breaking point with all the different versions of Outlook and the confusion it generates, I switched to eM Client a year ago. It has never let me down and seems more stable than even Outlook. It also has an automated backup feature I like and does almost everything I want. I can now even synchronize my contacts and calendar with my Android devices using imap. It has nearly the identical ‘look and feel’ of Outlook and I could import all of my decades of info from Outlook with no difficulty. The only negative for me is that I use Copernic Destktop Search as a search tool, and it has no method to search inside the eM Client database like it does with Outlook. eM Client has a good search engine though, so this isn’t too much of a problem.
One option is to switch to Thunderbird. It’s not as polished as eM Client but it manages email accounts well. Copernic can search Thunderbird-
I’ve used Thunderbird to manage my two primary email accounts for many years, but I’ve never had the app conglomerate all my email from all accounts into a single, central, unified InBox. That just felt wrong to me, and I use each account for specific purposes, which is beyond the scope of what I’m discussing here. By having messages from each account handled separately, my incoming messages are sort of pre-sorted for me in advance.
I tried the unified InBox for a while, but it made managing my incoming messages harder for me, so I reverted back to using discrete InBoxes.
Ernie
Hi
I have used T’bird for many years with 18 different accounts (different orgs I am in, as well as historic personal mail a/cs) and have it on 3 different computers across my house.
I have often wondered if the 3 set-ups could be rationalised to one profile on my NAS drive, accessible to all computers?
Never been brave enough to attempt it but would really welcome that as one of your ‘How to ..’ articles in the future, if it is possible. It would save a lot of time managing the different profiles.
I accomplished this by installing Thunderbird Portable on my file server.
Caveat: it only works safely if only one machine uses it at a time. Thunderbird Portable keeps everything self‑contained, so it runs fine over the network, but it can be a bit quirky. That said, I’ve been using it for months without any real problems
I have two GMail addresses. One of them is set to forward any E-Mail it receives to my ISP’s E-Mail. This way I can use this second GMail address with services I fear might spam me or not honor “unsubscribe” commands; the idea being that I could block access on GMail and never receive those E-Mails at my ISP. I’ve never actually had to do this, but I like having the option.
Will what GMail is doing impact this setup in any way?
It won’t. You’re not using the “Check mail from other accounts” feature.