Sync External Mailboxes to Gmail Account After Gmailify “Check mail from other accounts” Is Discontinued

Gmail will end support for “Check mail from other accounts” sometime this year so I came up with a workaround below if you are a bit technically-inclined and running on Windows. For Mac, you could run a similar scheduler like launchd but this post will focus on Windows.

Check mail from other accounts in Gmail is going away.

Basically we’ll setup a Windows task scheduler task to run every 10 minutes and sync email via IMAP into your Gmail account for the inbox and spam folders. You would just leave the SMTP mailbox for sending setup since Google has not announced plans to end that feature.

Ideally you would set this up on a computer or server you intend to run all of the time since it must be connected to the internet to properly sync your mail.

More details here: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/16604719

How to Setup Mailbox Sync to Gmail

1. Download imapsync.exe from https://imapsync.lamiral.info/dist2/ and make sure it's somewhere on your Windows PATH environment.
2. Go to https://myaccount.google.com/apppasswords and generate an app password for your Google account. You MUST use a generated app password for this — not your Google account password.
3. Open a notepad file and save the below text as an XML file (e.g. “External Mailbox to Gmail Sync.xml”) and replace your origin email address, origin password, and origin mail server (host1) and destination Gmail address and password (host2). Note: the app password from Gmail should not contain spaces
4. Press Windows key on your keyboard and search for Task Scheduler on your computer and open it.
5. On the sidebar, click Import Task and select the XML file you saved in step 3.
6. Review settings and click ok, entering your Windows login if prompted to do so.

That’s it! You should now be up and running!

Sync External Mailbox to Gmail.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?>
<Task version="1.2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/windows/2004/02/mit/task">
  <RegistrationInfo>
    <Description>Syncs the inbox and spam folder of an external email account to Gmail.</Description>
    <URI>\Sync External Mailbox to Gmail</URI>
  </RegistrationInfo>
  <Triggers>
    <BootTrigger>
      <Repetition>
        <Interval>PT10M</Interval>
        <StopAtDurationEnd>false</StopAtDurationEnd>
      </Repetition>
      <Enabled>true</Enabled>
    </BootTrigger>
  </Triggers>
  <Settings>
    <MultipleInstancesPolicy>IgnoreNew</MultipleInstancesPolicy>
    <DisallowStartIfOnBatteries>false</DisallowStartIfOnBatteries>
    <StopIfGoingOnBatteries>true</StopIfGoingOnBatteries>
    <AllowHardTerminate>true</AllowHardTerminate>
    <StartWhenAvailable>false</StartWhenAvailable>
    <RunOnlyIfNetworkAvailable>false</RunOnlyIfNetworkAvailable>
    <IdleSettings>
      <StopOnIdleEnd>true</StopOnIdleEnd>
      <RestartOnIdle>false</RestartOnIdle>
    </IdleSettings>
    <AllowStartOnDemand>true</AllowStartOnDemand>
    <Enabled>true</Enabled>
    <Hidden>false</Hidden>
    <RunOnlyIfIdle>false</RunOnlyIfIdle>
    <WakeToRun>false</WakeToRun>
    <ExecutionTimeLimit>PT1H</ExecutionTimeLimit>
    <Priority>7</Priority>
  </Settings>
  <Actions Context="Author">
    <Exec>
      <Command>imapsync</Command>
      <Arguments>--host1 mail.externalmailprovider.com --port1 993 --ssl1 --user1 mail@example.com --password1 "PASSWORD_FOR_HOST1" --host2 imap.gmail.com --port2 993 --ssl2 --user2 email_address@gmail.com --password2 "PASSWORD_FOR_GMAIL" --folder "Inbox" --folder "Spam" --delete1 --syncinternaldates --addheader --nofoldersizes --nofoldersizesatend --no-modulesversion --nocheckfoldersexist --nocheckselectable --nochecknoabletosearch</Arguments>
    </Exec>
  </Actions>
</Task>

What Happens Each Run

1. Connects to both origin mail server and Gmail with SSL encryption
2. Checks if INBOX and Spam folders exist on origin mail server
3. Reads messages from origin INBOX and Spam folders
4. Compares them with Gmail’s INBOX and Spam using message headers/IDs
5. Copies any new/changed messages to Gmail with original dates preserved
6. Marks as deleted each successfully copied message on origin mail server
7. Expunges (permanently deletes) those messages from origin mail server
8. Exits (ready for next scheduled run in 10 minutes)