How to Enable or Disable POP and IMAP for Google Workspace Users

Quick and easy-to-follow guide for Google Workspace administrators

IMAP and POP are two ways to access email.

As an admin, you can enable or disable the usage of POP and IMAP in your Google Workspace.

What is POP

POP works by contacting your email service and downloading all your new messages.
Once downloaded onto your device, emails usually get deleted from the email service. When this is the case, you can only access them using the same device.
With POP, sent mail gets stored locally on your device, not on the email server.
Click here to see how to access and update your Gmail POP settings.

What is IMAP

You can access your email wherever you are, from any device with IMAP.
When you read an email message using IMAP, you don’t download or store it on your device – you just read it from the email service.
IMAP only downloads a message when you click on it – except for attachments, which don’t get downloaded automatically.
This way, you can check your messages faster than with POP, and you can do it on any device.
Click here to see how to access and update your Gmail IMAP settings.

Effects of disabling POP/IMAP for existing users

Users will no longer be able to get their email with POP or IMAP email clients.
POP and IMAP settings will no longer be available in Gmail.
Users on mobile devices will only be able to check their email with the Gmail app.

How to allow or disable POP and IMAP in Google Workspace step-by-step with images

Step 1

In the Admin console at https://admin.google.com, click the Apps icon.

Step 2

Select Google Workspace.

Step 3

Click Gmail. Make sure not to check the box to the left; just click the service.

Step 4

Select End User Access.

Step 5

Under Organizational Units, select the OU with the users whose settings you want to update. The same updates will apply to all sub-OUs under the OU you choose.

By default, if you don’t select an OU, you will add your setting to the top OU, named after your domain. This way, you will apply changes to all users in your account. This is generally recommended in this case.

If you’re not familiar with OUs, click here.

Step 6

Select POP and IMAP access.

Step 7

Check the boxes to Enable POP and IMAP access and click SAVE. It may take up to 24 hours before POP and IMAP are disabled.

Next steps after allowing POP and IMAP as the admin

Even if you enable POP and IMAP here, users still have to turn them on in their Gmail settings.

Click this link to see how to enable POP in Gmail.

Click this link to see how to enable IMAP in Gmail.

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