How to Import Emails and Contacts to Gmail: Check Mail From Other Accounts

Quick and easy-to-follow guide for Gmail users

What is the Check mail from other accounts: setting in Gmail

It allows you to import all past and future messages from another mailbox that supports POP to your Gmail.
Once configured, it will continually download your mail from other accounts.
To transfer only old mail, follow these steps instead.

Before you start setting up the Check mail from other accounts: setting in Gmail

If you’re setting it up to download mail from a @gmail.com account, ensure it has less secure apps enabled, as shown here.
If the @gmail.com account has 2-step verification enabled, you don’t need to enable less secure apps, but you must generate an app-specific password for the setup, as shown here.

Details about how the Check mail from other accounts: setting in Gmail works

A few notes:

Sent mail does not get imported. To import sent mail, you need to go to the mailbox you’re importing from and move all emails from Sent mail to the Inbox.
You can’t get picky about what emails to import. Everything except for sent mail and trash will be imported.
This setup will keep working until you remove it, which means it will keep importing new emails after they come in.
You can’t import folders or labels from your other account.

What if I don’t see the the Check mail from other accounts: setting

If you don’t see this option, your administrator has disabled the feature.

How to set up the Check mail from other accounts: setting in Gmail step-by-step with images

Step 1

Open Gmail https://gmail.com and click the Settings gear icon in the top right.

Step 2

Select See all settings.

Step 3

Select Accounts and Import.

If some settings here are disabled for you on the admin level, you see this as Accounts.

Step 4

To the right of Check mail from other accounts: click the link Add a mail account.

Step 5

Type the email address you want to transfer emails from and click Next >>

Step 6

What details to enter into the Check mail from other accounts setting

Username: retype the email address of the mailbox from which you are importing.

Password: enter the password for that mailbox.

POP server: enter the POP server. For Gmail / Google Workspace, it’s pop.gmail.com with port 995.

Leave a copy of retrieved message on the server: it’s best to check this box. Otherwise, once you import emails, you will remove them from the original mailbox.

Always use SSL when retrieving mail: check this box.

Label incoming messages: this is optional. It makes all the imported emails go to a folder (label) you select in your Gmail.

Archive incoming messages: after importing emails, remove them from the Inbox. They will still be accessible by searching or in other labels.

After this step, Gmail may also ask if you want to add the email address as a sending address.