Setting Gmail account in Alpine

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On 2007 October 24 Google started supporting IMAP access to Gmail (Google Mail). To use Pine to access and manage your Gmail messages, type MSLA (Main> Setup> collectionLists> Add) and add a collection like this:

Nickname  : Gmail                                             
Server    : imap.gmail.com/ssl/user=id@gmail.com                                                       
Path      :                                                                                                                 
View      :  
  

where the Nickname is anything you like and id@gmail.com is replaced by your Gmail or Google Apps sign-in ID.

Creating the role

Now that you’ve configured your collection list, Alpine will now be able to fetch email from your Gmail account. To send mail, you need to create a role. From the main menu, press ‘S’ to enter the setup screen. Press ‘R’ and then ‘R’ again to get to the role rules screen. Press ‘A’ to create a rule. Give it nickname, and then set “Current Folder Type” to Specific. Highlight “Folder List”, press ‘T’ and then navigate to your Gmail inbox. Press return/enter to add it to the folder list.That’s the most complicated part. Now, scroll down to the “Actions begin here” section. Change the Set From field to something like this:

'John Doe' 

Change the name to your name and the email address to your Gmail address. Once that’s done, edit the Use SMTP Server field:

smtp.gmail.com:587/tls/user=your_name@gmail.com

Again, change the email address to your Gmail address. Before saving and quitting the screen, make sure that all the options in the “Uses begin here” section are marked “With confirmation”.

Gmail's IMAP server is different, as is Gmail's POP server, which is discussed in POPping Gmail is Different below. To successfully use Pine to access and manage your Gmail IMAP collection, I recommend that you do the following.

1. Important: Read the Gmail Help article about How do actions sync in IMAP?
   
2. Keep in mind that...
1. Each Gmail folder that you see in your Pine Gmail collection is actually a Gmail label.
2. All your non-spam non-trash messages are in the [Gmail]/All Mail special folder.
3. Each non-spam non-trash message can appear in multiple folders.
4. To put a message in multiple folders, use Pine's Save (S) command multiple times. Be careful about whether you copy or move the message. Pine's Save ^R subcommand is a toggle that controls whether or not the message isRemoved from the current folder after the Save is done.
5. When you use Pine to "Delete" (D) a non-spam non-trash message, the Gmail IMAP server immediately deletes & expunges the message from the current folder, but it will still be in the [Gmail]/All Mail special folder and any other folders that it happens to be in.
6. To "archive" a message that is in your Gmail INBOX, use the Pine D command to Delete it from the INBOX. It will still be archived in [Gmail]/All Mail. Tip: When accesssing your Gmail INBOX with Pine, you can think of D as meaning Done (but don't think this way in non-Gmail folders!).
7. When you use Pine to "Delete" (D) a message in the [Gmail]/All Mail special folder, the command is ignored.
8. To delete a message from all the folders it is in, including the special [Gmail]/All Mail folder, use Pine's Save (S) command to move or copy the message to the [Gmail]/Trash special folder.
9. When you use Pine to "Delete" (D) a message in either the [Gmail]/Trash or the [Gmail]/Spam special folder, the message is immediately deleted & expunged and cannot be recovered.
10. To search all your non-spam non-trash Gmail messages, open the [Gmail]/All Mail folder and use Pine's Select (;) command and other aggregate operations to zoom (Z) in on the search results.
11. Pine folder means Gmail label!
    
3. Type MSC (Main > Setup > Config) and use the following configuration settings.

   :
   incoming-archive-folders       = 
    :
   read-message-folder            =   
    :
   [ ]  auto-move-read-msgs
    :
   [X]  save-will-not-delete
    :
   pruning-rule =
                  (*)  don't rename, don't delete  
    :

   The first three settings and the last (pruning-rule) setting prevent Pine from trying to archive messages in a non-Gmail way (see #2f above for the Gmail way of archiving). The first three settings also work around a Gmail bug that causes Pine to complain about "Message to save shrank!" [subscription to the Alpine-alpha list is required to view this link].
   
   The fourth setting, save-will-not-delete, makes it easier to save a message in multiple folders (discussed in #2d above) and makes it less likely that you will misplace a message and need to go hunting for it in the[Gmail]/All Mail special folder.
   
4. You might want to set up incoming-folders (Pine shortcuts) for your frequently used Gmail folders.

Notes:

• The Gmail special folders reside in [Gmail]/ on some accounts and in [Google Mail]/ in other accounts. The name of this directory depends on whether the "Gmail" trademark belongs to Google in the account-holder's country.
  
• The Gmail IMAP server does not support many of the standard system IMAP flags. For example:
  • The \Answered flag and the \Recent flag are not supported in any Gmail folder.
  • The \Deleted flag is not supported in the [Gmail]/All Mail folder and is supported in a non-standard way in other folders (as discussed in #2e, 2f, 2g, and 2i above). On a standard (non-Gmail) IMAP server, a message with the \Deleted flag is not actually deleted until it is expunged (X command in Pine). For details, see The IMAP Way of Deleting a Message at Deflexion.com and Saving Your Trash below, which discusses Pine's expunge-only-manually feature.
• The Gmail IMAP server does not support user-defined IMAP flags (IMAP  keywords), which are discussed in Setting Up Keywords (Labels) below.

See Also:

• Google Help > Gmail Help > IMAP Access
• Wired.com : Software : Web Services : IMAP, YouMAP, WeMAP: Mail Protocol's Proponents Argue for Better Support by Paul Adams, which includes some quotes by me about Gmail and IMAP :-)
• POPping Gmail is Different and Gmail Tips below