What Happened?
Google announced in October 2025 that Gmail would stop fetching mail from remote inboxes via POP3 in January 2026. They did not, and still have not at this point, given an exact date.
For most people, this probably won't mean anything, but if you're reading this, there's a high chance you are affected by this change by Google.
Using POP3 at Gmail to pull messages from remote inboxes, such as ones hosted with us, was a great feature and avoided many obstacles that forwarders generally face. The unfortunate result of Google's decision on this matter is that if you want all of your email in your Gmail inbox you are stuck either using forwarders or paying Google for a Workspace account with email.
What can I do?
Use Forwarders
You can use a forwarder instead of using POP3 to pull the messages. Configuring this is a pretty straightforward process.
- Log into your cPanel account.
- In the section labeled "Email" choose "Forwarders".
- Click on "Add Forwarder".
- Fill in the details and submit the form.
The "Address to Forward" is just the first part of the email before the "@", but not including it.
The destination would be your Gmail address or anywhere you wish to forward the email to.
While it is not strictly required, we do recommend making sure the email address you are forwarding from does exist on the server. This is so that any messages that fail to forward for any reason are not lost. So if, for example, you are forwarding you@example.com to you@gmail.com you would want to make sure that in your cPanel -> Email -> Accounts that an account for you@example.com exists.
There are some upsides to forwarders, such as not having to do anything special at Gmail for it to work, and messages showing up instantly. The downside is that messages passed as forwards are scanned for spam/viruses/malware before leaving our network and this can, in some cases, result in a message that doesn't forward properly if our anti-spam systems think the message may be spam. This is why we recommend creating the on-server email address as well.
Use a desktop mail client or webmail
We do offer IMAP, POP3, and SMTP on all services that include email. This includes all of our shared hosting and reseller plans. You can configure any desktop mail client you like to check email from our servers.
Alternatively, we do offer webmail as well, although it can be a bit more limiting as you can only be logged into and check one email inbox at a time. The upside is that you can quickly switch between inboxes by accessing the email account list in your cPanel interface.
Pay Google for Google Workspace
This isn't generally something we recommend, just from the standpoint that we offer email services at no extra cost, and Google Workspace is an additional cost. If you must have emails for your domain(s) handled by Google or within Gmail's interface, the only option I'm aware of after Google disables POP3 message fetching is to have them handle the email for the domain directly. You absolutely can use us for hosting and Google Workspace for email, as they are two separate yet related services, just as you can have your hosting and domain registrations with different companies.
We're not exceptionally happy about this change at Google, but we're here to support you however we can. Please do not hesitate to get in contact with our support team if you need anything at all.
