It appears that Google is having major issues with their email server. In the past 15 minutes, I received a few phones, tons of twits, and found a fast growing Google Groups thread about Google removing IMAP from their email settings options.

This seems to be a major issue, where hundreds of Gmail users can no longer use Gmail or their email on Google Apps. If you login to your Gmail account and click on “settings,” you may notice that the IMAP option is gone. Here is a screen capture:

Also, Rudd sent me a screen capture of errors he is receiving via Outlook when trying to connect to Google’s IMAP servers:

This issue still seems to be going on about 30 minutes later. I hope it gets fixed shortly. This issue is incredibly widespread and I personally notified several of my Google contacts.

Updating as I learn more…It seems like it is not just Gmail issues with IMAP, but also with Google Talk.

We’re back: At 4:30pm (EST), about 45 minutes later, IMAP support is now back.

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Apps For Your Domain | Google: Gmail

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz

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