Yahoo Gives IMAP Access to All Users Through Zimbra Desktop
Just last week, we wrote about rumors that Google would be bringing offline access to Gmail and Google Calendar using Gears very soon. Today, Yahoo announced that it will be giving offline access to all free and paid Yahoo Mail users through the Yahoo Zimbra Desktop. This is the first time that all Yahoo users get offline access to their accounts. Zimbra Desktop is available on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
IMAP for All
Until now, only users with paid Yahoo Plus accounts had POP access to their email. Now, all Yahoo users will get offline access to their accounts through the Zimbra Desktop via the arguably superior IMAP protocol.
Yahoo bought the email and messaging company Zimbra for $350 million in September 2007, soon after Zimbra had launched its offline capabilities. The Zimbra Desktop runs on top of Prism, a Mozilla Labs product, which, just like Gears, is meant to allow users offline access to their web applications.
Besides working with Yahoo mail, Zimbra also supports all other IMAP and POP capable accounts, as well as, of course, accounts hosted on a Zimbra server. Zimbra has predefined settings for Gmail, AOL, and Yahoo accounts.
Still Beta
After one alpha and two beta releases under Yahoo, Zimbra is still calling this new version a beta, but given that fact that they are releasing it to all Yahoo users, the company must feel pretty good about the stability of the application. In our tests, we did not experience any crashes or other problems with the Windows and Linux client, though we did not test the Mac version.
The Zimbra Blog also lists a large number of other updates and new features to the application, including built-in notifications, minimize to tray on Windows, showing the number of new mails in the tray, and a few other minor updates.
Only Mail
One thing that is still sorely missing though (or at least we couldn't find it), is syncing calendars, tasks, files, contacts, etc. Yahoo is surely planning to do this in a future release, but right now, this does reduce the usefulness of the Zimbra Desktop quite a bit.
Why Zimbra Only?
The big news, however, is definitely that all Yahoo users now have offline access to their email accounts. Of course, cynics might point out that all Yahoo would have to do is flip one switch and all its users could just use any email client they wanted for offline access. Those same cynics might point out that Yahoo is mostly doing this to justify the $300 million investment in Zimbra. However, at least Yahoo's users now have one option to get offline access to their messages.
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Gooooood morning Yahoo! :) (but why only with Zimbra)
Posted by: Naor
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July 24, 2008 12:31 AM
I understand that they still need to give value to their paying customers but I get IMAP with Gmail and Yahoo really should be up to the feature set of Gmail (at least).
(It also really frustrates me that I can't get my Yahoo mail in Mail.app but I can get it on my iPhone).
I think this could still be safely called a beta - i.e. not really for public consumption.
Example from known issues:
Yahoo! Mail IMAP does not support children folders under another folder. All folders must be top level. However the GUI client does not prevent users from creating subfolders, which will break synchronization with Yahoo! Service.
Uh, breaking synchronisation? With something as simple as creating a sub folder?
Interesting idea, but in its present form totally frustrating. I cannot enter any data in the Mac setup: all keystrokes are sent to other applications instead of Zimbra Desktop. Even when Zimbra Desktop is the only open application, no keystrokes are accepted. I'll wait for Google and its Gears.
As far as I've understood, if you use the Zimbra Collaboration Server (with both the open-source and "network" editions) or indirectly use Y! Mail, you can already sync calendars, tasks, files, contacts,etc.. See http://www.zimbra.com/products/desktop_features.html
Prism is does not run webapps while off-line.
Prism is simply a stripped down firefox, so it runs a bit more faster/stable, and you can make desktop shortcuts. That's it.
GoogleGears allows the offline stuff.
OUtlook is superior.
Yahoo should let users use IMAP.att.yahoo.com
Used it - very buggy and extremely slow. Moved emails in Zimbra and now nowhere to be found in Yahoo webmail - frustrating!! (def lost as the count of email in web to zimbra folder is diff of 4). Cannot sync calendar/contacts and the whole system is way to slow (slower than the web application which is hard to swallow). Pls Yahoo, support full IMAP so we can use whatever email client we choose - and yes I am a paying customer of Yahoo so don't see banner ads anyway which is one reason they won't support imap - Gmail supports it and from various forums this is a major reason people are switching....
I’ve had a yahoo account for years but don’t use it as much due to the lack of IMAP support. I don’t want to have to manage the same emails every time I use a different computer and I don’t want to have to use a web browser every time I need to check for new incoming emails. Sadly they’ll probably allow IMAP for everyone in Outlook after most users have moved to gmail or some other email service.