This post is mostly about how Gmail seems to know how to set up POP access to my shaw.ca email account better than I do. Not that it is really news to anyone.
You see, I decided to try using Gmail as my central email storage. My ISP is Shaw, so I have a shaw.ca email account. When I started the process of configuring Gmail for POP access, it asked me for the Shaw's POP3 server name - and pre-populated it with 'pop.shaw.ca'. Now, I have had my Shaw email address for some time, and have set up numerous desktop email clients to retrieve my email over that time - and I was pretty sure that the Shaw POP server name was 'shawmail' (or the appropriate FQDN name as described on Shaw's online help). So, I replaced the pre-populated value with the shawmail value. Well, when I finished the configuration, Gmail wasn't able to access my Shaw email account (something about a connection timeout). A quick Google search and I found out that I was not alone. Looking through the Google search results, the consensus seemed to be that Shaw does not allow external access to their POP servers. I was sure that someone must have found a work-around, so I spent the better part of an hour following the numerous search results, without any real solution (other than forwarding your Shaw email to your Gmail account). Then, just as I was about to give up, I came across this handy Shaw support page - lo and behold! Shaw does support external POP access using the server name 'pop.shaw.ca'. If only I had trusted Gmail at the beginning and not changed the POP server name, I could have saved myself some grief...Hopefully, this post saves someone else from a similar fate.
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10 comments:
Ahhhhh... I also did not trust Google! Thanks for the post, my SHAW email is filling up my GMAIL inbox as I type.
Thanks Robert. At least something helpful came out of my experience!
I was just about to email Shaw and then I did a quick Google search and foudn your blog. Thanks! Solved my problem!
I thought exactly the same way. Thankfully a Google search pulled up you advise 3rd on the list so I wasted little time. Thanks!!
Much appreciated! You saved me a whack of frustration.
Man o man you saved me from a similar fate. Thank you thank you thank you. - Todd
I bought an iphone and I have a shaw email for painting quotes. The problem is I can't get it to work on the iPhone. I tried using a live.ca email as I have Windows Live Mail I use as my main email client of my Windows 7 machine. Frustrating...just signed up for a gmail account. Great! Can add to Windows Live and iPhone likes it too. But, now I gotta get Shaw to Gmail...
Thanks. Most helpful... I was wondering why it kept timing out to the local addresses.
Thank you! Like everyone else, I assumed "pop.shaw.ca" was just the gmail setup's default guess.
Many thanks! As a result of your post popping up near the top of the search results for "gmail shaw pop", I spent only about 3 minutes wondering why things weren't working!
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