<p>A few months ago <a href="http://alcidesfonseca.com/blog/65">I moved to GMail and Google Reader</a> for my main information needs: email and <span class="caps">RSS</span> feeds. I now have 3 computers (windows desktop, macbook and <span class="caps">HTC</span> TyTN)  in which I sync Outlook, Mail.app and WM email client through Gmail&#8217;s <span class="caps">IMAP</span>. And in Gmail I have my @gmail.com account, <a href="mailto:me@alcidesfonseca.com">me@alcidesfonseca.com</a> and my student email account. So Gmail works both as a aggregator for my emails and as a web interface when I&#8217;m not in my computers or in restricted WiFi networks.</p>

<p>However I&#8217;m not satisfied with my current situation. Seems like Gmail has an intelligent algorithm for setting the frequency for fetching you POP3 external accounts based on your email frequency. I find myself going to settings windows and force POP3 fetching manually. But this is not pratical! Sometimes I even go to the webmail version of the original email account when I know I should have received an email.</p>

<p>Of course I could set up the POP3 accounts in my clients, but it&#8217;s not the same since I need syncing between them, and I like Gmail&#8217;s interface (and that&#8217;s whats keeping so many people addicted to it). And I could make my other emails redirect to my gmail account, but after some stories about &#8220;lost&#8221; emails in gmail a year ago, I like to keep my emails in other servers.</p>

<p>I guess they just fit their computing power to the users needs. If I get one email per day, they&#8217;re fetching it one or two times per day. If I get one per minute, it fetches every 5 minutes or so. In the beginning I had a five minute frequency that I consider normal, but in the last days, I get &#8220;Last checked: 50 minutes ago.&#8221; messages. I can&#8217;t get a email half an hour after it was sent to me! I should be able to define my maximum delay for emails. Even if I got one email per day, it might be urgent and I need it 5 minutes after it was sent!</p>

<p>And I&#8217;m <a href="http://groups.google.com.gi/group/Gmail-POP-and-Forwarding/browse_thread/thread/58a64dab6f13fca7">not the only one complaining about this</a>. Does anyone have a script that simulates the manual fetch? It would be really useful!</p>