Gmail will stop fetching external addresses: what disappears in January 2027 and how to prepare

Google has announced that in January 2027 it will remove three Gmail features that the popular "all company mail in one Gmail inbox" setup relies on. If you receive addresses hosted elsewhere in Gmail — say office@company.com hosted at your domain registrar or a local provider — this change affects you directly. Below: what exactly goes away, what stays, and how to prepare without panic.

What exactly disappears in January 2027

The end of "Send as" for external addresses

You will no longer send messages from Gmail with a sender address hosted by another provider. A reply to a message that arrived at office@company.com will go out from your @gmail.com address — which looks unprofessional in business correspondence and breaks conversation threading for the recipient.

The end of Gmailify

Accounts from other providers can no longer be linked to Gmail. Google's spam filter, search and the Gmail interface stop being available for non-Google mailboxes.

The end of POP fetching

Gmail stops fetching messages via POP3 from other providers' accounts. Messages fetched earlier stay in the Gmail account — but new ones will stop arriving.

What stays unchanged

• Access to Gmail itself via IMAP/POP from external mail clients keeps working.
• "Send as" between Google-hosted addresses (Gmail and Google Workspace) keeps working.
• Forwarding rules configured at your mail provider (forward to Gmail) don't disappear — that's configuration on the provider's side, not in Gmail. Keep in mind though: forwarding doesn't solve sending; replies will still go out from @gmail.com.

Who is actually affected

Three typical setups that stop working in their current shape in January 2027:

Three ways out

To be fair: Faldro is one of them, not the only one.

1. Google Workspace — moving your domain to Google. Solves the problem, but means migrating mailboxes to Google and a subscription per user.
2. A classic mail client (Thunderbird, Outlook) — IMAP works as it always did. The downsides: no shared team work on a mailbox and per-device configuration.
3. A mail client in the browser, such as Faldro — all your IMAP/SMTP addresses in one inbox in the browser, sending from the right sender address, with team access and permission tiers. Messages stay at your provider; Faldro connects to them the way Gmail did — just without depending on Google's decisions.

A checklist for a calm migration

Whichever way you choose, it's worth going through these points before January 2027:

1. List every address you receive in Gmail today (Settings → Accounts and Import).
2. For each address, identify the provider and check the mailbox has IMAP and SMTP enabled.
3. Find the mailbox passwords (or generate app passwords at the provider).
4. Pick the new home: Workspace / a mail client / a client in the browser.
5. Configure the addresses in the new place and send a test message FROM EACH address.
6. Only after successful tests, switch off the old fetching in Gmail.

The most common question: what about old messages?

Nothing happens to them. Messages fetched into Gmail stay in your Google account and remain accessible. Messages sitting in mailboxes at your provider stay at the provider. The change concerns only the connection between Gmail and external addresses — not the data itself.

A detailed comparison of the options, pricing and the security write-up are on the Faldro homepage. And if you'd rather click around first: the demo runs without registration.