So I recently started futzing around with gmail for domains a bit more, but still like the ability to use a local POP client for my Email. It generally works well ... but I'm reminded of an annoying problem I came across last year that it appears there is still no solution for.

Specifically, if you send yourself a message (and forward via Google's SMTP servers), your POP client will never get it. This is because Google is "smart" enough to realize that it already has a copy in the Sent Folder, so it doesn't making it available in the "POP'able" area (for lack of better words) for download. You can see it in the Inbox if you login to the gmail interface ... but you'll never see it in your TBird, Outlook, etc. POP client.

Since this affects anyone using POP, there are LOTS of people that have complained – see sampling here:
   http://mail.google.com/support/bin/search.py?query=sending+myself+inbox
And the following thread pretty much nails it, plus some folks from Google chimed in to say they "passed the suggestion along to the team" ... but that was over two months ago.
   http://groups.google.com/group/Gmail-Help-Message-Delivery-en/browse_thread/thread/7cd5c9969c1b35f8/8d7867e02734868d
Yes, there are some solutions, but they all look pretty kludgy to me and require the end-user to "do" something rather than just have it "work" as they would expect.

A very nice solution would be a simple checkbox in the gmail interface that would basically say something like "if you want your POP client to retrieve messages you sent to yourself, click here" ... or heck, make that the default behavior if you enable POP as arguably this is the expected behavior.

Doesn't seem like that complex of request (although it may requiring some fiddling of the innards of gmail) ... but it would be darn nice (and benefit a LOT of people IMHO) if some Googler could do this as part of their "20% free time" project – hint, hint! ;-)

POP is old, use IMAP.

How about this for a work around:

Send the email to a non-existent email address (like nothingexample.com) which should result in the client downloading the email via POP3 since it downloads any sent items that weren't sent to yourself...

If I send to a non-existent Email address, I just get the expected "bounce-back"

Note that if I sent to another-usersame-domain, Google is smart enough to realize that it ends up forwarding back to me ... and since it is from me, it is not available for download. Ditto if I send to some-usergmail.com which forwards back to me too!

Note that another area where this could be annoying is Email lists – it's often nice to know that your message got "out" there since you get the broadcast message back to youself. But since you sent it in the first place, gmail squelch'es it from showing up in the inbox.

Thanks for the suggestions – again, per the gmail discussion groups, it's obvious that *many* people are confused by this behavior and be nice to have a toggle,
alek

P.S. While POP is old, I like having the messages on my local machine.

I've actually just tried sending an email to myself from both my Google Apps account and my Gmail account (using the web interface) and *both* landed in my inbox and were downloaded by Outlook via POP. Is this not what you're seeing?

I'm sending from TBird ... so try the above test using Outlook to *send* the Email ... since most people that use client-side programs will do the same – i.e. they rarely use the web interface.

I bet the Email shows up in gmail inbox, but is not downloaded to Outlook.

Thanks for testing Tony,
alek

P.S. I'm assuming there is no sender-rewriting going on for you.

Yeah, this is pretty irritating behavior. I've noticed this on both the mail I respond to in newsgroups as well as mail I send to myself through Outlook. In the software engineering world, this behavior would be considered a violation of the "Principle of Least Astonishment".