Today I ran across a great post over at Lifehacker titled Turn Thunderbird Into the Ultimate GMail IMAP Client that I thought deserved to be featured here. This proves that in between the Lifehacker fluff posts and spam are occasionally some useful posts. :D

Anyway, with the recent addition of IMAP features to Gmail, a lot of possibilities have opened up for Gmail users when it comes to mobile devices and other gadgets. The thing people often forget, however, is that IMAP is also the prefered method over POP3 for fetching your e-mails on your desktop e-mail client. Lifehacker makes the argument for Thunderbird being the best choice for managing your Gmail from your desktop, and I couldn’t agree more. It is easy to use, fully customizable, and is completely free for anyone to use.

Despite its future being uncertain, as it stands now Thunderbird is an incredible desktop e-mail client, and a perfect way to get the full benefit of IMAP. If you aren’t using IMAP to sync with your Gmail account, I recommend you check out Lifehacker’s post which explains why you should and how to go about setting it up. Ryan at CyberNet News also posted some additional information about Gmail and IMAP.