Gmail's unified inbox setup

[Mike Paul]

This is probably a very niche problem, but hey. I'm not the only one...

In Gmail, I have an external business email address (mike@speakingofmike.com) that is checked using POP3 (Post Office Protocol). I can also send as that address from within Gmail, making my personal Gmail account a convenient unified inbox from which to work. I also have this setup for my Accountability Emails project (hello@accountabilityemails.com). I enjoy working from one unified inbox, and love living in Gmail, which I've used the "beta" days.

For those of you living in Gmail, I'm wondering:

1. Are you aware that Gmail is discontinuing POP3 fetching later this year?
2. What are you going to do about it?

I just discovered the hard way that you cannot rely on enabling auto-forward on the business email provider's end. They may not support something called SRS (Sender Rewriting Scheme) and thus certain emails will not pass authentications checks and will be dropped in transit from your professional inbox to your Gmail inbox.

Across 3 agencies, I missed 44 auditions, mostly from one agent.

[Bruce Miles]

yeah, I read all that Gmail bidness and I think I understand. I've updated my Mac Mail app and may just go back and forth between the apps. I can also read Gmail on the Mac mail. I saw passing reference to some preferred email apps out there that are in theory better than all of the usual suspects. Let us know what you discover please. Bon chance.

B

[Mike Paul]

Well, my situation will never allow me to use a desktop app; I'm addicted to Google for different reasons. Mostly, it's that I use Streak CRM for Gmail, and, well... it runs on top of Gmail

Over the weekend, I migrated my mike@speakingofmike.com from my current setup over to Google Workspace because of that realization: email forwarding runs the very real risk (in my case) of messages getting silently dropped in transit.

...I'm not going to begin to describe what an absolute pain this continues to be. Vendor lock-in is real, and I'm suffering big time right now even just moving between the vendor's own products!

OK, I lied about not beginning to describe. Imagine this: your new workspace has all your old emails received... but none of the messages you've sent. You've got your calendar all set up, but notice the attendees have been removed from events. On and on like that of different you-know-what.

Absolute nightmare. And don't even get me started about migrating Streak from one to the other... imagine a ... oh nevermind

[Lance Blair]

Thanks for bringing this up Mike. I'm an Outlook guy, but I was thinking of moving to all Google and Gmail because OneDrive is really glitchy with playing back audio files and many EU clients can't download files from OneDrive.

Now this reminds me of why I don't use Google all the time. I understand the security reasons why they're doing it, but it's just another feature they're dumping with minimal communication. I knew about it, but their info about it has been scant.

[Mike Paul]

Response from Hover. Basically, if you use these guys for business email... maybe don't. Times have changed. Their response times are slow, and they're not supporting modern methods.

Hi Mike,

Thank you for reaching out to Hover Support with such a great technical question. My name is Nicole, and I am stepping in for my colleague from chat to make sure you get a thorough answer. I do understand why you are asking about Sender Rewriting Scheme (SRS) support, especially with major email providers enforcing much stricter SPF and DMARC authentication policies recently.

At this time, Hover does not support SRS for our email forwarding service, and we do not currently have an official public roadmap indicating when or if it might be implemented.


As you likely know, standard email forwarding can lead to deliverability issues without SRS. Because the original sender's domain policies are preserved during a forward, the receiving server might reject the message if our forwarding IP is not explicitly authorized in the original sender's SPF record.

Code: Select all

v=spf1 include:_spf.hostedemail.com ~all

To help manage forwarding security, Hover recently introduced an alternative measure:

• Forward Opt-In Requirement: As of September 18, 2025, Hover requires all recipients of forwarded emails to explicitly opt in before forwarding begins.
• Current Behavior: Emails forwarded through our system still retain the original sender address. Without SRS, these messages may be flagged as spam or rejected by the final recipient's mail provider (like Gmail or Outlook) if the original sender has a strict SPF policy.

If you need a reliable workaround, here are the two best paths forward:

• Dedicated Hover Mailbox: Upgrading to a dedicated mailbox is the most reliable option on our end. Receiving your mail directly via IMAP or POP3 completely bypasses the forwarding hurdle and ensures your messages arrive safely.
• Third-Party Providers: If your setup strictly requires SRS forwarding, you might consider routing your MX records through a provider like Cloudflare, ImprovMX, or easyDNS, as they already natively support the protocol.

Please let me know if you have any other questions about your email configuration.
​

• For more information on opting-into email forwarding, kindly refer to this Hover guide: [Forward Opt-In Feature for Hover Email].
• For more information on email authentication standards, kindly refer to this Hover guide: [Understanding Gmail, Microsoft, and Yahoo DMARC requirements for Hover email].
• For more information on email forwarding, kindly refer to this Hover guide: [Email forwarding with Hover Webmail].

Anyway, moving on.. but wanted to share in case anyone else is using Hover and/or relies on email forwarding.