To sync Gmail with Outlook, add your Gmail account inside Outlook for Windows and select Allow in the Google permissions window. Microsoft documents that flow for both new and classic Outlook, and the steps are below. Mail, and in new Outlook your calendar and contacts, then sync through the account.

The reverse direction is closing: Google says you can’t add an Outlook account to Gmail on a computer. Its older mail-fetching feature ends for existing users in January 2027. Find your case in the table first.

Which Direction Do You Need?

Two different jobs both get called syncing Outlook with Gmail, and they have opposite answers. Find your row before you change a single setting.

What you want to do	Where it happens	Status as of October 2026
Read and send your Gmail from Outlook on Windows	Outlook desktop, new or classic	Microsoft says to add the account and then select Allow in the Google account permissions window.
Read and send an Outlook.com account from Gmail on a computer	Gmail on the web	Google says you cannot add an Outlook account to Gmail on your computer.
Read an Outlook.com account inside the Gmail mobile app	Gmail app on Android or iPhone	Google says the mobile app uses a standard IMAP connection.
Pull mail from an older POP provider into Gmail on the web	Gmail settings, Accounts and Import	Google says existing users can still use the feature until January 2027.
Keep a Workspace mailbox and Outlook in step both ways	Google Workspace Sync for Microsoft Outlook	Google says email, calendar and contact data are regularly synchronized between the account and Outlook.
Move everything across once and stop	Gmail import, or an admin migration tool	Google says the import brings messages but not any folders or labels.

How to Sync Gmail With Outlook: Add the Account in New or Classic Outlook

Microsoft documents this on its page for adding a Gmail account to Outlook for Windows, revised 31 March 2026 in the article metadata. The page carries exactly two client tabs, new Outlook and classic Outlook, and no tab for the web at all.

New Outlook for Windows

1. On the View tab, select View settings. From the File tab, the equivalent is Account info.
2. Select Accounts, then Your accounts.
3. Select Add Account.
4. In the Suggested account dropdown, pick the Gmail address you want and select Continue.
5. Follow the prompts, and in the Google account permissions window select Allow.
6. Select Done, or add another account.

Classic Outlook for Windows

1. Select File, then Add Account.
2. Enter your Gmail address and select Connect.
3. Confirm the address in the Google sign-in window and select Next.
4. Enter your password and follow the prompts.
5. In the Google account permissions window, select Allow.
6. Select Done, or add another account.

That final Allow step is the tell that this runs on OAuth rather than a stored password. Microsoft confirms it indirectly in its troubleshooting article for Gmail accounts in classic Outlook. That article has you clear a stored Windows credential whose name begins with MicrosoftOffice16_Data:OAUTH2.

You don’t need to switch IMAP on first any more. Google says the option to enable or disable IMAP went away for personal accounts in January 2025. Its page adds that “IMAP access is always turned on in Gmail.”

Why Gmail Isn’t Syncing to Outlook: What Each Vendor Documents

Most sync failures trace to sign-in, and the two vendors don’t describe the fix the same way. Start with the row that matches what Outlook is showing you.

What you see	What the vendor says	What to do
Repeated password prompts when adding the account	Microsoft says you need to “turn on two-factor authentication for Gmail and then create an app password”	Try the Sign in with Google window first, and use an app password only if Outlook never shows it
Outlook asks for a typed Google password	Google says Gmail “no longer supports third-party apps or devices which require you to share your Google username and password”	Remove the account and add it again through the Google permissions window
A guide tells you to enable IMAP in Gmail settings	Google says “IMAP access is always turned on in Gmail” for personal accounts	Skip that step, because the switch no longer exists
Classic Outlook won’t add the account at all	Microsoft has you clear a stored Windows credential that begins MicrosoftOffice16_Data:OAUTH2	Clear it in Windows Credential Manager, then add the account again

Wait, Microsoft says app password and Google says Sign in with Google? Yep. Microsoft’s troubleshooting page, revised 2 April 2026 in its metadata, still leads with the app password.

Google’s client page tells you to look for “Sign in with Google” instead. Both work today. The Google window is the one both companies’ current setup steps end on, so it’s the one to try first.

Google Closes the Gmail Side of the Crossing in January 2027

Google has published an end date for checking third-party mail inside Gmail on the web. The relevant page is Google’s notice on upcoming changes to Gmailify and POP in Gmail, which states the timeline plainly.

After the first quarter of 2026, this feature no longer supports new users. Existing users can still use the feature until January 2027.

Gmailify runs on the same schedule, and Google groups both features into one removal date. A second Google page names a third casualty the first one never mentions. Its notice on changes to third-party email account support adds Send as for third-party addresses.

January 2027 | Gmail will fully remove Send as for third-party accounts, Gmailify, and POP.

Google does answer the question everyone asks next. On the same page it says that mail already pulled across stays put: All messages synced before the deprecation stay in Gmail.

So the messages already through the crossing keep their residency. Only the crossing itself closes.

What Google Tells You to Do Instead

Google names two replacements on the same deprecation notice, and they are not equivalent to what is going away.

• Google says to set up automatic forwarding at your other provider, and to refer to that provider for instructions. Forwarding pushes new mail only, so nothing already sitting in the old mailbox moves.
• Google says you can keep reading and sending the other account in the Gmail app for Android, iPhone and iPad. That app uses a standard IMAP connection, so it covers phones and leaves your desktop browser out.
• Google says that if you have a work or school account, your administrator can help migrate your email data into Google Workspace.

Ouch. The desktop web experience loses the feature outright, and Google offers no web replacement.

You Cannot Add an Outlook Account to Gmail on a Computer at All

This is the part that surprises people, and Google states it without hedging. On its page for adding another email account, Google writes:

You can’t add an Outlook account to Gmail on your computer. To connect to Outlook, Microsoft now requires non-Microsoft email users to use modern authentication methods.

Google then points you at the phone: To add an Outlook account to Gmail, use the Gmail app. That is the whole workaround, and it is a real one, because the mobile app speaks IMAP rather than POP.

Microsoft closed the mirror image of this door from its own side. Its page on connected accounts in Outlook.com carries a revision date of 11 May 2026. Microsoft says it removed the ability to connect new third-party accounts, and to sync existing ones, from inside Outlook.com.

Both consumer web clients have now stopped accepting each other. Every guide still walking you through Gmail settings to add an Outlook.com address is describing a route that no longer opens. If you’d rather leave Outlook behind entirely, here’s which migration route fits a personal, Microsoft 365 or PST mailbox.

Gmail Server Settings, and Where Google Moved Them

Google no longer prints IMAP hostnames on its consumer help pages. Its client-settings article now tells you to look for a Sign in with Google option instead. Gmail wants OAuth rather than a hand-typed server address using a standard email protocol.

The IMAP values survive in the Workspace admin documentation. Google publishes them on its page for setting up Gmail with a third-party client, inside a section written for clients that cannot do OAuth.

Setting	Value Google publishes
Incoming mail server, IMAP	Google says imap.gmail.com on port 993 with SSL.
Incoming mail server, POP	Google says pop.gmail.com on port 995, and that SSL is required.
Outgoing mail server, SMTP	Google says smtp.gmail.com on port 587 with TLS, or port 465 if you switch the encryption type to SSL.
Server timeout	Google says greater than 1 minute, and recommends 5.
Clients per account	Google says you can add Gmail to up to 15 email clients at a time per account.

Google frames those values as a fallback, not a recommendation. Its wording is that Gmail should be used only with mail clients that support OAuth.

Is There Real Two-Way Sync Between Outlook and Gmail?

Yes, but only through a product built by one of the two vendors. Each one keeps the second copy on its own side of the border. Neither company offers a neutral peer-to-peer sync between a consumer Gmail account and Outlook.

Two gaps are worth knowing before you choose. Microsoft publishes no limit on how many accounts Outlook for Windows can hold, so the 10-account figure in forum threads has no source. Google publishes no list of which Workspace editions include GWSMO.

Google Workspace Sync for Microsoft Outlook

GWSMO is alive and actively maintained, which surprises people who assume it died with G Suite. Google shipped version 4.3.99.0 in July 2026, and its release notes list new features rather than bug fixes alone.

Google says GWSMO uses a proprietary sync protocol over HTTPS, and that it doesn’t use IMAP or SMTP. It requires a Google Workspace account, so a personal Gmail address cannot use it.

Google publishes sync intervals on its page describing what GWSMO synchronizes. Email syncs every minute and calendar every 10 minutes. Contacts sync every 20 minutes, and the global address list every 24 hours.

The gaps matter more than the intervals. Google lists a long set of Outlook features that never reach Google, and these are the ones that catch people out.

Outlook feature	What Google documents
Drafts	Google says drafts aren’t synchronized with Google Workspace.
Outlook rules and signatures	Google says neither one syncs, so both stay local to that copy of Outlook.
Categories and follow-up flags	Google says category definitions, assignments and follow-up dates don’t sync.
Tentative and out-of-office status	Google says either status appears as Busy in Google Calendar.
Multiple contact folders	Google says multiple contact folders and personal distribution lists don’t sync.
Supported platforms	Google says macOS isn’t supported, and neither are the web, Android and iOS versions of Outlook.

Note what is missing from Google’s supported list: Outlook 2024. Google’s system requirements stop at Outlook 2021 and the Microsoft 365 desktop app, while Microsoft’s own Gmail page lists Outlook 2024 as in scope.

Microsoft Cloud Sync, the Same Idea Pointing the Other Way

Microsoft built the mirror image, and it is newer. On its page on syncing an account to the Microsoft Cloud, revised 2 February 2026 in the article metadata, Microsoft describes what happens:

Syncing your account to the Microsoft Cloud means that a copy of your email, calendar, and contacts will be synchronized between your email provider and Microsoft data centers.

Microsoft scopes it to Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud and IMAP accounts in Outlook for iOS, Android and new Outlook for Mac. Gmail and Yahoo also work in new Outlook for Windows. A copy of your mail lands on Microsoft servers, which is worth deciding deliberately rather than by accident.

Microsoft documents the direction-by-direction sync failures too, which is how you know the baseline is two-way. Its known-issues page states that the Drafts folder doesn’t sync from Outlook to Gmail, though it does sync from Gmail to Outlook.

Third-Party Contact Sync

Neither vendor documents a supported way to keep Outlook contacts and Google contacts in step outside those two products. An older open-source project, GO Contact Sync Mod, has filled that gap for years, and this article has linked it for years.

Treat it as unofficial. I could not verify its current maintenance status against a vendor source, because no vendor source exists. Neither Google nor Microsoft supports it.

Four Places Google and Microsoft Contradict Themselves Here

Researching this article turned up more internal disagreement than usual. Each of these is a live contradiction between two official pages, or inside a single one.

Contradiction 1: Three Google pages describe three different states of the same feature

Google’s third-party support notice says you can no longer add or sync a third-party account in Gmail on the web. Its deprecation notice says existing users can keep the feature until January 2027.

Meanwhile Google’s how-to page still teaches the feature step by step. It also states a live capacity limit of up to 5 email addresses per Gmail account. Already removed, removable until 2027, and fully available: all three, today.

Contradiction 2: Two different dates for the same cutoff

Google’s deprecation notice puts the end of new signups after the first quarter of 2026, in the past tense. Its third-party support notice puts the same event later and hedges it, saying Gmail may restrict new configurations prior to January 2027.

Contradiction 3: Both vendors still recommend a setting Google removed

Google announced that less secure app access ended for Workspace accounts in January 2025. Yet its POP settings page still lists allowing less secure apps as a troubleshooting step.

Microsoft does the same from its side. The classic Outlook tab of Microsoft’s Gmail article says you can skip two-factor authentication by turning that setting on. Both pages document a fallback that no longer exists.

Contradiction 4: Google cannot agree with itself about Outlook 2016

Google’s third-party client page lists Outlook 2016 among the versions that support OAuth. Google’s other client page names Outlook 2016 as an example of an older client that may not support the modern security standards Gmail recommends.

Start Here

1. Decide which direction you need, using the table at the top. Most people asking to sync Outlook with Gmail want their Gmail inside Outlook, which is the supported direction.
2. If you have a POP connection running in Gmail today, diarize January 2027 and pick a replacement now. Forwarding at the source provider is the closest substitute Google names.
3. Before you move anything, get a baseline count of what lands in your inbox each week. That number tells a migration problem apart from a normal quiet week.
4. Add the account through the vendor flow rather than typing server settings by hand. OAuth is what both companies support now.

EmailAnalytics measures response time and email volume for teams on Gmail and Outlook, which is how the platform question stops being theoretical. Sign up for a free trial today if you want to watch the numbers rather than guess at them.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Gmail not syncing to Outlook?

The usual cause is sign-in: Google says Gmail no longer supports apps that need your typed Google password. Remove the account and add it again through the Google permissions window. Microsoft’s troubleshooting page suggests an app password with two-factor authentication if the prompts keep repeating.

Does adding Gmail to Outlook sync my calendar and contacts?

In new Outlook, yes. Microsoft says syncing to the Microsoft Cloud copies “your email, calendar, and contacts” between your provider and Microsoft data centers. Microsoft’s page doesn’t describe the same sync for classic Outlook.

Can I add my Outlook.com account to Gmail?

Not on a computer. Google states plainly that you can’t add an Outlook account to Gmail on your computer. Google points you to the Gmail mobile app instead, which connects over IMAP.

Will Gmail stop working with Outlook in 2027?

No, and the confusion is worth clearing up. What ends in January 2027 is Gmail pulling third-party mail in over POP, along with Gmailify and Send as for third-party addresses. Adding your Gmail account to Outlook is a separate mechanism and is unaffected.

Will I lose the emails I already imported into Gmail?

No. Google states that all messages synced before the deprecation stay in Gmail, so the archive you already pulled across remains in your account.

Does Gmail still work with Outlook 2016?

Google publishes contradictory answers, so treat it as uncertain. One Google page lists Outlook 2016 among the versions that support OAuth. Another names Outlook 2016 as a client that may not meet current security standards.

Can I sync Outlook and Gmail contacts in both directions?

Only through Google Workspace Sync for Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Cloud sync, and each has documented gaps. Google says multiple contact folders and personal distribution lists never reach Google Workspace through GWSMO.

What We Checked, and When

Every figure and quotation on this page came from Google or Microsoft documentation read on 11 August 2026 and re-checked on 9 October 2026. Microsoft dates are taken from each article’s own revision metadata rather than the visible footer. That footer stamp is a site-wide republish marker rather than a content date.

Google Help Center pages publish no last-updated date at all, so no date is implied for them here. Where Google and Microsoft disagree with themselves, both sides are quoted above rather than reconciled into a single tidy answer.

One link in this article, to GO Contact Sync Mod, points at an unofficial third-party project. It is preserved from the earlier version of this page and is not endorsed or verified by either vendor.