Stunnel - How to use Gmail With Older Software

With over 200 million users, Google Mail, or Gmail, is one of the most used email systems in the world today. Even companies are getting in on the act by moving their email infrastructure to Google Apps, which gives them all the benefits of Google and the convenience of using a custom domain. With a multitude of features at your fingertips, such as spam control, calendars, pictures (Piscasa), and Google docs for file storing and collaboration, you really can’t go wrong.
However, many people still don’t know that if you want to pull your email into third-party email software, it has to be capable of using secure connections. This means SSL (Secure Socket Layer), and TLS (Transport Layer Security). Both of these protocols use encryption, and are built in automatically to most up-to-date email software. Instead of using ports 25 and 110 to sends and receive, you’ll be using ports 465 and 995, and Gmail won’t work without it.
So what happens when you are asked to set up an email system to talk to Google Mail, which doesn’t allow those ports, and is so old it doesn’t know the first thing about encryption protocols? Well, one answer could be a little program called Stunnel. This little gem sits on your computer and converts standard emails into a format suitable for Google Mail. It can handle incoming and outgoing mail, and is robust enough to use on a network where many people are sending emails at the same time. It also uses very little system memory, and rarely crashes.
Setting up Stunnel is a easy. You simply run thorough the install process which will take all of about 20 seconds, and then edit a small text file which configures the program to use whichever email service you are using. Of course we are talking about Google Mail here, but this program could be used to interface with any email system using secure socket layers.
You can set up port mappings easily, so if your software will only receive emails from port 110, it will automatically translate that to port 995 for you, and the same with outgoing mail. It will also handle IMAP email as well.
You can install Stunnel on any computer running Windows. In a network environment you can install a copy on a server, and point all your workstations to it. Stunnel seems to allow multiple connections with no fuss whatsoever. I’ve seen a single instance of Stunnel handling email for up to 200 workstations. Of course if you have more, there are no reasons why you couldn’t install more than one instance of Stunnel to handle the extra traffic. It also installs itself as a service on server operating systems, which enables it to be started automatically. It can also be installed on individual machines, such as laptops.
This program finds favor with quite a few people. It’s simple and does exactly what it says it does. It’s also flexible enough to fit in with almost any network.
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You said that Outlook isn’t your main email client, so which is your main one?
I think its thunderbird
It is Mozilla Thunderbird.
Awesome! This actually solved my problem… what a stupid bug.
If this is the same bug that I’ve encountered, there may be another fix: (1) hover over open Outlook item in Taskbar, cursor up to hover over Outlook window item, and right-click; (2) this should give you Restore / Move / Size / Minimize / Maximize — choose Move or Size; (3) use your cursor keys, going arbitrarily N/S/E/W, to try to move or size the Outlook window back into view. Basically, the app behaves as though it were open in a 0x0 window, or at a location that’s offscreen, and this will frequently work to resize and/or move the window. Don’t forget to close while resized/moved, so that Outlook remembers the size/position for next time.
THANK YOU Claude!!! I could get the main window to launch but could not get any other message window to show on the desktop. You are my hero!!!!
Solved my issue! 6 years later and this is still problem…
Fantastic. Thank you. Size did the trick.
This solved my Outlook problem, too. Thank you. :)
Thank you so much, this started happening to me today and was causing big problems. You are a life saver, I hope I can help you in some way some day.
You are a god – thank you!
thanks a lot…. work like charm.. :-)
Yah…thanks Claude. I’ve been having the same problem and tried all the suggestions…your solution was the answer. It had resized itself to a 0/0 box. Cheers
Excellent post. This had me baffled even trying to accurately describe the problem. This fixed it for me.
Thank you
Thanks a lot for the article. Don’t know why it happenend, don’t know how it got fixed, but it was really annoying and now it works :-)
Thanks a lot. I was facing this issue from past 3 week. I tried everything but no resolution. The issue was happening intermittently and mainly when I was changing the display of screen ( as i use 2 monitors). The only option i had was to do system restore. But thanks to you.
I’ve been tried to sole this problem for 12hours. Your comment about changing the display of screen helped me a lot!! Thanks!!
Thank you…don’t know why this happened but your instructions helped me fix it. Running Windows 10 and office pro 2007
Great tip! Thanks!
Worked for me, too – thank you!!!
It’s Worked for me, too
thank you very much!
I had a similar issue with Outlook 2013 on Windows 10 and this helped me to fix it. Thank you very much!
Thank you so much. Solved!
Considering you published this in 2012, incredible not been debugged by Microsoft.
Thank you again. M
This problem was faced by only one user logging to TS 2008 r2 using outlook 2010.The issue was resolved.
Thanks.
Great tip. Thank you!!!! If it helps, I had to use the Control Key and the arrow keys at the same time to bring my window back into view. Worked like a charm.
Thank you, this worked !!!!
Man, you are a fucking god. Thanks a lot, what an annoying bug!!
Awesome, this post solved the issue. Many thanks!