Google has put a date on the retirement of one of Gmail's oldest power-user features. Starting January 2027, the "Send as" option that lets you fire off a message from a Yahoo, Outlook, or custom-domain address without leaving your Gmail inbox will stop working — on the web and in the Android and iPhone apps alike.
For anyone running a side business, a club newsletter, or a personal domain off a free Gmail account, this is the end of a long-standing arrangement: Gmail as a free front end for somebody else's mailbox.
The notice is already rolling out
Google folded the announcement into a new support page on third-party account support, and added a banner to the top of its long-running "Send emails from a different address or alias" guide. The timeline is laid out in three stages. Q3 2026 begins the notice period, with in-product notifications going to every affected user. Through Q3 and Q4, the feature keeps working, but Google will block new configurations. In January 2027, it goes away entirely.
Gmailify and "Check mail from other accounts" — the POP-based fetching that pulled external mail into your Gmail inbox — are on the same chopping block. Messages you already imported stay where they are.
Why does it cost Google more than it looks
"Send as" was never a cosmetic label swap. When you verify an outside address, Gmail stores your credentials for that provider's SMTP server (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, the standard used to push mail out) and connects to it on your behalf every time you hit send. That's why the setup screen asks for a hostname, a port number, and a password.
It is also why Google's own instructions still tell users to fall back to port 25 with encryption switched off when their provider doesn't support TLS. Gmail has spent two decades acting as a mail client for every other provider's infrastructure — and holding the passwords to do it. Google's explanation points to features that demand "disproportionate maintenance resources."
Interoperability, but only one way
The list of what isn't changing tells the sharper story. Outlook, Thunderbird, and Apple Mail can still access Gmail over IMAP and POP. The Gmail API stays open. Gmail-to-Gmail aliases and Workspace "Send as" are untouched.
So Gmail remains reachable from everywhere, while it stops reaching anywhere. And Google's own FAQ, asked what businesses should do, suggests moving the custom domain to Google Workspace — a paid product.
One detail worth reading carefully: the mobile app will still let you add a third-party account. That gives you a separate inbox in the app, not the ability to send as that address from your Gmail account.
What to do before the deadline
Open Settings → Accounts and Import and look at your "Send mail as" list now, while you can still see what's configured. Avoid adding new ones — those are being restricted first. Then pick a path: your provider's own app, a desktop client wired up over IMAP/SMTP, or forwarding, which is independent of "Send as" and unaffected.
One thing to skip: Google explicitly warns against extensions and services promising to restore the feature, because they need your credentials or OAuth tokens to work. That is a lot of trust to hand a browser add-on to save two clicks.