Setting up Gmail on iPhone

[rainmanbk]

I had a genuis idea when I discovered Google's recent: features, which lets you use your mobile devices without worry that they're downloading your desktop POP3 mail. In order to use it, you put recent: in front of your email address. So if your email was joe@gmail.com, it would be recent:joe@gmail.com. However, the problem I've come across, is on iPhone, when you're typing in the field to set your email address, you cannot type the : character. It is not on the extended keyboard. So I'm not sure how to work around that. I want to receive mail on my iPhone, but I want to get that same mail on my computer, to ensure that I have it backed up properly.

My only other solution thought was to use recent: on all my computers, and then put the actual address on the phone, so the phone was the main client downloading the mail, and the others were the ones using recent. But I'd rather it be the other way..

Solutions? Ideas?

[billchase2]

i'm having problems with gmail too. when setting it up, it downloads ALL my messages and says they are all new... and they aren't. i even selected (in gmail) to only send messages from now on... and it still did the same thing.

[terrrrrible]

try this, i believe it fixed my problem:

make sure you have "Enable POP only for mail that arrives from now on" selected on your account in gmail, delete the account(s) from your phone, re-add them, make sure "Use Recent Mode" is disabled on the account(s) BEFORE you access the mail. Go ahead and go into the mail. It will pull 25 e-mails (if you have that as your setting) into the inbox, but after you delete them, it shouldn't keep pulling more in.

[tho]

it also sends back a copy of your sent e-mail folder as well. the fix i'm gonna do for now is block e-mails from my own address.

[terrrrrible]

it also sends back a copy of your sent e-mail folder as well. the fix i'm gonna do for now is block e-mails from my own address.

did you accidentally enable "Always Cc Myself"?

[mostman]

did you accidentally enable "Always Cc Myself"?

Nah - I have the same problem. And I ended up on the same solution - delete mails being sent by me. Its because of the way that google does its folder hierarchy - everything is in one folder.

The iPhone will need a fix for this - to be able to filter them out.

-Mike

[billchase2]

try this, i believe it fixed my problem:

make sure you have "Enable POP only for mail that arrives from now on" selected on your account in gmail, delete the account(s) from your phone, re-add them, make sure "Use Recent Mode" is disabled on the account(s) BEFORE you access the mail. Go ahead and go into the mail. It will pull 25 e-mails (if you have that as your setting) into the inbox, but after you delete them, it shouldn't keep pulling more in.
what is "use recent mode"? i mean, i know where it is and how to turn it on... i just don't know what it does exactly.

[billchase2]

it also sends back a copy of your sent e-mail folder as well. the fix i'm gonna do for now is block e-mails from my own address.
where did you set it up to block emails from yourself? in the iphone or in gmail? i'm having the same problem.

[digitaldave]

Nah - I have the same problem. And I ended up on the same solution - delete mails being sent by me. Its because of the way that google does its folder hierarchy - everything is in one folder.

The iPhone will need a fix for this - to be able to filter them out.

-Mike

Or you could set up a rule in your mail client to move items from yourself to the sent folder - that's what I do, and it works fine :).

EDIT - I have no idea if you can set rules in the iPhone mail client, I was referring to Mail.app.

[billchase2]

ugh, gmail is a pain on here. i'm just not going to use that account on my phone for now. i can't get it working right.

[lord patton]

where did you set it up to block emails from yourself? in the iphone or in gmail? i'm having the same problem.

same problem here, looking for a fix.

Perhaps the "always cc yourself" option doesn't work correctly yet.

[mac-er]

Do this....

Instead of setting up your Gmail account on iPhone through the "Gmail" link when you first touch "Mail", click the "Other" category, that lets you put in all the login and server information.
Your email address will still be joe@gmail.com, but under the incoming mail server settings, your user name will be recent:joe@gmail.com. Your user name for outgoing will be joe@gmail.com

I just tested it, and I was able to get a mail off my iPhone (and delete it), and then when I went into Mail.app on my Mac, it was there.

I had a genuis idea when I discovered Google's recent: features, which lets you use your mobile devices without worry that they're downloading your desktop POP3 mail. In order to use it, you put recent: in front of your email address. So if your email was joe@gmail.com, it would be recent:joe@gmail.com. However, the problem I've come across, is on iPhone, when you're typing in the field to set your email address, you cannot type the : character. It is not on the extended keyboard. So I'm not sure how to work around that. I want to receive mail on my iPhone, but I want to get that same mail on my computer, to ensure that I have it backed up properly.

My only other solution thought was to use recent: on all my computers, and then put the actual address on the phone, so the phone was the main client downloading the mail, and the others were the ones using recent. But I'd rather it be the other way..

Solutions? Ideas?

[aristobrat]

ugh, gmail is a pain on here. i'm just not going to use that account on my phone for now. i can't get it working right.

POP is a bad when youre trying to use it on multiple devices to keep a mailbox in sync hopefully gmail will implement imap soon!

[mac-er]

same problem here, looking for a fix.

Perhaps the "always cc yourself" option doesn't work correctly yet.

Per Google:

Why do messages I send appear in my mail client's inbox?

Once you've enabled POP access, Gmail will download all messages in your account, except for spam and trash. If your mail client isn't configured to categorize your mail, all of your Gmail messages will appear in your mail client's inbox. You may want to contact your mail client's customer service department for instructions on how to categorize downloaded messages.


It's how Google stores mail on their servers. Somehow, we need to be able to create a sent folder on iPhone to categorize the mail. Haven't figured that one out yet...

EDIT: iPhone mail will create a sent folder the first time you send a message and a drafts folder the first time you save mail to send.

However, creating those folders did not fix the issue of the iPhone mail not categorizing the mail (so mail I sent was still being downloaded into the inbox). And, you still want to keep copies of mail you send on your client.

I did find a workaround:
1. Go to Gmail.com and create a filter that says that mail with from your email is to be deleted. Sent mail will go to the trash on the Gmail servers (which stays there for like 30 days).
2. iPhone Mail will not pull from the Gmail trash, so you will not get copies of the email you sent in your iPhone mailbox.
3. Copies of mail you send will still be on the iPhone "Sent" folder, and more importantly, Mail.app on your Mac will also keep a copy, so filtering through Gmail shouldn't impact your archiving of sent mail.

[lord patton]

thanks, mac-er. Perfect!

[billchase2]

great advice... but what happens with the email you said from within gmail itself from a computer? it would all go to the trash, right? i'd like to keep my sent emails in the sent folder and not have them be deleted.

[mac-er]

great advice... but what happens with the email you said from within gmail itself from a computer? it would all go to the trash, right? i'd like to keep my sent emails in the sent folder and not have them be deleted.

If you are using a mail client, like Mail.app, it will keep them for you.
If you are using Gmail.com, they will go to the trash, where Gmail keeps them for a period of time.

[Diode]

try this, i believe it fixed my problem:

make sure you have "Enable POP only for mail that arrives from now on" selected on your account in gmail, delete the account(s) from your phone, re-add them, make sure "Use Recent Mode" is disabled on the account(s) BEFORE you access the mail. Go ahead and go into the mail. It will pull 25 e-mails (if you have that as your setting) into the inbox, but after you delete them, it shouldn't keep pulling more in.

Thanks for this!

[rainmanbk]

Great.. it looks like mac-er's idea will and does work.. I have yet to try it but I am almost positive that this is the answer. Thanks all for helping solve this!

[sunnywala]

I wish there was an awesome gmail app, like I had for my blackberry...maybe soon
I set mails sent from me to archive(skip inbox) it seems to work

[Pine-Tree]

I was also having issues with gmail. I used that tip of creating a filter, and it works!! thanks! If google does come out with a fix, we'll have to go back and take it out right??

[technicolor]

I am very frustrated.

I have archived all the email in my inbox, and some how my phone still says I have 25 new messages.:rolleyes:

I used both the gmail and other link in the account setup.

There is absolutely nothing in my inbox!

[Pine-Tree]

I have a regular gmail account, which is working fine so far on my iphone. I also have a custom e-mail (google apps) that I have after getting a domain name from them, basically xxx@azsunnyside.com. It seems to work for sending e-mail but it doesn't receive any e-mails even though there's some there currently. I checked by sending an e-mail to my address and it went through my mail.app on my laptop, but not on iphone, am I doing something wrong?? Is there a different way to configure an e-mail that is through google apps? Any help will be much appreciated.

Abe

[mogema]

Recent mode is a lifesaver!!

I was PISSED when I saw the iPhone downloading all my archived mail.. mostly because I have over 20k messages archived.

Recent mode syncs all mail from the last 30 days, which brought my total to under 500 messages. This was still frightening, so I just went and deleted most of the unnecessary mail from the past 30 days in gmail BEFORE re-creating the gmail account on the iPhone. Now I'm down to 32 messages :) ( I should really learn to use that delete button in gmail :p )

[mogema]

I have a regular gmail account, which is working fine so far on my iphone. I also have a custom e-mail (google apps) that I have after getting a domain name from them, basically xxx@azsunnyside.com. It seems to work for sending e-mail but it doesn't receive any e-mails even though there's some there currently. I checked by sending an e-mail to my address and it went through my mail.app on my laptop, but not on iphone, am I doing something wrong?? Is there a different way to configure an e-mail that is through google apps? Any help will be much appreciated.

Abe

Hey Abe - I also have a google apps address and don't know how many times I've caught myself using mail.myapp.com or pop.myapp.com instead of pop.gmail.com. You might also want to try pop.googlemail.com port 995.

Double check that you're logging in with the full email address as well - xyz@myapp.com

Otherwise... *shrugs*

I'm actually using gmail's accounts feature to fetch my google apps mail into my gmail account (there, you HAVE to use pop.googlemail.com because pop.gmail.com won't let you fetch from other gmail accounts, but googlemail.com will).

Replying from gmail's webapp will send as the google apps address if it was the recipient.. I dunno about the iPhone... hmm

[UPDATE]: Mail fetched into Gmail from other POP3 account via Gmail's accounts feature won't retain the correct sender address when being sent from the iPhone... bummer.

[Pine-Tree]

Hey Abe - I also have a google apps address and don't know how many times I've caught myself using mail.myapp.com or pop.myapp.com instead of pop.gmail.com. You might also want to try pop.googlemail.com port 995.

Double check that you're logging in with the full email address as well - xyz@myapp.com

Thanks for the tips, but unfortunately doesn't seem to be working still. I can send e-mail just fine from that account, but can't seem to receive any. I don't know what that is. I checked my setting numerous times, pop.gmail.com, pop.googlemail.com, even did that :995 or :587, but still no dice. I also made sure that it has my full email address. I kept looking at my mail.app settings on my laptop to do the same on the iphone, but even then it doesn't work.

We'll probably just have to wait for a fix, or until someone posts how they did it.

Abe

[Baron58]

I had a genuis idea when I discovered Google's recent: features, which lets you use your mobile devices without worry that they're downloading your desktop POP3 mail. In order to use it, you put recent: in front of your email address. So if your email was joe@gmail.com, it would be recent:joe@gmail.com. However, the problem I've come across, is on iPhone, when you're typing in the field to set your email address, you cannot type the : character. It is not on the extended keyboard

You do NOT use the recent:username@gmail.com in the 'email address' field when setting up the account. Just use username@gmail.com as usual.

You DO use the recent:username@gmail.com in the login field. That may be part of your problem.


Also, the phenomenon of getting emails that you send should only occur when you send from the GMail web interface, not from a regular email software. It sounds like 'always cc: myself' is turned on in the account settings on the iPhone.

To create a proper filter (in Mail.app, for example) to file the ones you send from the web interface, you cannot filter on the 'to' and 'from' fields alone. Make a new rule called 'GMail_Web_Sent'.

---------
If ALL of the following conditions are met:
From Contains youraddress@gmail.com
<add another criteria, and from the first menu select Edit Header List... Add a new header to the list called Delivered-To exactly like that, same capitalisation and punctuation, no extra spaces before or after. So the second line of the rule is:>
Delivered-To is equal to youraddress@gmail.com

Perform the following actions:
Move Message to mailbox Sent
Mark as Read
Stop evaluating rules
----------

That'll do it for you.

[iansearle]

The last post is a little confusing (to me). It appears to instruct us to setup filtering on our mail client. While the iPhone presently has no filtering capability (that I am aware of).

What I need to do, to get rid of the sent mail showing up in my inbox, is get rid of it from my google account. I setup a gmail filter to do such a thing. BUT, it filters the entire conversation and not single emails. At least that is the result I see when I use their test button.

Anyone know a way around this? (Yes, I've done a quick search of the google forums).

[Baron58]

The last post is a little confusing (to me). It appears to instruct us to setup filtering on our mail client. While the iPhone presently has no filtering capability (that I am aware of).


Correct. The filter example I gave was for Mail.app (can be adapted for Thunderbird and others) on your desktop system, NOT for the iPhone.

Here's what I don't understand:
If you send from any mail client OTHER THAN the GMail web interface, you should NOT get a copy of your message 'back'. So, sending from the iPhone should NOT cause this problem. I believe that the iPhone may default to having the setting "always cc: myself" set to 'on', which would explain why you're experiencing it with mail you send from the iPhone. If that setting is not 'on' in the iPhone Mail preferences for that account, then I don't know - I'd have to play with it myself to figure out what's going on. There should be no need for any filtering or other work-arounds when sending from Mail on the iPhone.

If you send an email from the GMail web interface, you *will* get the copy back in your POP client, so the filtering example I gave solves it and files the message as 'sent'. This works nicely so that if you do send from the web interface, you have the sent item in Mail.app as well.



What I need to do, to get rid of the sent mail showing up in my inbox, is get rid of it from my google account. I setup a gmail filter to do such a thing. BUT, it filters the entire conversation and not single emails. At least that is the result I see when I use their test button.

Anyone know a way around this? (Yes, I've done a quick search of the google forums).

Setting up a filter in GMail (web) is not going to work right at all. You can't filter on the correct message header, and you'd lose the 'sent item' if you could. Read what I posted above, it's either the 'cc: myself' setting, or something is very weird with the account setup.


When you set up the account on the iPhone, did you pick 'GMail' or 'POP'? If you picked 'GMail', delete the account and set it up as a generic POP account. Incoming mail is pop.gmail.com, SSL, on port 995. Outgoing mail is smtp.gmail.com, SSL, on port 587.

[iansearle]

Correct. The filter example I gave was for Mail.app (can be adapted for Thunderbird and others) on your desktop system, NOT for the iPhone.

Here's what I don't understand:
If you send from any mail client OTHER THAN the GMail web interface, you should NOT get a copy of your message 'back'. So, sending from the iPhone should NOT cause this problem. I believe that the iPhone may default to having the setting "always cc: myself" set to 'on', which would explain why you're experiencing it with mail you send from the iPhone. If that setting is not 'on' in the iPhone Mail preferences for that account, then I don't know - I'd have to play with it myself to figure out what's going on. There should be no need for any filtering or other work-arounds when sending from Mail on the iPhone.

If you send an email from the GMail web interface, you *will* get the copy back in your POP client, so the filtering example I gave solves it and files the message as 'sent'. This works nicely so that if you do send from the web interface, you have the sent item in Mail.app as well.



What I need to do, to get rid of the sent mail showing up in my inbox, is get rid of it from my google account. I setup a gmail filter to do such a thing. BUT, it filters the entire conversation and not single emails. At least that is the result I see when I use their test button.

Anyone know a way around this? (Yes, I've done a quick search of the google forums).[/QUOTE]

Are you trying this out yourself? Cause what you are saying does not match my experience at all.

When I send an email from mail.app it shows up on gmail as sent mail, and it gets pulled to my iPhone and shows up in the inbox.

When I send an email from the iPhone it shows up on gmail as sent mail, and it gets pulled back to my iPhone and shows up in the inbox.

So, it seems obvious that the mail filter must be implemented at google in order to prevent sent mail from showing up in my iPhone's inbox.

Lastly, no, I do not have the "always cc myself" option enabled.

[iansearle]

What I've figured out is that it does work to set up a gmail filter. You set up the gmail filter to delete any mail that is from your address. Then, as long as you are using pop clients, your iphone won't get a copy of every sent message.

HOWEVER, if you use the gmail web-interface, it doesn't work so well.

This looks like something Apple is going to have to ultimately fix on the iPhone mail application.

[chiefillini]

The last post is a little confusing (to me). It appears to instruct us to setup filtering on our mail client. While the iPhone presently has no filtering capability (that I am aware of).

What I need to do, to get rid of the sent mail showing up in my inbox, is get rid of it from my google account. I setup a gmail filter to do such a thing. BUT, it filters the entire conversation and not single emails. At least that is the result I see when I use their test button.

Anyone know a way around this? (Yes, I've done a quick search of the google forums).

Just tried the filter with a current conversation that I had going with 19 emails and it left them alone and just sent the one to the trash that was from me. so looks like were in the clear for that little part.

[ndriver182]

I did find a workaround:
1. Go to Gmail.com and create a filter that says that mail with from your email is to be deleted. Sent mail will go to the trash on the Gmail servers (which stays there for like 30 days).
2. iPhone Mail will not pull from the Gmail trash, so you will not get copies of the email you sent in your iPhone mailbox.
3. Copies of mail you send will still be on the iPhone "Sent" folder, and more importantly, Mail.app on your Mac will also keep a copy, so filtering through Gmail shouldn't impact your archiving of sent mail.

The workaround works great, but I do have a question about the sent mail syncing. Regardless of whether I send an e-mail from my mac mail application or my iphone and sync in itunes, the sent messages don't show up on the other device. For example, I send an e-mail through my iphone and then sync in itunes. The sent mail from the phone doesn't show up in my sent mail folder on my mac. The same story goes the other way around. Am I doing something wrong?

[chiefillini]

The workaround works great, but I do have a question about the sent mail syncing. Regardless of whether I send an e-mail from my mac mail application or my iphone and sync in itunes, the sent messages don't show up on the other device. For example, I send an e-mail through my iphone and then sync in itunes. The sent mail from the phone doesn't show up in my sent mail folder on my mac. The same story goes the other way around. Am I doing something wrong?

Yeah I was wondering the same thing, what does sync mail really do because it did not take any messages from inbox of "Mail" on macbook and put onto iphone. Does anyone know what the true function of sync mail is supposed to do besides take your pop mail account settings off?

[amjustice]

What I've figured out is that it does work to set up a gmail filter. You set up the gmail filter to delete any mail that is from your address. Then, as long as you are using pop clients, your iphone won't get a copy of every sent message.

HOWEVER, if you use the gmail web-interface, it doesn't work so well.

This looks like something Apple is going to have to ultimately fix on the iPhone mail application.

Agreed, I use the web interface all the time and deleting the messages isnt really an acceptable fix for me. Either google needs to fix their POP or switch to push IMAP (which would be way better). Or Apple needs to add a way to filter these messages out. I guess I am just going to deal for now, someone send me a PM if they figure out something better.

[ravenvii]

Yeah I was wondering the same thing, what does sync mail really do because it did not take any messages from inbox of "Mail" on macbook and put onto iphone. Does anyone know what the true function of sync mail is supposed to do besides take your pop mail account settings off?

Same question as I. This would be a great workaround if the iPhone and Mail actually sync. :confused:

[iappleforever]

button. I know i can go to it in browser, but would like the mail button to go there. Will not be pushing mail, just looking when I want to. Anyone done this and what success? Apple store rep says can't be done! HA, you guys can I am sure!

[Arcus]

I use gmail throguh my iPhone and I have also experienced having all mail sent from the iPhone also appear minutues later in my in box. No I DO NOT HAVE AUTO CC ENABLED, before someone suggests that.


BUT now I have the same thing happen when using the web based gmail interface from any computer. Oddness.

[NJRonbo]

I'm going to ask a favor that may cause someone a little extra
time and effort, but I think it will help many.

have a POP3 account that receives 300 spam mails
per day (I run an Internet business and my email is all
over the place)

Will Google Gmail take my existing POP account and forward
it to my iPhone while removing most of the unnecessary spam?

If this is the case, I need help setting this up.

What are the exact instructions to setting all this
up on the webside and on the iPhone? If someone could
post step-by-step detailed instructions including any filter
setups it would really help. Remember, some of us are dummies
when it comes to this so precise instructions are necessary.

Edit: I figured out how to add my POP3 account but it's the
little questions such as:

When I receive a message sent to one of my addresses:
Reply from the same address the message was sent to.
Always reply from my default address


And filters I have no idea how to set up.

[Arcus]

I'm going to ask a favor that may cause someone a little extra
time and effort, but I think it will help many.

have a POP3 account that receives 300 spam mails
per day (I run an Internet business and my email is all
over the place)

Will Google Gmail take my existing POP account and forward
it to my iPhone while removing most of the unnecessary spam?

If this is the case, I need help setting this up.

What are the exact instructions to setting all this
up on the webside and on the iPhone? If someone could
post step-by-step detailed instructions including any filter
setups it would really help. Remember, some of us are dummies
when it comes to this so precise instructions are necessary.

What you will have to do is set up your POP account to forward to gmail. Dont use an email client to do this becuase you will get the FWD: tag which is annoying. (used to do this waaay back when).

Set this up through your ISP's email config. We use APLus hosting and they allow an email address to be a forwarder only. After this is done you can use GMails spam filter. Its works quite well. I have about 8 email accounts set up this way.

As far as getting it to your iPhone you will not have to "forward it" to the iPhone , just configure the iPhone for that GMail account.

As far as a step by step, it varies from ISP to ISP so unless you tell us who you have and there is someone here who uses the same ISP a step by step for YOUR ISP will most not likely be possible. The GMail and iPhone setup im sure someone will be able to do a step by step. I would but Im at work right this sec...time is limited.

[NJRonbo]

Arcus,

Thanks for your help.

I may have no choice but to use the forwarding function as
our business server is out of State and I leave it to my business
partner to figure out how to mail forward.

I was hoping there was an easier way.

[freeflydrew]

Another easy fix for the iphone receiving sent emails from gmail account...

Set up a second gmail account, under settings, add your original email address to the list of emails you will be sending from that account.

Re-add the original account to the iphone, but instead of using the easy gmail setup, choose other... for the incoming settings, use the original account, and for the outgoing, use the new acoount. Now when emails go out, they use the second account and are not downloaded by the first account.

I did this for 3 iphones and it works just fine
Simple

[NJRonbo]

Here's the problem I am having and I am not sure if the post above
solves it...

I was successfully able to forward my POP3 mail through GMAIL to
my iPhone.

The problem is, my POP3 provider does not allow me to keep
mail on the server. So, once it is downloaded to GMAIL->iPhone
I can't access those same messages from my Mac desktop or laptop.

I need be able to send a copy of everything that comes from my
POP3 account -> GMAIL (and iPhone) -> back to POP3 account so
I can access it on other computers.

Hope that makes sense.

[earnjam]

Here's the problem I am having and I am not sure if the post above
solves it...

I was successfully able to forward my POP3 mail through GMAIL to
my iPhone.

The problem is, my POP3 provider does not allow me to keep
mail on the server. So, once it is downloaded to GMAIL->iPhone
I can't access those same messages from my Mac desktop or laptop.

I need be able to send a copy of everything that comes from my
POP3 account -> GMAIL (and iPhone) -> back to POP3 account so
I can access it on other computers.

Hope that makes sense.

You could adjust the options in gmail to "keep in inbox" instead of archiving after POP. Then just access your gmail inbox from your two computers.

[switchy]

Better solution:

GMail / IMAP:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=325769

[billchase2]

lol, i've tried just about everything and don't like any of the "solutions".

i think i'm just going to give up on having my gmail account on my iphone until gmail/apple come up with some sort of real solution.

[b257177]

...the phenomenon of getting emails that you send should only occur when you send from the GMail web interface, not from a regular email software. It sounds like 'always cc: myself' is turned on in the account settings on the iPhone.

Actually this is a "feature" or the default behavior anyway.. and, thankfully for G-Mail on iPhone users, it can be turned off in a few easy steps. No hacks required and no special applications, it's just a menu option that is not very well defined within the Apple iPhone Settings.

See this article (http://iphonewriter.blogspot.com/2007/08/how-to-stop-multiple-g-mail-messages.html) for the step-by-step. Nothing to it at all!

[Luke J]

i got to set up the gmail account but after i put in all my information it says: cannot connect using ssl. do you want to try setting up the account without ssl?

What is ssl?please help me fix this