What is the best way to view gmail on Apple watch?

[Hustler]

(iPhone 9 on public ios9 and watch on public watch os2 now)

The main account I'm concerned with is for work and is a gmail account. I have the gmail account added to my apple mail app on the phone and watch but results are underwhelming. I have gmail mail app on the phone push an instant notification to my phone but obviously you can't click the notification to be taken to the message because there is no gmail mail watch app.
So I push the crown, select the apple mail app icon and it will load the subject, who it's to, and many many times it will say unavailable to view full email on watch. Continue on phone. This is just for basic, no picture emails, but they are usually several replies per each mail. So the stock mail app isn't that good for this case.

I've tried spark, and have a hard time with it actually downloading the message on the watch, it will have a blue bar like it's loading and usually never loads, even after 2 minutes of screen tapping to keep it awake.

I've tried 'tl;dr' and I get a pin wheel off app load and will never go further.

I've tried 'mymail' and the app loads but even after set up, will never receive my new emails to its inbox.

On ALL those mail apps I've listed I've tried removing them from watch and re installing and it's the same results for each one listed.

Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[Armen]

(iPhone 9 on public ios9 and watch on public watch os2 now)

The main account I'm concerned with is for work and is a gmail account. I have the gmail account added to my apple mail app on the phone and watch but results are underwhelming. I have gmail mail app on the phone push an instant notification to my phone but obviously you can't click the notification to be taken to the message because there is no gmail mail watch app.
So I push the crown, select the apple mail app icon and it will load the subject, who it's to, and many many times it will say unavailable to view full email on watch. Continue on phone. This is just for basic, no picture emails, but they are usually several replies per each mail. So the stock mail app isn't that good for this case.

I've tried spark, and have a hard time with it actually downloading the message on the watch, it will have a blue bar like it's loading and usually never loads, even after 2 minutes of screen tapping to keep it awake.
I've tried 'tl;dr' and I get a pin wheel off app load and will never go further.
I've tried 'mymail' and the app loads but even after set up, will never receive my new emails to its inbox.

On ALL those mail apps I've listed I've tried removing them from watch and re installing and it's the same results for each one listed.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Try the Spark App.

It's free, has a great glance interface on the watch.

 

[Hustler]

Try the Spark App.

It's free, has a great glance interface on the watch.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I have, problems I had with it were listed in my OP.
are you having none of those issues?

 

[Armen]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I have, problems I had with it were listed in my OP.
are you having none of those issues?

Shoot you're right. It doesn't load the entire message when you click the fetch option

 

[omg516]

Try the Outlook app. Has push notifications, allows you to read the entire message and reply via Siri dictation as well.

 

[rob.james.arias]

I had the same issue and my work around is a bit strange but it works. I have an iCloud email address, as I am sure you do to. I went in and created an alias that is exactly the same as my gmail account. I then set up my gmail to forward to my iCloud account. Now I get push notifications on my watch, and when I respond as far as my recipients are concerned there is no difference. When setting up my gmail for forwarding I selected the option to "forward and keep a copy in gmail, marked as read".

I kept the gmail app on my iPhone, however turned off all notifications so that I did not get duplicate notifications. When I need to interact with gmail for any reason I just open the gmail app and work within that space as required. Hope that helps.

 

[friedmud]

I use Google Inbox. No - it doesn't have a native Watch app (so you can't read a long email - but I wouldn't want to do that on the Watch anyway). Here is what it does have.

1. Google Inbox is just awesome anyway for dealing with your email.
2. Using custom bundles you can decide what kind of email actually causes a notification to appear on your Watch.
3. The notifications on your Watch come with a "Done" button (which is Inbox parlance for Archive).

I do still have my gmail in the Mail app of course... in case I do want to read something a little longer... but I never do. If I'm going to do that then I'm just going to pull out my phone...

It's working great for me.

 

[Hustler]

These are some great tips guys. I've tried the outlook suggestion so far, we'll see how that plays out today throughout the work day and I'll likely move to the next suggestion.
I noticed the outlook watch app doesn't have anything other than my unread messages, so I can't reference a prior one which would be an issue as I do that multiple times per day. I'll see if there is a setting to change that.

Thanks for all the tips everyone!

 

[Hustler]

I had the same issue and my work around is a bit strange but it works. I have an iCloud email address, as I am sure you do to. I went in and created an alias that is exactly the same as my gmail account. I then set up my gmail to forward to my iCloud account. Now I get push notifications on my watch, and when I respond as far as my recipients are concerned there is no difference. When setting up my gmail for forwarding I selected the option to "forward and keep a copy in gmail, marked as read".

I kept the gmail app on my iPhone, however turned off all notifications so that I did not get duplicate notifications. When I need to interact with gmail for any reason I just open the gmail app and work within that space as required. Hope that helps.

How exactly do I create an alias on my icloud account?
*edit: I've got all the forwarding set up and working great but it is showing from my icloud account when I reply, not from my work account. I have a feeling this is because I dont know how to set up the alias haha.

 

[rob.james.arias]

Source
https://support.apple.com/kb/PH2622?locale=en_US
Create an email alias

1. In iCloud Mail, click the Action pop-up menu
   
   in the sidebar, then choose Preferences.
   
   
2. Click Accounts.
   
   
3. Click “Add an alias.”
   
   
4. Provide the requested information:
   
   • Alias: The text you provide becomes the email address. An alias must contain between 3 and 20 characters.
     
     
   • Full Name: The name you provide appears in the From field of the recipient’s email.
     
     
   • Label: iCloud Mail uses the label to categorize messages sent to your account.
     
     
   • Label Color: Messages appear in your Inbox with the colored label that you specify.
     
5. Click OK, then click Done.
   

Select addresses you can send from

1. In iCloud Mail, click the Action pop-up menu
   
   in the sidebar, then choose Preferences.
   
   
2. Click Composing.
   
   
3. Click the “Set a default address” pop-up menu, then choose the address you usually use.
   
   
4. In the list of addresses, select the ones you want to be able to send from while using iCloud Mail.
   
   The selected addresses appear in the From pop-up menu when you create a new email message. For instructions, see Send email using an alias.
   

 

[Hustler]

Source
https://support.apple.com/kb/PH2622?locale=en_US
Create an email alias

1. In iCloud Mail, click the Action pop-up menu
   
   in the sidebar, then choose Preferences.
   
   
2. Click Accounts.
   
   
3. Click “Add an alias.”
   
   
4. Provide the requested information:
   • Alias: The text you provide becomes the email address. An alias must contain between 3 and 20 characters.
     
     
   • Full Name: The name you provide appears in the From field of the recipient’s email.
     
     
   • Label: iCloud Mail uses the label to categorize messages sent to your account.
     
     
   • Label Color: Messages appear in your Inbox with the colored label that you specify.
5. Click OK, then click Done.

Select addresses you can send from

1. In iCloud Mail, click the Action pop-up menu
   
   in the sidebar, then choose Preferences.
   
   
2. Click Composing.
   
   
3. Click the “Set a default address” pop-up menu, then choose the address you usually use.
   
   
4. In the list of addresses, select the ones you want to be able to send from while using iCloud Mail.
   
   The selected addresses appear in the From pop-up menu when you create a new email message. For instructions, see Send email using an alias.

Thank you for the useful information, I followed that (much different than the 'create an icloud alias' instructions I google searched) but it is not letting me select the address of my email to my work address, so instead of asdf@work.com it shows asdf@icloud.com. Does that make sense? So in that sense coworkers would know its coming from an icloud account and not my @work.com account. Is that by design or am I still doing something wrong?

 

[rob.james.arias]

Thank you for the useful information, I followed that (much different than the 'create an icloud alias' instructions I google searched) but it is not letting me select the address of my email to my work address, so instead of asdf@work.com it shows asdf@icloud.com. Does that make sense? So in that sense coworkers would know its coming from an icloud account and not my @work.com account. Is that by design or am I still doing something wrong?

Thank you for the useful information, I followed that (much different than the 'create an icloud alias' instructions I google searched) but it is not letting me select the address of my email to my work address, so instead of asdf@work.com it shows asdf@icloud.com. Does that make sense? So in that sense coworkers would know its coming from an icloud account and not my @work.com account. Is that by design or am I still doing something wrong?

Looks like iCloud is no longer allowing this work around. I just checked. Now an alternative that does the same thing would be to set up or use an existing Microsoft live account. You can do the exact same thing as far as setting up an alias and as of 5 minutes ago you can make your alias end in any @insert your favorite.com.

 

[Hustler]

Looks like iCloud is no longer allowing this work around. I just checked. Now an alternative that does the same thing would be to set up or use an existing Microsoft live account. You can do the exact same thing as far as setting up an alias and as of 5 minutes ago you can make your alias end in any @insert your favorite.com.

Ok awesome, I'll look into that next.

Thanks!