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How to fix iPhone email problems: Definitive Guide

post #1 of 36
7/7/07 at 9:16am
Thread Starter 

How To Fix iPhone Email Problems
With thanks to HTF Member DaveF

iPhone Mail is a complete mess for those of us that get hundreds of emails per day that are
mostly spam related. There are no spam filters on iPhone, and worse, there is no way to do
a mass deletion of everything that gets downloaded. Though there are rumored software fixes on the way,
we felt it necessary to help you guys with iPhone mail related problems. By going through this
10 minute procedure, you'll be enjoying spam-free email directly to your iPhone


Create a GMAIL account

1. Go to Google Mail and create a personal account

2. After you have successfully registered, log into your GMAIL
account and click on SETTINGS in top right corner

3. Go to Accounts and scroll down to Get Mail From Other
Accounts. Fill out the information pertaining to the POP3 account
you wish GMAIL to retrieve mail from.

4. Go to Forwarding and POP and select the option Enable POP
only for mail that arrives from now on


Set up GMAIL on your iPhone and Computer Mail applications


1. On your iPhone go to Settings -> Mail -> Add An Account.
You will see an option for adding a GMAIL account. Use
the same information that you used to set up your personal GMAIL
account.

2. Set up a GMAIL account on your computer desktop/laptop mail client
according to these instructions

Be certain when setting up email on your desktop and laptop that
for USERNAME you put "recent:" directly in front of your GMAIL username

For example, my gmail username is: htfron@gmail.com
When setting up my computer and notebook mail applications for GMAIL
I changed the username to: "recent:htfron@gmail.com"

In doing this, you will be able to download the same mail across
all your computers, keeping your mail in perfect synch.

Please note that upon completion and first download of your GMAIL
accounts on all your platforms (including iPhone), you will download
a month's worth of old mail. This is normal. Once it is all cleared
out, you will enjoy the luxury of receiving only NEW messages on all
your computers with spam successfully filtered out.

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post #2 of 36
7/7/07 at 11:18am

Re: How to fix iPhone email problems: Definitive Guide

Well Done Ron, and of course Dave!
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post #3 of 36
7/7/07 at 10:06pm

Re: How to fix iPhone email problems: Definitive Guide

Ron, this is excellent news! (ok, I'll violate personal policy with the dancing banana just this once.) I hope this solution works well in the long term. For all the time and value HTF has given me, helping you out with your email is effort well spent.

The instructions look good; and our initial thread has other details, though scattered. I'll just add that I expect that other web email services (eg Yahoo or Hotmail) could work in like manner. But I've never tried.
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post #4 of 36
7/7/07 at 10:28pm

Re: How to fix iPhone email problems: Definitive Guide

Quote:
I'll just add that I expect that other web email services (eg Yahoo or Hotmail) could work in like manner. But I've never tried.
I would amend that by saying other POP-enabled email services should work in like manner. IMAP email (i.e., .MAC) just works without any of this futzing around.
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post #5 of 36
7/8/07 at 6:43am

Re: How to fix iPhone email problems: Definitive Guide

Does .mac have spam filtering on par with Gmail? That's the main reason for fighting so much to get this working with Gmail's POP system -- excellent spam filtering.
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post #6 of 36
7/8/07 at 9:11am
Thread Starter 

Re: How to fix iPhone email problems: Definitive Guide

I subscribe to .mac for the ease of synching all my computers
using the backup system. I never knew that .mac also has spam
filtering. Then again, I don't even use my .mac account for email.

On my desktop and notebook I use SpamSieve which is probably
the best spam filtering software I have ever used. It takes some
reading and a little time to set up properly, but once you do, it is
the most reliable method of filtering out spam that I have seen.

That being said, I am VERY impressed with GMAIL spam filtering.
Since forwarding all my POP3 mail through GMAIL to get to my
iPhone, I have received little to no spam mail. GMAIL does an
excellent job of recognizing and filtering. Of course, it's not perfect.
You need to go to the website and check that filter. I did notice
one or two GOOD emails that were recognized as spam. You are
able to train GMAIL not to make the same mistake twice.

I can't believe how well this GMAIL is working as a "middle man"
between my POP3 mail and my iPhone. I am enjoying my iPhone
more than I ever have before for the simple fact that I am only
receiving GOOD mail, and that it is now controllable. The GMAIL
workaround truly works!
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post #7 of 36
7/9/07 at 5:24am

Re: How to fix iPhone email problems: Definitive Guide

Glad to hear it Ron! The first couple weeks after I switched to Gmail, I was a bit dubious -- the spam filtering worked well, but didn't blow me away.

But a year later, and I daren't consider life without Gmail! The spam filtering is very effective. It also allowed me to change computer systems with minimal difficulty -- just point the new computer / email client to Gmail and I'm off and running. No new SPAM program to buy, train, etc.

And I've found Gmail to be a great online client -- I preferred using Gmail to Thunderbird. Being iPhone-less, it's also a great way for me to keep up on email at work and on vacation.

I'm sure there are other services that could work similarly, but Gmail definitely works, and you can't beat the price
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post #8 of 36
7/9/07 at 5:40am
Thread Starter 

Re: How to fix iPhone email problems: Definitive Guide

I am actually amazed at how well GMAIL is handling my spam.

I have said this before....I get over 200 spam mails per day. The
GMAIL filter has done nearly a flawless job of keeping all the spam
out of the INBOX. I check the filter daily for mistakes and I have only
found one mistake so far.

My iPhone is only getting the good mail, and it's now totally under
my control. In fact, it's an absolute pleasure using this iPhone as a
email device.
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post #9 of 36
7/10/07 at 3:43am

Re: How to fix iPhone email problems: Definitive Guide

Ro,n, do you secretly moonlight at MacWorld?
Quote:
AGHHHH, SPAM!!! Because I run SpamSieve on all my Macs I’d nearly forgotten how much of this crap I receive. Retrieving email on my iPhone reminded me. My iPhone offers no spam filtering that I can see and, man, do I need it. Yes, I do have a Gmail account and because Gmail’s spam filtering is so good, I’m seriously considering moving more of my regular email work to that account.
Chalk this up as Reason Number One why I’d like people like SpamSieve’s author, Michael Tsai, access to the guts of the iPhone’s email client.
http://iphone.macworld.com/2007/06/m...t_requests.php

He follows up in this editorial, though fails to explain the need for "recent" mode. http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/mac9...mail/index.php
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post #10 of 36
7/11/07 at 12:34pm

Re: How to fix iPhone email problems: Definitive Guide

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronald Epstein
On my desktop and notebook I use SpamSieve which is probably
the best spam filtering software I have ever used. It takes some
reading and a little time to set up properly, but once you do, it is
the most reliable method of filtering out spam that I have seen.

[...]

I can't believe how well this GMAIL is working as a "middle man"
between my POP3 mail and my iPhone.

FYI, if you use IMAP you can also use SpamSieve (running on your Mac) as a middle man.
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post #11 of 36
7/11/07 at 12:40pm
Thread Starter 

Re: How to fix iPhone email problems: Definitive Guide

Can someone explain what iMap is? I keep hearing that
term but don't know what it is and how it can be used in this instance.
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post #12 of 36
7/11/07 at 3:16pm

Re: How to fix iPhone email problems: Definitive Guide

IMAP is a protocol for accessing email - an alternative to POP. It is considered better than POP for those who need to access their mail from multiple computers. This writeup at The IMAP Connection explains it better than I could.

The one drawback to GMail is that it is POP-only. That's one of the reasons for all the troubles people have had setting it up to work nicely on the iPhone (downloading a bunch of old mail, etc.). If/when Google enables IMAP on GMail it will be pretty much perfect.
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post #13 of 36
7/20/07 at 9:48pm

Re: How to fix iPhone email problems: Definitive Guide

just to see what would happen i turned off recent on the iphone.

i started deleting emails.
i'm as far back as august 2005 now that i'm deleting.

were are these emails coming from.

2 years old?
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post #14 of 36
8/12/07 at 9:32am

Re: How to fix iPhone email problems: Definitive Guide

Update: With .Mac web-based Apple Mail now providing SPAM filtering, it could provide a quality iPhone-email solution now. (I suspect this is the motivation reason behind this upgrade.)

This assumes .Mac's SPAM filtering is good; I've not used it. But if it is, it could be a better solution than Gmail: .Mac is IMAP which is better for providing email to multiple clients than Gmail's POP3 system.
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post #15 of 36
9/6/07 at 6:47am

Re: How to fix iPhone email problems: Definitive Guide

This is very helpful. Thanks for the details
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post #16 of 36
10/24/07 at 4:29am

Re: How to fix iPhone email problems: Definitive Guide

Ron & Others: You may want to update your iPhone / Gmail settings. Gmail is introducing IMAP email handling, a distinct improvement over POP when you're accessing Gmail from multiple clients (e.g. two Macs and an iPhone). Their help file has been updated for configuring IMAP on the iPhone.
https://mail.google.com/support/bin/...y?answer=77702


Early discussion about this new feature is here:
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2007/10...ail-gets-imap/
and at TUAW

My Gmail settings don't yet show IMAP, so I've not tested this out. But I expect this to be a real boon to iPhone users. Even simple uses, such as my habit of checking both online (from work) and via Mail (at home), will benefit from IMAP.
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post #17 of 36
10/26/07 at 11:48am

Re: How to fix iPhone email problems: Definitive Guide

Has anyone updated the settings on their phone yet? Do I have to delete my current Gmail account from the phone before I set up a new one with IMAP?
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post #18 of 36
10/26/07 at 4:37pm

Re: How to fix iPhone email problems: Definitive Guide

I'm still not showing IMAP yet either on my Google account, but here's a link to a YouTube video that demonstrates the process of setting up GMAIL with IMAP on the iPhone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ22euWXYog
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post #19 of 36
10/26/07 at 5:51pm

Re: How to fix iPhone email problems: Definitive Guide

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vlad D
Has anyone updated the settings on their phone yet? Do I have to delete my current Gmail account from the phone before I set up a new one with IMAP?

nope but after setting up the imap the gmail one in redundant.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joseph Bolus
I'm still not showing IMAP yet either on my Google account, but here's a link to a YouTube video that demonstrates the process of setting up GMAIL with IMAP on the iPhone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ22euWXYog

it doesnt show up on goolge yet.
they have a note on there saying they dont have it set up as of now.

this works great and is what it was expected to do in the beginning i suppose.
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post #20 of 36
10/31/07 at 8:18am

Re: How to fix iPhone email problems: Definitive Guide

I just got my IMAP connectivity for my Gmail account; and it works *GREAT*!!

Here's a tip, though:

 When setting it up for the first time on your iPhone, BE SURE to use "SMTP.gmail.com" for the outgoing mail server specification as opposed to "smtp" (small letters). For some reason, the "SMTP" has to be ALL CAPS or the iPhone will generate an error when sending email.

Other than that, the switch from POP to IMAP was painless ... and my email functionality has increased about 200%!
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post #21 of 36
4/5/08 at 4:55pm

Re: How to fix iPhone email problems: Definitive Guide

OK, I use Yahoo for my iPhone mail and it works wonderfully well, but I cannot seem to get my iMac to play as nicely. Does anyone here know why?
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post #22 of 36
6/26/10 at 11:42am

Three years later, this thread is of great interest to me again :D

 

Turning on IMAP ... fingers crossed... Last time I tried it, I didn't like how IMAP behaved with Apple Mail. But now with the iPhone, I'll give it another go. Tips and advice based on the past few years experience are welcome. I'm quite uncertain on getting the best experience for using Gmail with both Apple Mail desktop and iPhone clients.

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post #23 of 36
6/26/10 at 3:50pm

I can't get email to stay in the INBOX at Google; it's auto-archived All Mail. Which means it never appears in the INBOX of Apple Mail or iPhone Mail. I have to dig through the IMAP structure to get to mail. This doesn't seem right or desirable, but I can't find any mention of it online.

 

 

I gave up on IMAP and used the POP3 instructions with the "recent" feature, and at first test is working as desired. That'll teach me to second guess myself from three years ago ;)


Edited by DaveF - 6/26/10 at 4:28pm
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post #24 of 36
6/28/10 at 7:05am

And now it's not working I realized this morning that my iPhone hasn't received any email from Gmail for the past 24 hours. I don't understand why this doesn't work? I don't know if it's Gmail or iPhone.

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post #25 of 36
6/28/10 at 3:04pm

And if you're silently watching my little saga :) it turned out to be something with the office wifi. I'm wondering if Corporate jiggered the network so iPhones don't play nice anymore. There's been rumors of such things going to happen.

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post #26 of 36
6/28/10 at 8:49pm

Just can't fathom using Gmail with POP. IMAP is the way to go. Yes...you can't highlight and deleted hundreds or even dozens of messages at a time with the iPhone Mail client. But when I get home, I can just highlight all of those read or unwanted messages in Mail.app and delete them all in one fell swoop. And like magic...they disappear from the iPhone at the next connection.  

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post #27 of 36
6/29/10 at 4:56am

IMAP doesn't work right for me. With IMAP, Gmail doesn't map to the INBOX structure, but creates a new, unrelated Gmail directory structure. I have to dig through this directory, going at least two levels deep to get to ALL MAIL to see any messages. This also breaks the Unified Inbox. For me, it is a far worse system.

 

I spent several hours on it,and tried various online tips and tutorials, but nothing IMAP behave normally. Maybe it's just me, because no one commented that IMAP doesn't map correctly to INBOX.

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post #28 of 36
6/29/10 at 6:31am

I'm not sure what happened there, Dave. I have three Gmail accounts set up in Mail.app and all three map to their respective individual Inboxes, and all can be viewed under the unified Inbox. The same is true for the Sent messages. I turned off keeping Draft messages on the server because I saw weird behavior...basically a copy of a message I was composing would be saving itself as a new message to the Drafts folder every few seconds. I do have the All Mail directory viewable in my sidebar, but I never look in there for anything. I assume you already tried recreating the account in Mail.app several times?

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post #29 of 36
6/29/10 at 7:25am

i hate the unified inbox and then the list of inboxes. i like how it was before when i could go into each acount without havin to scroll down thru all the inboxes first.

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post #30 of 36
6/29/10 at 7:30am

Michael,

Thanks for the followup. I'd prefer IMAP for the unified behavior across multiple clients. Unfortunately I didn't take screenshots to illustrate the behavior. POP works acceptably for me, but I'd like to try it again, since you've confirmed IMAP should work "normally".

 

If I give it a go, I may ask to compare notes with you on your your configuration.

 

Shane - I like the option of the unified inbox, but I do normally go to the individual inboxes since "personal" and "work" are quite different for me. But I only have two email accounts, so no scrolling is required for me.

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