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Ideal Settings for iPhone and Gmail IMAP Syncing [iPhone Guide, iPhone Tip]

By Franklin Davis on Jun 20, 2009 filed under Apple, Google, Guides, Technology, Tips | Comments

Gmail Logo I am a BIG fan of Google’s Gmail service. It has the best webmail interface by far and offers nearly unlimited storage. Now that Gmail allows IMAP access I am using it as my primary email service on the iPhone. I’ve configured Gmail to check all of my other email addresses via POP3. This is not only convenient since I have access to all of my email in one location, but it also reduces the amount of spam I see since the Google spam filter is very good. Note that you will need to maintain a list of contacts in Gmail to prevent real mail from being accidently labeled as spam. I use Google Sync to keep my iPhone contacts in sync with my Google Contacts. Continue reading to learn about the ideal settings for using the iPhone with Gmail via IMAP.

If you aren’t familiar with the POP3 and IMAP protocols, read this.


Enable IMAP Access

Before we begin you will need to enable IMAP access from inside your Gmail Settings ⇒ Forwarding and POP/IMAP panel.
Gmail IMAP

Setup Gmail IMAP in the iPhone

Follow these instructions to configure the iPhone to access Gmail. In short, your settings should look something like the following.

  • Incoming server: imap.gmail.com
  • Outgoing server: smtp.gmail.com
  • Authentication: USERNAME (from USERNAME@gmail.com) + your password

Enable Advanced IMAP Settings in Gmail

Within Gmail’s web interface, go to Settings ⇒ Labs and enable the Advanced IMAP Controls:
gmail-advancedimap
Now open ‘Edit Labels’ and make sure that the Sent, Drafts, and Trash mailbox show up in IMAP (see below):
label setttings


Modify iPhone Mail Settings

Now open Settings ⇒ Mail, Contacts, Calendars ⇒ Gmail (or whatever you named it) ⇒ Advanced, and configure mailbox behaviors. In short, you want to change the folders for Drafts, Sent, and Deleted Mail to the corresponding folders located below [Gmail] (see below):


iphone screenshotiphone screenshotiphone screenshot

Flagging Messages

Unfortunately there is still no way to flag messages within the iPhone interface. :( You can, however, view flagged messages in the [Gmail]/Starred folder.

Leave me a comment if you know of a good Gmail/iPhone tip that I haven’t mentioned.




Have something to add? Send me a message on twitter or leave a comment below.

Viewing 4 Comments

    • ^
    • v
    Hi, thanks for the great site and all the wonderful tips. I think your advice here on the advanced settings is not correct on a couple of issues:

    (1) You should definitely not set your iPhone trash to the Gmail trash. Doing so will cause any mail deleted from the iPhone inbox to be deleted entirely from the Gmail account after 30 days, including being deleted from All Mail. This is not the desired behavior. Instead, the desired behavior is that deleting a message on the iPhone should only remove it from the Inbox, but should retain the message in All Mail. This is the equivalent of the Archive function on the Gmail web interface. The beauty of the Archive function is that it lets you get stuff out of your inbox, while retaining a copy in the All Mail location so that it is searchable later if you need it. I don't think people should set up their iPhone in a way that undermines the All Mail functionality, as that is pretty central to the Gmail experience. To do this, you just use the iPhone's local trash folder. This is explained on the Gmail help pages at https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?a... (click on "iPhone").

    (2) You don't need to set your iPhone sent items to the Gmail sent items. When you send something through imap.gmail.com, it automatically adds that message to the Gmail sent items. This is also stated at the link above.

    (3) You can definitely flag messages from the iPhone. You just move the message from the Inbox to the Starred folder (to do so, just open the message on the iPhone and click on the Move icon, which looks like a folder with a downward-pointing arrow on it). Like you said, you can then view all flagged messages in that Starred folder.
    • ^
    • v
    Hi, thanks for the great site and all the wonderful tips. I think your advice here on the advanced settings is not correct on a couple of issues:

    (1) You should definitely not set your iPhone trash to the Gmail trash. Doing so will cause any mail deleted from the iPhone inbox to be deleted entirely from the Gmail account after 30 days, including being deleted from All Mail. This is not the desired behavior. Instead, the desired behavior is that deleting a message on the iPhone should only remove it from the Inbox, but should retain the message in All Mail. This is the equivalent of the Archive function on the Gmail web interface. The beauty of the Archive function is that it lets you get stuff out of your inbox, while retaining a copy in the All Mail location so that it is searchable later if you need it. I don't think people should set up their iPhone in a way that undermines the All Mail functionality, as that is pretty central to the Gmail experience. To do this, you just use the iPhone's local trash folder. This is explained on the Gmail help pages at https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?a... (click on "iPhone").

    (2) You don't need to set your iPhone sent items to the Gmail sent items. When you send something through imap.gmail.com, it automatically adds that message to the Gmail sent items. This is also stated at the link above.

    (3) You can definitely flag messages from the iPhone. You just move the message from the Inbox to the Starred folder (to do so, just open the message on the iPhone and click on the Move icon, which looks like a folder with a downward-pointing arrow on it). Like you said, you can then view all flagged messages in that Starred folder.
    • ^
    • v
    thanks for the feedback.

    1) good point - personal preference i suppose. when i delete something i don't want to ever see it again. if i wanted to archive it i would move it to all mail folder.

    2) not true - at least on my iphone.

    3) yes, but then they no longer show up in the inbox - which destroys the benefit for me at least.

    Cheers
    • ^
    • v
    Zaphu,

    Most definitely when you send using Google's smtp server it gets put in your Gmail->Sent Mail folder.

    Are you using Gmail's smtp server?

    As for starred, they will be removed from you inbox view on the iPhone, but not Gmail. But if you get used to this on the iPhone you just go to the Gmail->Starred folder on you iPhone and you will see all your starred messages.

    If it left them in the inbox there would be no way on the iPhone to distinguish Starred messages from other inbox messages.
 

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