Gmail On S60 - What’s The Best Way?
Gmail is one of the most-used email services on the ‘net, specifically for tech-lovers like most Symbian-Guru readers. What’s even better is that there are basically 3 different free options to get your Gmail on your mobile phone, and all have good points and bad. So which method is the best? Rather than make you set them all up and try them, I’ve put together this post, comparing the three main ways in which you can get your Gmail on your S60-powered handset, for free.The three options are the mobile Gmail application, the mobilized web version of Gmail, and the the built-in Messaging application on your phone. The most important feature, for me, is having my mailbox synced no matter where I view the mail. I have 4 email accounts feeding into my Gmail inbox, so synchronization is crucial. Thus, we’re going to use IMAP for the phone’s built-in email client instead of POP3.
Mobile Gmail Application:
This is a free download from Google, in the form of a java application that accesses your Gmail. It is pretty full-featured, allowing you to search through your archived email, and add stars and labels. You also have access to your Gmail contacts list, which can be really handy, since you can’t fully sync that with other apps - yet.
However, since it is a Java application, it takes quite a long time to load on my N95-3, and isn’t capable of alerting me to new emails automatically. The application also doesn’t allow you to download attachments, even if your phone would support them. You are able to view some, such as graphics, but there’s no way to save the file directly to your handset. This causes a problem if you frequently receive Office documents via email, and wish to view/edit them on your phone.
The Gmail Application also requires an active data connection to be able to interact with your mail, which isn’t an optimal situation sometimes.
Pros:
- Search archived mail
- Add stars/labels
- Access to Gmail contacts list
Cons:
- Can’t compose from other emails (if you have more than one setup)
- Can’t download attachments
- Can’t alert to new emails automatically
- Slow java application
Gmail Mobile (through web browser)
You can also access a special mobile-optimized version of Gmail straight through the web browser on your S60 handset. The address is m.gmail.com, and it offers a few benefits over the mobile application, as well. With the mobile web-based version, you have the option of selecting several emails at once, which is handy for archiving en masse. You also have access to your Gmail contacts list, which can be extremely convenient at times. With the mobile web-based Gmail, are still able to search your archived mail, as well as apply filters or stars.
Unfortunately, some of the same limitations apply, specifically to attachments. The mobile web-based Gmail still doesn’t allow you to download attachments to your device, and only allows you to view a limited selection, regardless of your phone’s capabilities. You also, obviously, cannot be notified of new mail, meaning you’ll need to manually check it periodically if you want to stay up to date. With this option, you are able to interact with your mail in a very limited capacity when you do not have data coverage, such as composing a message. However, you will need to reconnect to read new messages and send, obviously.
Pros:
- Search archived mail
- Add stars/labels
- Access to Gmail contacts list
- Limited offline capabilities
- Select multiple items at once
Cons:
- Can’t compose from other emails (if you have more than one setup)
- Can’t download attachments
- Can’t alert to new emails automatically
Built-in Messaging with IMAP
Using the built-in IMAP messaging application is by far my favorite Gmail option, for a few reasons. The built-in messaging app will allow you to download all attachments, even if your phone doesn’t support them, which can be extremely convenient. You can also retrieve your mail, and then read through it and respond, even without data coverage. Messages are stored in the outbox and sent when you get back into coverage. Also, as was discovered by Mike at Symbian-Addict.com, it is possible to view full HTML email with the built-in messaging application.
However, the built-in messaging option isn’t without its downfalls. There is little integration with your Gmail, however, such as using filters and starring items for later review. You also do not have access to your Gmail contacts list, instead relying on your phone’s address book (which may or may not be an issue for you).
The default messaging application on S60 handsets is also clunky, and requires a semi-advanced user to setup. The setup wizard is completely useless, but Google has put together some really comprehensive and clear step-by-step instructions, which you can find here. Once you have it all setup, the built-in messaging app can alert you to new emails at intervals set by you. You can even setup a schedule with ‘off’ days, which is very convenient.
In fact, I have only 2 complaints about the built-in messaging application. The first, is that if you have it set to auto-retrieve, and you go into an area with no coverage, such as a subway station, and it attempts to check, for some reason, the application will disable the auto-retrieval. I’ve posted about this here, and hopefully this bug gets fixed soon. The other issue is that with IMAP, I’ve not found a way to tell it to retrieve the entire email automatically. The handset will only download the header, and you have to manually instruct it to download the entire email.
Pros:
- Automatically alert to new email
- Full attachment capabilities
- Full offline access
- Select multiple items at once
Cons:
- Can’t compose from other emails (if you have more than one setup)
- No access to archived email
- No access to Gmail contacts
- Painful to setup
So there you have the three main options for retrieving your Gmail directly on your S60-powered handset. Personally, I prefer a mix of the web-based Gmail access and the built-in messaging application. None of the options allow you to specify the outgoing email address, which is a shame, but they all are useful by keeping everything in sync - emails that you read while mobile will be marked as read if you login on your desktop, and emails sent via mobile will be in the sent items list on your desktop, as well.
Which method do you prefer, and what improvements would you like to see?
GMail Push with “emoze” …
works great.
pros:
eMail push
same possibilities like the built-in message system
cons:
needs permanent data connection
-> battery life sucks …
I have been using a variant of your option # 3 for years. This is what I do…
I created a free AOL account and I have all my incoming Gmail messages automatically forwarded to this account. As the incoming server, I use imap.aol.com with the AOL account credentials. As the outgoing server, I use smtp.gmail.com with the Gmail credentials.
The beauty of this setup is that Google is nice enough to keep all parts of the message header untouched when forwarding e-mails, so the message once you receive it looks like it came to Gmail and not to AOL. And when you reply to a message, the recipient gets your message from your Gmail account as well, not AOL. In fact, you NEVER see that AOL account again after you set it up.
What does this give me?
Well, I have thousands and thousands of messages in my Gmail account that I don’t want to deal with in a mobile client, so I receive messages, reply to them and delete them right away. They are simply deleted from the AOL account, but remain in the Gmail account (you can choose to have them archived by Gmail as soon as they’re forwarded to AOL if you prefer). So I keep my phone inbox clean on my phone.
Because of this same behavior explained above, I have a second layer of protection for messages deleted by mistake on my phone. They remain in my Gmail box.
The main drawback here is that, since I am not accessing my Gmail account directly, I cannot delete messages there from my phone. However, I usually go on Gmail through a browser everyday or every other day and do some maintenance, delete messages I don’t want to keep (which I rarely do) or archive the ones I want to archive (and, as I said, if you archive everything you receive, you can have Gmail do this automatically).
In all honestly, this setup I created when Gmail had no IMAP support and I had no other choice, but I liked it so much, I kept it even after Gmail allowed you to access your mailbox via IMAP.
If you ask me, you’ve missed one more way of using gmail on S60, which is accessing the original full-featured gmail by entering the URL:
http://mail.google.com/mail/h/
Well there are cons to that:
* Slow in some way (non AJAX and not so mobile oriented)
* The navigation is not as easy because of the full width page
And if you want to be alerted about new email, just set up IMAP and use it for alerts only.
What do you say about it ?
@Vitaly - Thanks for mentioning it. Originally, this was going to be a four-part piece, highlighting that option, as well. However, after giving it a go, the only thing it really offers over the mobile web version is the ability to change the outgoing email address.
@Vitaly: My mobile e-mail solution has to offer (1) instant notification and (2) ease of use. Your solution gives me (1) but can’t be much further from (2). I would hate having an e-mail client that I only use to get notified and then having to sign on through the browser to the web interface to reply. Two applications which work completely different to achieve one simple task.
I have tried Gmail and also have the account as a second one. But I prefer to use Yahoo Email in combination with Profimail. I can receive headers or specify exactly amount of how much will be downloaded. Never problem with attachments at send or recieve. Is it possible to add attachments with the newer version of Gmail?
Just to mention that I’ve never used in full power Gmail mobile website or the mobile application. I’ve tried them a couple of times. So correct me if I’m wrong.
Another important con for me of the IMAP method is that it won’t allow you to archive a message (or label it).
@The Guru: Full GMail also gives you the ability to download attachments, or see it as HTML (useful for pdf,doc, …)
How about display/block images from the sender ? Multilanguage anyone ?
Doesn’t the mobile version and the application lack ads
I just miss them!
That’s unfortunately another con for “my way”, but have to be honest.
@Razor1973: Your method is almost like using the POP3 connection to GMail. Which I was using before IMAP support came in. Didn’t like it very much. I think there was a problem with the S60 implementation of POP3 client, it could sometimes stuck while receiving new mails.
BTW, even if you delete a message it’s still in your trash for 30 days.
Also you don’t have to login each time if you have cookies.
I *believe* that deleting on the S60 mail app simply archives your mail. Don’t quote me on that though.
@The Guru: At least on my device it will put it in trash. Sorry to disappoint.
BTW Full Gmail allows attachments for composed emails. A big plus!
@Janptr: ProfiMail is by far the best client I’ve ever seen for S60, but the lack of IMAP IDLE support is a definite killer for me. The Lonely Cat Games team has been getting requests to add this for years. Sadly, they’ve never implemented it, so I only use ProfiMail as a second/backup e-mail client.
@Vitaly: In a way, it is almost like POP3. You do work disconnected from your Gmail account (which is not necessarily a bad thing for the reasons I mentioned above). But what this setup gives you is IMAP IDLE (where the server and client support it; AOL and the native S60 mail client both do). Like I said before, instant notifications are paramount for me. This setup achieves just that.
@Razor
I use Gmail with Evolution client (linux), and prior to that with Thunderbird. After you set up imap for google, they both create a folder marked Gmail with all the gmail labels as folders. I just send the messages to specific folders I want, or if I don’t have a label, just throw it in the “all mail” folder, which archives it. With IMAP, it even cleans up the inbox on my phone as well.
It sounds like you are going to LA via Omaha to accomplish the same thing.
great article. i think the built in s60 client with imap is the best solution for gmail. keeps your mail perfectly in sync. you can’t label new emails, but you can view labels by going into the folder subscriptions settings.
to archive an email from your phone delete it from “phone and server”. it won’t be deleted from gmail, just simply archived.
@eric: You didn’t say it, but are you implying you can set up the Gmail IMAP account on the S60 mail client and it will give you access to all Gmail labels as folders where you can move your messages just like you do in Evolution? If that’s it, sounds like a great solution for those who archive all of their mail. I don’t. I delete 1% of my mail and archive 10%, leaving the rest in my inbox. My solution allows me to do this and still keep my “mobile inbox” clean with only the messages I still need to deal with (read, reply, forward, etc.)
Razor,
I understand what you are doing now. Yes, I regularly archive almost all my mail to keep the inbox clean. It is still searchable and indexed by label, so for me it is no big deal. I could see how the inbox on your phone would become a big mass of old mail if you kept everything in the inbox.
Before the last software update, somehow I had all the folders under gmail on my phone, but it didn’t happen after I updated the firmware. Since I didn’t use that feature on the phone, I didn’t think anything of it, but now that you mention it, I remember it being there. When I open the messaging app, I have and inbox and a gmail box on the phone. The new messages go into the inbox, so I just ignore the gmail box. Since I’m on a PC often, I usually just read/post a quick reply on my phone and archive at the PC later. That’s why I like IMAP so much… keeping everything in sync is almost as real-time as my old windows mobile/outlook/exchange system years ago.
Now if the N800 guys can figure out why Google IMAP is so darn slow on OS2008…
@Razor1973: As much as I know about the labels with IMAP, they are accessible is a read-only way: in email setting you can choose to retrieve mail only from a specific folder/label, but you can’t label or remove label from messages.
As I live in a somewhat patchy coverage area, the bug that turns the auto-retrieve off, had always meant that using the built-in S60 app was a chore.
However, that was on my N95. Since reading this article, I decided to give it a go on my N82, and the bug does not seem to be present.
I have lost my signal on a number of occasions, and the auto-retrieve is still active.
So looks like it may be a handset issue, rather than, what I expected it to be, an S60 wide issue.
@Steve: It’s good to learn some S60 phones don’t have this problem which has plagued all of my S60 3rd Ed. phones so far. It’s not a phone specific issue per se. Apparently, it’s an O/S version specific problem. Your N82 has Symbian 9.2, whereas your N95 as well as my E61 and E61i all feature Symbian 9.1. At first, I thought it was the lack of Feature Pack 1 in me ESeries phones, but it’s not that either, since the N96 has it and still has the problem. Again, I’m glad Nokia has finally nipped the problem on the newer O/S version.
For option #3 you said “The setup wizard is completely useless, but…” which wizard you used the email own one… I agree, try (path valid in N958GB) menu-tools-utilities-Sett.Wizard and it just asks your email address and the username + password… its pop3 settings, but easy
Nokia guys should add the imap4 settings there too.
@Eek - correct, I used the built-in messaging setup wizard. It barely asks you anything. There’s no reason that Nokia can’t implement a wizard that connects and downloads the CORRECT settings, in their entirety. I’ve reviewed several handsets recently for MobileBurn, and most of them offer this functionality.
The disabling of automatic checks after a check with no signal is what caused me to stop using the built-in client. It was also annoying that the application would occasionally freeze after replying to an email.
After my institution started offering Exchange, I switched to Mail for Exchange, and I think this is by far the best solution. You set it up just like your desktop version, there’s a variety of options for periodic checking, and as a bonus, your calendar and contacts are synced too.
If you don’t have Exchange through your employer, there are some companies which will provide hosted exchange. It’s an extra level of setup, but it only has to be done once, and makes things far more useable.
May 7th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
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