How To Configure Gmail IMAP on the iPhone

How to Configure Gmail IMAP on the iPhone

What is your current email provider of choice? If you’re not using Gmail you’re missing out big time! Google recently released the ability to configure Gmail accounts with free IMAP. For those unfamiliar with IMAP, it differs from POP accounts by the fact that all emails are refreshed and kept “live” in real time.

So in other words, if you click to read a new email on your iPhone, it will be become “read” when you check your online inbox. Whereas with old school POP, you’d have to “re-read” emails and deal with a huge mess! Those days are gone!

To setup Gmail IMAP on your iPhone, take a good read on the Google help document here. There are pictures and step by step instructions. The bottom line is you will need the following information:

  • Incoming Server: imap.gmail.com
  • Outgoing Server: smtp.gmail.com
  • Authentication: email@gmail.com + email password
  • ‘Use secure Socket Layer (SSL)’
  • Ports: 587 Outgoing, 993 Incoming

Everything will work out fine after following the Google instructions, but you will require some minor “tweaking” in order to get things right. Your Gmail “labels” end up being recognized as folders–so you’ll need to perform a few extra steps. Our concern right now is to ensure that our Sent Mail, Deleted Mail, Drafts, and Junk folders are properly configured.

  1. Open SETTINGS, go to MAIL, then [Your Gmail IMAP account], then ‘ADVANCED’
  2. Select ‘Drafts Mailbox’, then ‘On the Server’, then ‘[Gmail] Drafts’. Return to the ‘ADVANCED’ view.
  3. Select ‘Sent Mailbox’, then ‘On the Server’, then ‘[Gmail] Sent Mail’. Return to the ‘ADVANCED’ view.
  4. Select ‘Deleted Mailbox’, then ‘On the Server’, then ‘[Gmail] Trash’. Return to the ‘ADVANCED’ view.

Once these settings have been entered, any emails sent from your precious iPhone will appear in Gmail’s ‘Sent’ view, any saved drafts saved on your iPhone will appear in Gmail’s ‘Drafts’ view, and any deleted messages will be found in Gmail’s ‘Trash’ view.

Here are some more tips, submitted by the keen users from 5ThirtyOne:

  • In order to “label” messages multiple times from within Apple Mail or the iPhone, you must copy the message(s) to each respective ‘Folder’ which corresponds with your Gmail Label. I think it’s time to move back to the idea of Folders as opposed to Labels.
  • If you wish to Archive mail from your iPhone, simply move the message to ‘[Gmail] All Mail’.
  • “when you ‘delete’ something from a folder other than trash, the message will effectively be archived, and not deleted. that means, the label corresponding to the folder you are deleting it from will be removed. if however you *move* it to Trash you will remove all labels assigned to it. bad for filter rules.”
  • “if you’d like to use a custom “from” address when sending from iPhone (not your Gmail address) — just pop it in the Email Address field (not the authentication fields) and it will use that address instead of your Gmail.”
  • “if you want to get rid of that extra [Gmail] hierarchy. Go in to your advanced email settings and for “IMAP Path Prefix” type [Gmail] now go back and reassign your Sent, Deleted, and Draft mail boxes, if needed.”
  • in order to star messages on your iPhone, simply move the message the starred items directory.

So there you have it, your iPhone in Canada has gotten one step better now that you know how to configure Gmail IMAP for your iPhone! Thanks to 5ThirtyOne for helping everyone with perfecting Gmail IMAP for our iPhones! 🙂

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