Gmail users with iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads have to
make compromises. They can use Google's Web-based mobile Gmail and Calendars,
they can use Google's rather limited Gmail app, or they can deal with the pain
of trying to make Gmail and Google Calendars work with Apple's built-in apps.
Setting up mail and calendar accounts on an iPad or iPhone
isn't that hard to do. But for Gmail users, it's trickier than it needs
to be. It's not hard to set up the basic accounts, but features like multiple
calendars, "Send Mail As," contact sync, and server-side deletion of
messages take some finagling. Fortunately, after a little bit of setup labor,
it's possible to get completely up and running on Apple's iOS Mail, Contacts
and Calendars with Google as the back end. Here's what you need to know.
Google does offer step-by-step instructions for setting up
complete sync, but in true Google fashion, it's still in beta, and there are
known issues. After years of experimenting, I've found a slightly more
complicated set-up that, once finished, works better than Google's method. It's
also much more reliable than iCloud sync, which I tried. Here's my prescription
for fully functional Gmail and Google Calendar sync on iOS.
If you want to make sure everything goes smoothly, you might
want to delete all your existing mail and calendar accounts that use your Gmail
address first.
1. Set Up Google Sync For Your Device
This is the part few people know about. There's actually a
website you have to use to turn on full Google syncing capabilities on your iOS
device (BlackBerry and Windows Phone, too). It's located at m.google.com/sync/.
On the device you want to sync, go to that address in Safari and turn it on.
There are a few options there. You can enable 'Send Mail
As,' so if you use other email addresses from your Gmail account, you'll be
able to use those aliases on iOS as well. You can actually add send-as aliases
yourself from within the iOS mail settings*, but they won't look right to the
recipient unless you turn them on here first.
Note: this checkbox merely enables sending from your
other addresses via Gmail. To actually add your additional addresses to the
built-in Mail app, you have to follow the instructions in the footnote of this
post.
You can enable 'Delete Email As Trash,' which the normal
Gmail account settings on iOS don't allow you to do. If you just create a Gmail
account on iOS the easy way, your only option is to archive messages, which
takes up storage space on your Gmail account even if you don't want the
messages anymore. By checking this box, you'll be able to delete messages on
the server side and still archive the ones you want to keep.
Finally, you can also select up to 25 of your Google
calendars to sync to your device. Setting up Gmail the easy way in Settings
only allows you to sync the one main calendar associated with your Gmail
address. But what good is that? Google Calendars allows each user to create
different calendars for different things. From the Google Sync website, you can
turn all of those on, even shared calendars to which you've subscribed.
2. Set Up An Exchange Account For Calendars (And Contacts
If You Want)
So far, we're still going by Google's book. The next step is
to set up a Microsoft Exchange account - not a Gmail account - for your
calendars (and contacts). This will allow you to accept invitations to events
and make sure all your event reminders go off on your iPhone or iPad.
But after too many syncing problems, I no longer sync email
this way. We'll address that in the next section.
Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars and add an
Exchange account. Enter your Gmail address in 'Email,' again in 'Username,' and
enter your password. Leave 'Domain' blank. In 'Description,' instead of
"Exchange," put in "Google Calendars." Then hit 'Next.'
On the next screen, a field called 'Server' appears. Enter m.google.com.
After you save that, you'll see the radio buttons for 'Mail,' 'Contacts' and
'Calendars.' Turn on calendars and turn off mail. And before we proceed,
let's talk about contacts.
Personally, I find Google contacts sketchy. I use Apple's
address book for contacts, which is also what all other apps use, so it makes
more sense to me to keep contacts there instead of in Gmail. I have contact
syncing turned on for my iCloud account, and I don't use any Gmail contacts
features. I know iCloud can be spotty, but contacts are the one thing that
seems to always sync perfectly.
That said, if you use Gmail contacts, you can turn them on
at this point to sync them with your address book.
3. Set Up A Generic IMAP Account For Email
Google's instructions don't take this extra step, but I
promise it works better. Apple Mail's communication with Gmail can be iffy, and
this is the best remedy.
In the Mail, Contacts, Calendars menu, you now have an
Exchange account called Google Calendars for calendars (and maybe contacts),
and you probably already have an iCloud account for other things. That's also
where you'll sync contacts if you do it my way.
Now you're going to create a third account, this one just
for email, but don't use the Gmail shortcut. It won't work correctly
with all the Google Sync stuff we set up in step one. Tap 'Add Account,' scroll
all the way to the bottom, and tap 'Other.' Tap 'Add Mail Account' on the next
screen.
Fill in your full name, email address, password and
description on the next page. I recommend 'Gmail' as the description.
On the next screen, fill in the incoming and outgoing mail
servers. The incoming host name is imap.gmail.com. You must fill in your
Gmail address and password again under 'Incoming Mail Server.' The outgoing
host name is smtp.gmail.com. Normal Gmail users don't have to enter
login info for outgoing mail, but Google Apps users (and some others) do. If
you can't send mail after following the instructions in this guide, try adding
your login info for outgoing mail and see if that fixes it. (thanks,
commenters!)
You Did It!
I know. That was way too much work. But now you're all set,
and your built-in Mail and Calendars (and maybe Contacts) apps should be
syncing properly with Google. As far as you're concerned, it's all one unified
account. All that black magic that got you set up can be a secret. In a
Google-vs-Apple world, this is the best customer service we can get if we want
to use both. But after all this annoying setup, it just works.
* How to set up more send-as addresses:
This is a geeky feature, so I made it a footnote, but if you
have multiple email addresses you use for sending email through your Gmail
account, this is how you set them up.
After you've done all of the above, go to the settings for
your mail account. Under 'IMAP Account Information,' you'll see a field called
'Email.' It will have your Gmail address in it. To add more send-as addresses,
all you have to do is put a comma-separated list of addresses into that field.
The problem is, you can't type commas into that field.
So tap on the 'Email' field, copy the email address to the
clipboard, and go to the Notes app or something. Paste it there, and then type
all the email addresses you want to send from in the order you'd like to see
them, separated by a comma and a space, like so: example@gmail.com,
example@work.com, example@sideproject.net. Then copy that whole list, go back
to your email settings, and paste the whole thing into that 'Email' field.
Next time you send a message, you'll see a drop-down menu
that lets you pick which address from which you want to send.
Article Credit: http://readwrite.com
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