ptalk > GMail IMAP on my iPhone

GMail IMAP on my iPhone

Here’s how I did it. Slight variation on GMail’s instructions:

In Apple Mail, set my gmail/POP account to inactive. Create a new gmail/IMAP account. Under Preferences/Accounts/Mailbox Behaviors uncheck all the boxes to store messages on the server. (Because mail sent through GMail is automatically saved on the server, so Mail does not need to do it. Drafts will get saved over and over as you write a message and not deleted [a bug Google should fix, IMO], Junk see below, and Trash you don’t want, since that will permanently delete messages [you might as well keep them all since Google allows it, you never know when you might want to search and find something you deleted].)

The easiest way to create the correct account on your iPhone is to re-sync your iPhone, under Info/Mail selecting your new GMail/IMAP account and under Info/Advanced selecting Replace for Mail Accounts. This will correctly create a GMail/IMAP account on your phone. You should double-check under Settings/Mail/(your GMail account)/Advanced that your Mailbox Behaviors all say On My iPhone, for the same reasons given above on why Apple Mail should be set to not save to the server.

Finally, Google does such a good job of junk mail filtering, I turn off Apple Mail’s junk mail filtering. (This is my main reason for switching to GMail. The iPhone does no spam filtering — by sending all my mail through GMail, I see nearly no spam on my iPhone now.) If a message does sneak through, you can inform Google about it by moving the message from your InBox to the [GMail]/Spam folder. Similarly, if you really want to delete a message (not just archive it), you can move it to the [GMail]/Trash folder.