Instant push from POP based email [How I got it working]

[Joel S.]

I searched around and couldn't find anything on this, so I figured I'd post this up. If it's been done, feel free to ignore/delete/heckle.

My dilemma, I'm a former Blackberry user, and while I enjoyed the platform, there were some things that bothered me. Considering RIM had nothing interesting coming to Verizon and I had been eying Android for a bit, when my contract ran out I decided to give it a shot. Blackberry is synonymous with awesome email, it's not without it's faults (truncate anyone), but it's great. Other platforms may be prettier, but RIM's solution is fast, easy on battery life, simple to setup, and very efficient.

Considering I wanted emails to continue to be pushed, not pulled, I hunted around, and based on some suggestions (including an article here), I setup my gmail account to check my personal POP server and then send the emails to my phone. The problem with this is the polling interval sucks, it's based on email frequency, so it can be as slow as once an hour. In my case, it went 45 minutes without checking once, and while there may be times where I don't get much email, there are stretches in the day where I could get dozens in a matter of minutes, some high priority.

Bottom line, this wasn't acceptable. RIM's servers poll your accounts every 15 minutes, and if an email is found, it pushes the email to the phone, and drops the interval down to 3 minutes until there are no more coming in (at which point they revert back to 15 minutes). There's a workaround you can do on Blackberries that will get you instant push email, regardless of who your email host is, and after tinkering with Gmail and such a bit, I've figured out a way to get true, instant push email from a POP based account to my Android device.

There are a few requirements:
1) You need to have a gmail account. I NEVER give mine out to anyone, it's purely a middle man for my personal account to my phone... if you're familiar with Blackberries and RIM, think of it as their NOC (the server farm which pushes the email out to the phones).

2) Your personal email needs an auto-forwarding ability (some of you may see where this is going.) If you can't auto-forward, you can setup a desktop based email client to forward for you (won't be instant, but you can make the email check time as low as you want.) I'm not going to go into setting up email clients, and considering the massive differences between web email portals, I'm not going to delve into ridiculous details there either.

The Setup:

First and foremost, you want to login to your personal email's web portal, and turn on the auto forwarder. It's pretty straight forward, just enter your gmail email address in the fields provided, and activate the forwarder.

Setting up Gmail.

1. Log into your Gmail account from a desktop, and click Settings.
2. Click on Accounts and Import.
3. You'll see an option for "Send Mail As", click "Send mail from another address."
4. First, enter the name you would like to appear on sent emails, and then enter the email address you want them to be sent from. (myemail@myaccount.com for example) Click Next Step. NOTE: You may be prompted to enter a valid reply to address, simply retype the email address.
5. Select whether you want to send emails from the Gmail servers, or your personal account's servers. This is up to you. If you use Gmail's servers, emails might show as "sent from [gmail account] on behalf of [personal]", but replies WILL be sent to your personal account. If you use your personal, it will look like you sent the email directly from your personal. You must know your personal email's SMTP credentials in order to use it.
6. You'll be prompted to Send a Verification email. When that comes through, you'll have either a code to enter, or a link to click. After you send the email, you'll get a new screen to enter the code.
7. Finally, after the authorization is complete, from within Gmail's Accounts and Import screen, click "Make Default" next to your newly setup "Send Mail As" account.

That's it, just setup your gmail account on your phone, and all emails sent to your personal will be instantly (well, almost instantly, depends on your servers, internet traffic, phone signal, etc) pushed to your handset. When you respond to emails from your handset, they will be sent as your personal account.

This may not be as elegant as the phone actually supporting push, but it works flawlessly, there's no stupid delay, and it's friendly on battery life. There's one drawback to this method, if you "reply all", it will send a copy of the email to your personal account as well. IMO, a very minor annoyance, and you can filter this out if needed.

Hope this helps!

 

[takeshi]

Not all POP accounts will support forwarding but this is a good workaround for those that will.

To truly get push email every piece in the chain has to support it, not just the phone. The BIS approach (and even the gmail mail fetcher) is technically a mix since BIS does the pulling but then pushes email to the BB.

Blackberry is synonymous with awesome email, it's not without it's faults (truncate anyone), but it's great. Other platforms may be prettier, but RIM's solution is fast, easy on battery life, simple to setup, and very efficient.

People seem to assume that BB is the end-all-be-all for email but that's not necessarily the case. Even with BES email is still push-and-reconcile. With Exchange and ActiveSync and my Droid I get true sync which was never possible even with BES.

The way BIS handles pull email is a plus for those stuck with POP accounts but I'm not sure I'd even say that makes BB "synonymous with awesome email". My 8310 was rock solid and had excellent battery life but I'd give up several days of battery life for Android's significantly better versatility.

 

[Joel S.]

Not all POP accounts will support forwarding but this is a good workaround for those that will.

To truly get push email every piece in the chain has to support it, not just the phone. The BIS approach (and even the gmail mail fetcher) is technically a mix since BIS does the pulling but then pushes email to the BB.

Thanks, but this is nitpicking. I, just like most end users, don't care about what goes on on the server end, or what makes push "true" push. All I care about is that the email is pushed to my device, which, using this method, it is.

BTW, I had to double check, but I did mention the auto forwarding requirement.

People seem to assume that BB is the end-all-be-all for email but that's not necessarily the case. Even with BES email is still push-and-reconcile. With Exchange and ActiveSync and my Droid I get true sync which was never possible even with BES.

The way BIS handles pull email is a plus for those stuck with POP accounts but I'm not sure I'd even say that makes BB "synonymous with awesome email". My 8310 was rock solid and had excellent battery life but I'd give up several days of battery life for Android's significantly better versatility.

It's a matter of opinion, but many people would rather cut off their legs than deal with another device for email other than their BB. My statement wasn't meant to imply BBs are the end all be all, just that email is a strength of the platform.

But this isn't a thread to discuss the merits of either, if you're happier with Android, that's great. I was very irritated with the email handling of my phone when I got it, and I do not have access to an enterprise environment. The bottom line is the email handling of this phone flat out sucked compared to what I had with my BB. This workaround alleviates the majority of the problems, so I'm happy. The other perks of the platform are nice too.

 

[ShaggyKids]

Joel S: You took 3 hours worth of still unresolved smtp headaches and made things work for me in about 10-15 minutes. If I were a little more G savvy it prolly wouldn't have even have taken that long ... THANK YOU!

 

[andrewgale99]

Push Email for Exchange Accounts

I am a new owner of the Thunderbolt coming from the BB Storm 2 and was frustrated that I couldn't get push email. I was even more discouraged after reading the threads on this forum. However, I found it does exist for my work account which I set up through the Exchange ActiveSync process as long as the settings are set correctly. I could not get it to work for my personal Hotmail account.

Here are the settings:

1. Settings, Accounts & sync, Background data and make sure it is turned on. The push option mentioned in the next step won't show up if the Background Date isn't set properly.
2. Select the specific Exchange email account from the Home screen, Menu, More, Settings, Send & Receive, Update Schedule, Frequency - Peak Times, and it shows you the various frequency options. Scroll to the top of this list and you will see Push Mail as an option (I didn't scroll up the first 20 times I went to this screen and missed it).

It now works perfectly, just like my BB did and I get the mails within seconds of them showing up on my laptop.

 

[FrankXS]

I am a new owner of the Thunderbolt coming from the BB Storm 2 and was frustrated that I couldn't get push email. I was even more discouraged after reading the threads on this forum. However, I found it does exist for my work account which I set up through the Exchange ActiveSync process as long as the settings are set correctly. I could not get it to work for my personal Hotmail account.

Here are the settings:

1. Settings, Accounts & sync, Background data and make sure it is turned on. The push option mentioned in the next step won't show up if the Background Date isn't set properly.
2. Select the specific Exchange email account from the Home screen, Menu, More, Settings, Send & Receive, Update Schedule, Frequency - Peak Times, and it shows you the various frequency options. Scroll to the top of this list and you will see Push Mail as an option (I didn't scroll up the first 20 times I went to this screen and missed it).

It now works perfectly, just like my BB did and I get the mails within seconds of them showing up on my laptop.

Thank you!

-Frank

 

[reznunt#AC]

I am a new owner of the Thunderbolt coming from the BB Storm 2 and was frustrated that I couldn't get push email. I was even more discouraged after reading the threads on this forum. However, I found it does exist for my work account which I set up through the Exchange ActiveSync process as long as the settings are set correctly. I could not get it to work for my personal Hotmail account.

Here are the settings:

1. Settings, Accounts & sync, Background data and make sure it is turned on. The push option mentioned in the next step won't show up if the Background Date isn't set properly.
2. Select the specific Exchange email account from the Home screen, Menu, More, Settings, Send & Receive, Update Schedule, Frequency - Peak Times, and it shows you the various frequency options. Scroll to the top of this list and you will see Push Mail as an option (I didn't scroll up the first 20 times I went to this screen and missed it).

It now works perfectly, just like my BB did and I get the mails within seconds of them showing up on my laptop.

my background data is on but i dont have push mail as an option on my frequency list. the options at the top of the list are manual and every 5 minutes. ???