Email apps and notifications

[mark7914]

Hi All,

I've had this phone for a week or so now. Haven't had an Android phone in years.

Setup has gone fine, but the thing I'm really struggling with is email.

I have one Exchange account and one IMAP account. I do also have a Gmail account but it is never used so I don't need it on the phone.

I first started off by installing the Microsoft Outlook app. I set up the accounts. Email worked fine, but the problem with this was that the app and the "phone" part of the phone were in no way connected.

So all my contacts are in Exchange and were in Outlook on the phone, but not in the phone itself, if that makes sense. No inbound callers recognised, no way to call someone without pasting or typing the phone number in.

I then researched this and found the GMail app can handle these, so I deleted Outlook, set up the accounts in GMail and this brought the contacts through elsewhere in the phone.

However the GMail app just doesn't seem to be much use or work properly:

1. Push email like Exchange is sometimes randomly and severely delayed.
2. The minimum refresh time for IMAP is 15 minutes. Can't wait that long nor muck around refreshing it manually. Outlook on the desktop (Windows) is effectively "push", emails arrive almost instantly.
3. Emails randomly reappear after you've deleted them.
4. The app crashes and requires the phone to be restarted because the app doesn't permit "FORCE STOP". Admittedly this has only happened once, but I went for hours not getting any new email before I realised it had broken. I think this one and the prior one are probably related.
5. When an email arrives, the phone will add a notification. If you delete the emails to which that pertains, the notifications don't disappear, so deleting email is a two-step process in two different places if you want the notifications to be of any use.

Can anyone suggest a different app which can handle Exchange and IMAP and solves these issues?

Many thanks,

Mark

 

[SpookDroid]

Have you tried the stock e-mail app on your phone? It's pretty good. For Exchange, I use and always recommend Nine. It's awesome. BUT it's for Exchange only, I don't think it can do IMAP, unfortunately.

The issue you had with the Outlook app is exactly why I moved to Nine as the first doesn't integrate with the phone and the latter does. Also, Nine allows you to 'bubble' your corporate security policies into the app rather than the phone (in my case, my corporate security would disable Smart Locks, but in Nine, that is only applied to the app, so the rest of my phone can use Smart Locks). Give those a try.

 

[pbike908]

The stock email app will work for you. I have found it tricky to set up exchange accounts with Android phones in that one has to it I think in the email app itself and not in the accounts section or something like that. Google blames Microsoft. Microsoft blames Google. We all suffer.

IOS is the best in that one sets up an account centrally in the phone and then every app can then use it.

Nine is a good app, but I just use the stock email app. Just fool with it.

I have also noticed that Android can get confused if one has the same Exchange account set up in multiple apps.

It's just kind of odd that way....

 

[larrykay]

Try Blue Mail, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.bluemail.mail&hl=en
It' free, and it does Exchange and IMAP, and also uses a unified inbox if you wish.

 

[anon(123856)]

Another vote for Nine. I've also used the stock email app and it worked fine, I just prefer Nine as it has more ways to tweak it. Neither of them were too difficult to setup just be aware that you might need to create an app password on Outlook.com to use with either app. Both of them will sync your calendar and contacts if you like.

 

[mark7914]

I'm coming to this from iOS, and, yes, that certainly does simplify and standardise this with one global address book. That's why I'm struggling with this, but that is not intended as a criticism. Different is not necessarily "worse".

So many thanks for your replies. And so quick. I like it here

I have managed to track down the "stock email app", I think, buried inside the "Samsung Apps" folder. I overlooked this, had I gone with this initially, I suspect I might have "got lucky" first time.

Thank you - I shall experiment with this tomorrow.

 

[Rukbat]

1. Setting the polling time to none or off, instead of 15 minutes, sets it to receive push email. (My computer and my phone go back and forth between which one gets any particular email first, but it's usually within the same second - a few seconds apart at most.

2. If you're connecting to an Exchange Server, there are so many ways to set one up that what may work perfectly for one won't work at all for another. Talk to your Exchange admin for recommendations. Sometimes the Samsung app will "just work", sometimes it won't. That's up to the way the server is set up. (Microsoft tried to be all things to all companies, and just gave people too many choices to change.)

 

[mark7914]

Thanks for the tips.

I tried the stock email app first, however that comes up with a dialog box that says that if I proceed, I consent to share information with Samsung.

It then vaguely says "for example..." and gives some examples, but it doesn't specify exactly what. So I couldn't proceed with that as it could mean anything.

I tried Nine. Which does now support IMAP.

That's the first app I've ever known that is capable of actually setting up an Exchange account without you having to put all of the settings in manually. I was amazed.

Likewise, the IMAP setup worked smoothly. It looks and works very nicely. I shall buy. Thanks

 

[Kayza]

Reinstall the Outlook app if you like it. You do need to let the phone know about your account, and the gmail app seems to be the best way to do it, but you can then set it to not sync anything but contacts, and you'll be fine.

I'm not sure why you are having this problem with your contacts, though. I had a Galaxy S6, and the phone / contacts app handled everything, regardless of where the contact was stored.

 

[mark7914]

From reading about the problem, I think the Outlook app got an update at some point which broke this "integration" thus stranding the contacts and calendar so they live solely within the Microsoft app and don't get near the phone.

It doesn't seem possible to uninstall the GMail app but I have removed all the accounts from it, and then disabled it.

At which point all the contacts vanished, as you would expect. After installing Nine they all reappeared in the way that they did not with the Outlook app.

 

[anon(123856)]

From reading about the problem, I think the Outlook app got an update at some point which broke this "integration" thus stranding the contacts and calendar so they live solely within the Microsoft app and don't get near the phone.

It doesn't seem possible to uninstall the GMail app but I have removed all the accounts from it, and then disabled it.

At which point all the contacts vanished, as you would expect. After installing Nine they all reappeared in the way that they did not with the Outlook app.

That's why I like Nine. I installed it and it worked with just a few tweaks. I had too many issues with the Outlook app. Glad you found Nine to your liking.

 

[Bfalcon1]

I use the Outlook app and have no issues. I tried the Samsung Email app and it drained my battery. Everytime I opened it the blue line appeared like it was syncing the app. not sure why.

 

[Gayle Lynn]

I use the Outlook app and have no issues. I tried the Samsung Email app and it drained my battery. Everytime I opened it the blue line appeared like it was syncing the app. not sure why.

The thread about trouble with Gmail pointed towards there being corrupt emails or directory and needing to delete one or more emails.

I had trouble with a zip file that Smart Sync created but would then choke other apps that tried to process it.

I thought I'd like Outlook but ended up buying Nine. Tried Blue, Inbox and Sammy Email. Samsung Email is okay