Questions about Android and Email

[Stevie#AC]

Hi,

I have a few questions about the Android OS. I don't yet have an Android phone - I still have a BlackBerry Tour - but I've played with some Android phones like the HTC Droid Eris and fell in love.

Firstly, I want to know about the "push email". Is it true that only the primary Gmail account you sign in to your device with will have push emails and all others will be regular POP3 accounts that will manually get checked in 15, 30, 60 minute intervals (depending on your settings)?

If I have multiple email accounts set up under my one Gmail account and I see all of the messages come up in my Inbox, would those settings for the multiple email addresses transfer over with the primary Gmail account as well? For example, when I login to gmail.com - both my gmail account and my ISP email account are checked - would that be the case with the Android? Or would I have to set up the other email accounts separately?

I have 3 Gmail accounts that I use heavily - only one of the three would be pushed to the phone and the other 2 would just be checked as regular email accounts in the interval that I set it for, right?

If I was to forward my other email accounts to my primary Gmail account, would I be able to REPLY to those emails received using the other email account that it was forwarded from or would it have to be done with the Gmail account that it was forwarded to?

I know my questions are really long. I really appreciate your time and assistance.

 

[doogald]

I have a few questions about the Android OS. I don't yet have an Android phone - I still have a BlackBerry Tour - but I've played with some Android phones like the HTC Droid Eris and fell in love.

Firstly, I want to know about the "push email". Is it true that only the primary Gmail account you sign in to your device with will have push emails and all others will be regular POP3 accounts that will manually get checked in 15, 30, 60 minute intervals (depending on your settings)?

I'll first start by saying that I have an Eris, which runs Android 1.5. It is true that the Eris with 1.5 supports only a single gmail account in the gmail app (and that app has its mail pushed.) However, Android 2.x, which is available on the Moto Droid and the Nexus One, has listed as a feature the ability to have multiple gmail accounts, and they use push mail, though remember I say this as somebody who has not actually used Android 2.x,

If I have multiple email accounts set up under my one Gmail account and I see all of the messages come up in my Inbox, would those settings for the multiple email addresses transfer over with the primary Gmail account as well? For example, when I login to gmail.com - both my gmail account and my ISP email account are checked - would that be the case with the Android? Or would I have to set up the other email accounts separately?

Yes, this is what I do right now with the Eris (in part because my ISP's mail account, to which I still receive plenty of mail, has no server-side SPAM filter and receiving that mail on my phone using POP would be an exercise in frustration without junk mail filtering.) The way it works is this: whatever hits you gmail inbox gets pushed to your phone's gmail inbox, and you can also access any label that you choose from the phone from a menu option (with the exception of the Google Buzz label).

I have 3 Gmail accounts that I use heavily - only one of the three would be pushed to the phone and the other 2 would just be checked as regular email accounts in the interval that I set it for, right?

On the Eris today, yes. When the Eris gets version 2.1 officially, which is supposed to happen this month? Then you can have the multiple gmail accounts pushed. If you get the Moto Droid, you should be able to add all three gmail accounts from the start.

If I was to forward my other email accounts to my primary Gmail account, would I be able to REPLY to those emails received using the other email account that it was forwarded from or would it have to be done with the Gmail account that it was forwarded to?

Well, what I do is have gmail fetch mail from a few other accounts using POP3. And, when you reply to a message on your phone sent to one of these accounts, yes, it does, I think so long as you have that setting on your gmail account (not a setting on the phone - there is a setting in gmail when you set up POP3 fetching that defaults to replying from the original account rather than from your gmail account.)

All this said, you may want to wait for a response from somebody using multiple gmail accounts in Android 2.x to see if I have that part right...

 

[takeshi]

Firstly, I want to know about the "push email". Is it true that only the primary Gmail account you sign in to your device with will have push emails and all others will be regular POP3 accounts that will manually get checked in 15, 30, 60 minute intervals (depending on your settings)?

Your email accounts are whatever they are. Android won't turn email accounts into POP accounts. If you're setting up a POP account you have no option other than to poll the account for new messages due to the way POP works. IMAP should push in cases where IDLE is supported. Exchange will push if you have ActiveSync, etc. It's not Android that determines if you poll an account versus the type of mail account.

 

[brykins]

Just to outline my experience with email on Android. I have a Hotmail account and a couple of Gmail accounts plus four of my own domain emails. I initially set up the Gmail app on the phone to access my main Gmail account and the "other" built in email app to access my other email. Very quickly got frustrated with both of these apps so moved to K-9 Mail.

I have set up my Hotmail account in K-9 Mail as a POP3 account and K-9 polls this for new mail every fifteen minutes. It has an option to go down to every five minutes but (a) no email is that important to me and (b) I *think* Hotmail limit polls to every fifteen minutes anyway.

All my other accounts (Gmail and domains) are set up in K-9 as IMAP accounts. Gmail IMAP supports push, as do all my domains at 1&1. This means that email does get pushed direct to the phone without it having to poll and is as close to instant as it ever was on my Blackberry. Most of the time if I am in front of the PC, the phone gets new email before it lands on the PC.

Try K-9 and set up your Gmail accounts there and make sure the Push option is checked when you create the account. It works.