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GMail not truly being pushed to my phone

S

sakau2007

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 12, 2011
488
2
I have a question... I haven't been able to figure this out for 2+ years. My primary email is my GMail account and in my iPhone settings I have it set up to "push" email to my phone. I was hoping i OS 5 would fix this, but alas, it has not.

However, even with this setting, it doesn't get pushed. There seems to be a delay from just a few to 15+ minutes before I'm notified of new email. I know this because when I check my phone I'll see the timestamp on the email as 3, 5, even 10 or more minutes old.

What am I doing wrong? Or does GMail just not really "push" for anyone?
 
I don't think email gets "pushed" on the iPhone. There is usually a setting where you can choose to get emails in 15, 30, and 1 hour intervals or something like that. Can someone clarify this?
 
Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data

15 minutes appears to be the lowest setting.

In Advanced you can select your Gmail account and verify that it is set to Fetch.
 
Works for me, although the push usually occurs up to a couple of minutes later (sometimes much longer, though, but this doesn't happen too often).

You do have to be using the microsoft exchange interface to access gmail, though, as that's the only way to get gmail push. Any other interface uses fetch (not push), which matches your symptoms.
 
Patriot24 said:
Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data

15 minutes appears to be the lowest setting.

In Advanced you can select your Gmail account and verify that it is set to Fetch.
Click to expand...

set up gmail as an exchange account and it will push
 
sounds like your choosing gmail during mail setup. If you set up an exchange account instead it will push. just google iPhone gmail exchange.

only thing you really need to know is the server name with is
m.google.com
 
if i set up my gmail as an exchange account, will i encounter anything funky?

i like how if i read an email on my phone, it is marked read in my webmail interface and vice-versa. same with if i delete an email in one place, it gets deleted in both places.

will setting it up as an exchange account break the functionality?
 
sakau2007 said:
if i set up my gmail as an exchange account, will i encounter anything funky?
Click to expand...
Generally, anything you do in the exchange interface will be reflected everywhere else.

The only drain-bamaged thing, that google has done, has made "delete" into "archive". If you delete a message using the exchange interface, google will "helpfully" archive the message instead of actually deleting it. The workaround is to access gmail via the mobile web interface (safari) on the iPhone/iPad, and only use the exchange interface to get push notifications. This works pretty good, as the web interface is actually more powerful than mail on iOS.

----------

Also, for an overview of mail on iOS, see: http://guides.macrumors.com/iOS_Email_Recommendations

(This needs to be updated slightly for icloud. However, I get the impression that macrumors is trying to kill the guides, and so I don't know if that'll get done.)
 
TLewis said:
if i set up my gmail as an exchange account, will i encounter anything funky?Generally, anything you do in the exchange interface will be reflected everywhere else.The only drain-bamaged thing, that google has done, has made "delete" into "archive". If you delete a message using the exchange interface, google will "helpfully" archive the message instead of actually deleting it. The workaround is to access gmail via the mobile web interface (safari) on the iPhone/iPad, and only use the exchange interface to get push notifications. This works pretty good, as the web interface is actually more powerful than mail on iOS.----------Also, for an overview of mail on iOS, see: http://guides.macrumors.com/iOS_Email_Recommendations(This needs to be updated slightly for icloud. However, I get the impression that macrumors is trying to kill the guides, and so I don't know if that'll get done.)
Click to expand...

Also editable drafts don't sync.
Server side search doesn't work.
 
I've had the same issues with Gmail and Push, franky, I never really got it to work to my liking.
I ended up getting Boxcar and never looked back. I had originally thought that Boxcar ate up way too much battery so I set it aside. However, my frustration over push mail made me give Boxcar another go - this time I disabled Push across all my mail accounts and enabled push only for Boxcar. No battery issues and Boxcar has been managing all my accounts (mails, twitter, etc). You get instant notifications and an option to put it in Quiet Mode at night.

Try it out. I'm sure you'll like it. ;)
 
heyloo said:
I've had the same issues with Gmail and Push, franky, I never really got it to work to my liking.
I ended up getting Boxcar and never looked back. I had originally thought that Boxcar ate up way too much battery so I set it aside. However, my frustration over push mail made me give Boxcar another go - this time I disabled Push across all my mail accounts and enabled push only for Boxcar. No battery issues and Boxcar has been managing all my accounts (mails, twitter, etc). You get instant notifications and an option to put it in Quiet Mode at night.

Try it out. I'm sure you'll like it. ;)
Click to expand...

Follow the advice to set it up as an exchange account, and its instantaneous push - works GREAT!
 
Vegasryn said:
Follow the advice to set it up as an exchange account, and its instantaneous push - works GREAT!
Click to expand...
Agreed, I've never had any significant reliability issues with gmail push (at least, not recently).

However, heyloo does have a point: boxcar (and other notification services) does allow for automatic "quiet times", which is nice if you keep the iPhone/iPad next to the bed. (One possible downside to boxcar is that you have to forward email messages to boxcar. That's how boxcar notifications work: they send you a push notification whenever they receive a message from you. Even though they claim to not keep any messages, it's still a potential privacy issue.)
 
got it set up.. the push seems to be working but all my contacts are gone. i have it marked on my iphone to sync up with what i thought was my google contacts inventory which it clearly didn't.

is there a way to force it to resync with those contacts?
 
Here's a youtube walk-through for setting up Gmail as exchange and achieving true instant push

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWzpasDbPdQ

I showed the genius this when I bought my iPad and he crapped his pants as he had no idea....and this was my first iOS device :)

FWIW, mine synced Google contacts and Calendar perfectly
 
Vegasryn said:
Follow the advice to set it up as an exchange account, and its instantaneous push - works GREAT!
Click to expand...

I'll check it out! I remember going through setting it up then got distracted(?) with Boxcar. That said, TLewis brings up a valid point...Boxcar does require us to forward everything to them. My more important mails are usually funneled through my MobileMe account and since they work with push natively with iOS, less of a concern I suppose. I'll check out the Exchange option however. :)

Cheers
 
sakau2007 said:
got it set up.. the push seems to be working but all my contacts are gone. i have it marked on my iphone to sync up with what i thought was my google contacts inventory which it clearly didn't.

is there a way to force it to resync with those contacts?
Click to expand...

Are your contacts on GMAIL or something else?
 
TLewis said:
Generally, anything you do in the exchange interface will be reflected everywhere else.

The only drain-bamaged thing, that google has done, has made "delete" into "archive". If you delete a message using the exchange interface, google will "helpfully" archive the message instead of actually deleting it. The workaround is to access gmail via the mobile web interface (safari) on the iPhone/iPad, and only use the exchange interface to get push notifications. This works pretty good, as the web interface is actually more powerful than mail on iOS.
Click to expand...

Actually, there's an easier way. When you hit delete, it simply moves it to "All Mail" If you hit the button to move the message and move it to the trash, it will indeed delete it, not just archive it.
 
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