MM email; What is the point?

[moredrunkmale]

Maybe i'm missing something but what is the point of the email. I have a couple of different Gmail accounts, synced via IMAP to my mac mail and my iphone, and this works flawlessly to update each one. If i read a new email on my iphone, then both Gmail and mac mail will mark that email as read, and this will happen within 30 seconds.

So whats the advantages of the MM email.

 

[flynz4]

Maybe i'm missing something but what is the point of the email. I have a couple of different Gmail accounts, synced via IMAP to my mac mail and my iphone, and this works flawlessly to update each one. If i read a new email on my iphone, then both Gmail and mac mail will mark that email as read, and this will happen within 30 seconds.

So whats the advantages of the MM email.

When I got my first iPhone, Gmail did not support "push". That in itself was a great feature of Mobile Me. I think Gmail might be supporting push now, but I am not positive.

You have the benefits of IMAP nailed... but that is only 1/2 of a good mail solution. Because Mobile Me supported both IMAP and Push... it seemed to be the best overall solution for me. If in fact Gmail now supports push, then the value of Mobile Me drops a bit.

For mail... I actually use Gmail as my primary address... and then have GMail forward all incoming mail to Mobile Me. I do this because Gmail has the best spam filters that I have encountered. Mobile Me becomes the single email "collection point" for my various email accounts... so I only have to check email in one place. I also have Gmail archive the messages as well. Hence I get:

1) Gmail spam filtering
2) Gmail archiving
3) Mobile Me push email

/Jim

 

[IgnatiusTheKing]

Email is just one part of the MM suite. The "point" of it is the same as the "point" of any email service, to send and receive messages over the Internet.

 

[Weaselboy]

I have MM and agree if you only want mail it is no better than GMail. But for me all the other features that come with MM make it worth the price.

 

[Gav2k]

As above it's just one part.

Picking up a new iPhone for example adding your mm email addy to it and getting your contacts calendars bookmarks etc etc is great! Add tracking and iDisk to boot!

Great little package and for me worth the £2 a month average I pay.

 

[moredrunkmale]

cheers guys; yeh i was just a bit confused cos they seem to advertise the email thing a fair bit, when its just simple email.

What would REALLY make me want to sign up after this 60 day trial, is if i could have all my emails soft of hosted in one place. Like my Mac Mail only online.

If i could log into MM, and goto email page and have my two Gmail, and one hotmail inboxes there, displayed separately, just like mac mail. Then this would sell it for me.

Having to keep logging in and out of Gmail (when away from my laptop) to switch between my two gmail accounts annoys me, having these consolidated into one place; while still having them as separate inboxes, would be awesome.

 

[Gav2k]

What's stopping you setting it up like that? Consolidated email is available on the iPhone and in osx.

 

[moredrunkmale]

well i know i can forward my gmail accounts to mobile me; but then i assume they will all show up in the single MM inbox. I like to have them all in separate inboxes; just like in mac mail

 

[d21mike]

well i know i can forward my gmail accounts to mobile me; but then i assume they will all show up in the single MM inbox. I like to have them all in separate inboxes; just like in mac mail

You would have to setup Rules in MM to have the mail separated into folders. However, PUSH only works with the Inbox for the iPhone. Gmail allows you to specify which folders get PUSHED. When Google came out with Google Sync (Exchange on iPhone) I gave it a try. My problem with GMail is that it uses Labels to represent folders and even though it is pretty close I prefer REAL Folders (this is really for another discussion).

 

[moredrunkmale]

theu su what i want;

to have this, in this

 

[d21mike]

To get started, hit the + sign to the right of Folders and create all of your folders. However, they will not be DIRECTLY under the Inbox. Then go into Rules and have to Mail automatically sent to the correct folder. In case you do not know you can create sub-folders.

You could start with a folder called "My Folders" and then start putting folders under that folder. My top level folder is "All Folders" so that it sorts higher.

 

[moredrunkmale]

i just tried this but no success.

I forwarded a gmails emails to "myname@me.com", and confirmed the code.

Then in MM, i opened a new folder called (gmail emails), in rules, i setup so,

Move messages addressed to "mygmailaddress.com" to "gmail emails" folder.

I can get the emails forwarded but they always goto my MM inbox and never show up in my folder.

 

[moredrunkmale]

i think i got what you said above sorted. However, when i get an email into my MM interface, i go to the folder and read it. but it doesn't get marked as read on my mac mail.app.

I want all info to be on all 3; gmail/MM/mac mail.app

 

[d21mike]

i just tried this but no success.

I forwarded a gmails emails to "myname@me.com", and confirmed the code.

Then in MM, i opened a new folder called (gmail emails), in rules, i setup so,

Move messages addressed to "mygmailaddress.com" to "gmail emails" folder.

I can get the emails forwarded but they always goto my MM inbox and never show up in my folder.

Not sure exactly what is wrong but basically the rule does not match your selection criteria. You may want to look at your header information to make sure what you are comparing for is actually there. Test with some other criteria to make sure normal rules are working. Good luck.

 

[Ruahrc]

Also don't forget that MM email is ad-free, whereas gmail shows you text based ads dependent on the content of your email. (I'm not sure if there is an ad-free pay version of gmail?)

 

[bigvb@hotmail.c]

this is true. I believe the only way to get ad-free google mail is through the Premium Google Apps service.


BTW does anyone know how to get push to work for emails forwarded from Gmail into folders. I setup so each of my 2 gmail accounts' emails are forwarded to MM.

I set rules so the emails from each Gmail account go into 2 different folders. Everything works, but when i read emails in gmail, they are NOT marked as read in the folder in MM, all the emails remain "unread" until i click them in MM.

 

[IgnatiusTheKing]

Also don't forget that MM email is ad-free, whereas gmail shows you text based ads dependent on the content of your email. (I'm not sure if there is an ad-free pay version of gmail?)

It's not like Google embeds ads in your emails, like hotmail. Since the OP is using Apple Mail and the iPhone as his primary mail clients, he'll never see those ads.

 

[MacGiver]

No point...The day you stop subscribing to MM you loose all your emails, history...I am OK to pay for nice syncing, iDisk, etc...but surely not for an email account...it is part of the suite so let it be but I won't be Apple slave for emails...
I use Gmail and that will always be there...

 

[flynz4]

No point...The day you stop subscribing to MM you loose all your emails, history...I am OK to pay for nice syncing, iDisk, etc...but surely not for an email account...it is part of the suite so let it be but I won't be Apple slave for emails...
I use Gmail and that will always be there...

There is still an easy way to take advantage of MobileMe... and still have Gmail archive all of your email.

1) Create an archive mail account in Gmail
2) In Mobile Me preferences, forward all Mobile Me mail to the Gmail archive account
3) In Mobile Me preferences, uncheck the box that says "delete forward messages from Mobile Me"

You will get good push email, good IMAP email on Mobile Me... and you will get everything archived in Gmail forever.

/Jim

 

[MacGiver]

There is still an easy way to take advantage of MobileMe... and still have Gmail archive all of your email.

1) Create an archive mail account in Gmail
2) In Mobile Me preferences, forward all Mobile Me mail to the Gmail archive account
3) In Mobile Me preferences, uncheck the box that says "delete forward messages from Mobile Me"

You will get good push email, good IMAP email on Mobile Me... and you will get everything archived in Gmail forever.

/Jim

Yes but I guess that once you reply to a Gmail mail sent to MM mail, it will show as you have replied from MM...I wish it woudl show you reply from your Gmail account...so basically that workaround is quiet useless...especially if you are happy with Gmail...what is that all story about push...It won't change my life if it only download mail every 15min or when I open my mailbox....

 

[flynz4]

Yes but I guess that once you reply to a Gmail mail sent to MM mail, it will show as you have replied from MM...I wish it woudl show you reply from your Gmail account...so basically that workaround is quiet useless...especially if you are happy with Gmail...what is that all story about push...It won't change my life if it only download mail every 15min or when I open my mailbox....

You can reply from any email account that you want, irrespective of which account received the mail. You just need to have an entry in the SMTP server list for whichever email addresses you want to use when sending mail.

Here is my setup:

• I have multiple email addresses that I use for receiving mail (both gmail and my own personal domain). All of them auto forward to MM, and they do not keep local copies of the messages. Hence... they are always empty.
  
• Mobile Me is set to auto-forward to an "archive" gmail account. I only use that archive account as a place where all of my mail is permanently stored, and never deleted. Mobile Me is set to NOT delete messages that if forwards to my archive account.
  
• I pretty much only read my email in Mobile Me. After I do not need the mail anymore... I simply delete it. I do this knowing that my gmail archive account will keep a copy for eternity.

Bottom line:

1. I only read my emails in a single place (Mobile Me)... with IMAP and Push.
   
2. All of my emails are archived in a special gmail account
   
3. I can send emails from any account, by selecting whichever SMTP server I want when composing the message. You can generally set the default SMTP server to anything.

/Jim

 

[flynz4]

Yes but I guess that once you reply to a Gmail mail sent to MM mail, it will show as you have replied from MM...I wish it woudl show you reply from your Gmail account...so basically that workaround is quiet useless...especially if you are happy with Gmail...what is that all story about push...It won't change my life if it only download mail every 15min or when I open my mailbox....

If you don't care about immediate delivery of email, then there is no harm of polling in a desktop. Personally, I strongly prefer the mail being pushed.

I think it becomes more important if you have a mobile device. I do not want to waste the power (battery life) having my email program check for new mail every 15 minutes... usually without any results. I would rather the phone just wait for a push notification.

/Jim

 

[317342]

I actually like my MobileMe account and use almost all of the services it has. I have a Gmail apps edu account that I use only for campus e-mails but otherwise 98% of everything flows through MobileMe. I know that Gmail offers some of what MobileMe does and I don't have anything against Gmail but it's just not as intuitive for me. Plus, I don't like that we have to sign in through a campus proxy to get into it (security update after the China Google hack). I prefer MobileMe for e-mail 'cause it just works, it's easy, no ads or anything else.

As an anecdote, our campus Gmail was down last Spring more often than my MobileMe account was. Coincidentally, most people in my department don't use their campus Gmail and use something else. Of all the suffixes I see, Yahoo is probably the most common, followed by Hotmail....I have indeed seen a @me.com address or two though but only slightly more often do I see a personal Gmail @gmail.com account.

 

[MacGiver]

MM mail is everything but an advanced mail account...Just one example among others: How do you mark several emails as unread??? You can do it one by one only...In Gmail you can select 10 mails and mark them all unread.

MM mail is just a joke...It is like a mail account for beginners...

 

[tuna]

MobileMe mail is the feature that I use least. Not at all, really. Occasionally I have used it to create an additional email-address-based account with a service that only allows you to create one account per address. Thats it. Everything that you do online connects to your email address, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let Apple extort another $99/year out of me to keep my email flowing. Gmail is better in every way anyway, and it works perfectly using the Exchange solution on my iPhone. Syncs better than the mobileme services actually.