Windows Mobile Messaging and GMail POP

Windows Mobile Messaging and GMail POP

Nice thing about google's POP/SMTP access is that it allows you to get rid of your unfriendly ISP's typically restrictive policy of sending out email via default SMTP port. Plus you get great anti-spam filters!

However, setting things up turned out to be a little less straight-forward. Initially, I gave up on Windows built-in messaging app once I could not set an outgoing server's port number (as required for gmail). I figured its yet another one of Microsoft's evil tricks. However, as it turns out (and not so surprisingly, I must add) I was wrong to judge too soon. In the mean time, I used google's nifty gmail Java app available from www.gmail.com/app. Works great except for deleting messages (this really ought to be simpler) as well as selecting more then one message AND the super-small scrollbar which is somewhat of a pain to work with. But apart from that (!) its really great!

In addition I got some feedback that it was virtually impossible to properly use gmail POP with multiple clients (Outlook 2003, Windows Mobile 6 Messaging). Apparently only one would download mails and the others would be left without those. I figured it was just a matter of properly configuring POP so when I gave it a shot. Tried downloading mail on my mobile and ... nothing happened. Hm. Go figure.

So, here is a quick and (almost) simple set of steps to configure proper gmail POP access from multiple devices with an accent on Windows Mobile 6 Messaging.

Setting up GMail POP Account Access on Windows Mobile 6 Messaging


1. Start > Messaging (opens Select an Account screen)
2. click New E-Mail Account (if you already have one configured then select your existing gmail account and then click Tools > Options... followed by another click on gmail account in the list of current accounts you have defined)
3. enter your email address (eg xyz@gmail.com)
4. Enter your name
5. Enter gmail.com in the account display name
6. for Incoming mail server type pop.gmail.com:995 (notice the :995 - that's the POP port number you need to specify as per gmail's official setup configuration)
7. for Account Type choose POP3
8. for User Name type (and this is the trick!) recent:xyz@gmail.com
9. Type in your password (check Save password), click Next
10. for outgoing SMTP mail server type smtp.gmail.com:587 (again, notice the port number 587 added after column) and check both checkboxes below the smtp server name for requiring authentication and to use same username for sending and receiving email
11. click Advanced Server Settings and tick both checkboxes for Require SSL for Incoming E-mail as well as for Require SSL for Outgoing e-mail. Choose The Internet for the Network Connection dropdown on the same screen and click Done to continue with setup
12. click Next
13. Choose some frequency for automatic send and receive of emails (eg. Every 10 minutes) and select All Messages for Download Messages dropdown

14. click Advanced Settings and under When Deleting Messages dropdown select Keep them on the server
15. click Done and click Next to go to final step
16. choose message format as HTML and message download limit of 2KB (both default values)
17. click Finish
That's it! With the above setup my HTC Touch and Gmail work like a breeze.

Important trick is the use of "recent:" in your account name - this apparently relies on gmail's "recent mode" which allows multiple clients to access messages via POP without getting into that trouble with one client getting the messages and the others don't. Apart from that, make sure you use the port number for POP and SMTP server as outlined above. Thanx to this post for figuring that part.

This should be enough to get your Windows Mobile Messaging 6 application to happily start working with gmail for both sending and receiving email regardless of your ISP setting.