How To Check Gmail by IMAP on Windows Mobile

October 24, 2007 by Josh · 26 Comments
Filed under: How To, Phone PDA, Tech

UPDATE: If you are getting blank messages when checking over IMAP read my latest post for some more information. In short it appears Google’s implementation of IMAP is not utilizing all of the fields it could use and Windows Mobile Messaging is not handling the lack of these optional fields well.

UPDATE 2: If Gmail fails to send your messages check out this fix.

Google just announced that they are rolling out IMAP support for Google’s Gmail service. The feature will be appearign in different accounts over the next several days. If you are currently using POP3 to get your gmail to a Windows Mobile client or even a desktop client IMAP is a huge improvement. IMAP allows the status to be updated between all of your viewing areas (more on IMAP v. POP3). This means that if you read an email on your Windows Mobile 6 device, when you login to gmail.com the mail will show as read, etc etc for the majority of the functions relating to mail management.

Google Provides a handy list of what Gmail actions correspond to actions on your mobile device.

Action on mobile device/client (e.g. iPhone/Outlook)	Result in Gmail on the web
Open a message	Mark a message as read
Flag a message	Apply a star to the message
Move a message to a folder	Apply a label to the message
Move a message to a folder within a folder*	Apply a label showing folder hierarchy (‘MainFolder/SubFolder’)*
Create a folder	Create a label
Move a message to [Gmail]/Spam	Report a message as spam
Move a message to [Gmail]/Trash	Move a message to Trash
Send a message	Store message in Sent Mail
Delete a message	Remove label from the message, or delete the message permanently if the message is already in the Spam or Trash label