One simple tweak that made my iPhone Gmail retrieval lightning fast

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Posted By: Wayne Schulz

GMAIL Folders.jpg

Dan posted earlier today over at Whatsoniphone about my discovery that if you enable Advanced IMAP controls in GMAIL Labs (look under settings) and remove the check marks from your folders so that only the INBOX is checked – your iPhone will retrieve email at a blistering pace as opposed to the 3 to 5 minutes that it previously took.

Almost from the day that I bought the first generation iPhone I have been bothered by slow retrieval of my Gmail. Since I have a large number of folders, it makes perfect sense that this tip to stop synchronizing the other folders would significantly speed up Gmail retrieval on iPhone. UPDATE 4-7-09: I had to go back into the labels and place a check mark next to “trash, sent mail and all mail” so that I could delete mail. So far everything seems to be running as speedy as ever.

Google Labs – Advanced IMAP Controls

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About the Author

Wayne Schulz
Wayne is a diehard Android user and consultant specializing in Sage 100 ERP Accounting Software. He lives in Glastonbury CT with his two children. When not helping them with their homework or pushing the latest school fundraiser off on his co-workers, he is active hiking and investigating all manner of technology.

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11 Comments on "One simple tweak that made my iPhone Gmail retrieval lightning fast"

  1. Wayne Schulz | April 6, 2009 at 6:35 pm |

    By removing check marks from the IMAP folders my phone is amazingly fast. You have no idea how slow the retrieval of Gmail was before I thought to check this…

  2. questionfear | April 6, 2009 at 7:08 pm |

    Wow…this is awesome. You are my hero Wayne!

  3. Matt Banks | April 6, 2009 at 11:23 pm |

    Good call, Wayne! This not only helped my iPhone, but also Mail.app on my Mac as well!

  4. Adam Pieniazek | April 7, 2009 at 12:04 am |

    Only problem with this is I use IMAP in Apple Mail too…unticking all those folders would mean I wouldn't be able to search my emails from my desktop and have them sync with my online mail.

  5. Wayne Schulz | April 7, 2009 at 4:46 am |

    I may have been a little too aggressive in removing the sync checkmarks – I added back sent, all and drafts (the iPhone was telling me it couldn't find the folders when I tried to use them to delete or store mail).

  6. Wayne Schulz | April 7, 2009 at 4:47 am |

    This is definitely not the best solution for anyone bringing in Gmail via APP to the desktop. Too bad iPhone/Touch did not allow for specifying ON THE PHONE which folders to sync.

    I've always thought that iPhone's email capabilities were neglected and underpowered. I really expected apple to beef them up performance wise.

  7. Michael Anderson | April 7, 2009 at 8:15 am |

    “Too bad iPhone/Touch did not allow for specifying ON THE PHONE which folders to sync.”

    Exactly what I was thinking – I use GMail with IMAP across Mac, PC and iPod Touch and losing the extended functionality just isn't acceptable …

  8. patrickj | April 7, 2009 at 1:43 pm |

    Great tip Wayne!

    Quick thing worth noting is that in order to see these check boxes and be able to modify them, you have to have 'Advanced IMAP Controls' enabled under the 'Labs' tab in Settings – otherwise you won't see them at all …

  9. Wayne Schulz | April 7, 2009 at 2:02 pm |

    Good point. And if you're using Google Apps for Domain – I think you must log into your domain (on Google) as Administrator and turn on the ability to see the labs options.

  10. sean808080 | July 14, 2010 at 11:24 am |

    Tried this and it seems to work–>One simple tweak that made my iPhone Gmail retrieval lightning fast | Gear Diary http://bit.ly/au21YZ

  11. Leilamsg | January 19, 2012 at 12:14 pm |

    How do you add them back? Thanks

Comments are closed.