HOWTO – use Gmail with your Windows Mobile Smartphone

An anonymous reader sent us a few hacks today for the Samsung SGH-i600 phone – Link. This is basically the US Blackjack, except that it’s released in the UK with Orange’s branding and a bit of crippleware. One of the hacks that’s mentioned is using GMail with the device, and it’s a cool hack that can be applied to any Windows Mobile Smartphone or Pocket PC with internet access.

Overview
One of the things I’ve liked about these devices, in addition to the free dev tools, is that the mail client supports IMAP and POP email servers, not just the corporate Exchange setup. If you use GMail, you can set up your phone to send and receive email via GMails POP and SMTP servers.

This howto will guide you through the necessary settings. The screens may look a little different depending on what device and OS version you have, but the basic settings information will be the same throughout.Step 1: Configure GMail

• Go into your GMail account and click the settings link at the top right.
• Click the Forwarding and POP tab
• Select enable POP for all mail
• Choose the option to keep GMail’s copy in the Inbox. This will let you see your email in GMail and on your phone.

Step 2: Create a GMail Account Profile on Your Phone

Open up the messaging application on your phone by clicking the mail link on the home screen or clicking Start->Messaging. Then select any of the existing accounts, typically MMS or Text Messages. I’m not sure why you have to go into an existing account to make a new one, but hey, it’s Microsoft… :)

Once you are in one of the existing messaging profiles, you can set up a new mail account on the device by clicking Menu->Options->Account Setup->Menu->New. It’s a bunch of keypresses… above is a quick screengrab of the menus you need to go through.

Step 3: Enter GMail Account Settings

Refer to the image above for the appropriate GMail settings. The important things to note are that you use the ssl enabled POP protocol for retrieving email, the pop server is pop.gmail.com:995, and the SMTP server is smtp.gmail.com:465. Make sure to select both require SSL connection and outgoing server requires authentication.

I missed it when I was taking screen grabs, but it’s also going to ask you for your username and password. You username is your full gmail.com address, including the @gmail.com part. Make sure to select “save password” or your phone won’t be able to automatically grab mail, and you’ll need to enter your password when you check it manually.

I chose to name this account “GMail.” The default is “POP,” but if you have any other POP or IMAP accounts, it’s helpful to put in a more useful name here so you can tell them apart.

Step 4: Choose Your Email Sync Options

It’s up to you to decide what you want here. You can set things up to sync at 15 minute intervals, or only when you manually click send/receive. You also have a number of options for size and date limits on messages that you want to download. This can be useful if you get a lot of email and you don’t want to fill up your phone or max out your data plan.

Just keep in mind that you can get charged for how much data you transfer. It all depends on your mobile data plan, so pick these settings carefully.

Step 5: Read GMail on Your Phone

After you’ve saved the new GMail profile to your device, you can then connect and sync your inbox to your phone. One glitch is that the first time you connect, you’ll get a certificate warning. You can click “Yes” to continue, and your email will begin to download. The first sync can take a while, but after that, it’ll only be downloading new messages that you’ve received since you last connected.