Database Users

Gmail confusing

I accept that I just don't get it but...
WTF is up with the Gmail app? No folders, only labels, is there a way to empty trash? Is there a way to take things out of the trash? I don't get the labels thing. I just want a normal email client interface for Gmail push mail.
These threaded 'conversations' are annoying as hell to sift thru.
Are the labels the 'new' folders? Am I supposed to create labels like I used to create folders? Is this only done thru the web desktop version of gmail?
I know, I know I'm the dumb*ss here... but WTF.
I guess this new Gmail thing is this great new revolutionary thing but I just don't get it and looking through emails in this new way that's unlike any email client I have ever worked with has never been more frustrating.
Pardon my rant... just frustrated that I am having such a difficult time understanding this and I feel like I'm the only one who doesn't get it. Please forgive.
BTW, I tried the Gmail help & faq but I still don't get it. Can anyone point me towards something that will help me become an expert in this new amazing label bullsh*t? Thanks!

I recently noticed that you cannot bring an item from the trash back to the inbox. I would consider that a bug. Fortunately you can fix it by logging in thru a web browser.
Deleted items are dumped automatically once they are 30 days old. You can empty trash if you go in via browser but there's really no point.
Yes, labels are "the new folders". They work the same way except an e-mail can only be in one folder but it can have any number of labels.
I would recommend that you start using the browser-based gmail on your PC for a little while. It's a little easier to undertsand that way and then it will make more sense on the phone.
ETA: Another thing people have trouble with is the "Archive" button which really means "Disappear from the Inbox." So if you want to "put a message into a folder" tag it with whatever labels you want and then archive it. Conveniently, if a new message appears in an archived conversation, it will automagically un-archive itself.

Thanks for your response... I'll take a look at the online desktop version of Gmail, try to familiarize myself with this new way of organizing email. Definitely not a fan so far...
on my G1 whenever I select a message and go to change the label my only option is Inbox (+ or -) whatever that means. And yeah I accidentally hit Archive on one message and accidentally reported another as spam... and there's no confirmation on anything so it does it all immediately, which is great if you know what the hell you're doing.
Push mail comes at a price I guess. Thinking my dumb*ass will stick with IMAP checking every 5 mins. Oh well.
F*cking lame system if you ask me.

yeah, i don't get it either. watched some coworkers use gmail and it didn't make any sense to me why they would change how email client works. but at least their calendar app behaves normally as far as i can tell.
i'll just stick to my pop3 email, although the pop email client on the g1 is total crap.

strangethingz said:
on my G1 whenever I select a message and go to change the label my only option is Inbox (+ or -) whatever that means.
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If you remove the Inbox label (it show + when it's removed) it's the same as archiving.
I think you can only add labels via the web interface, which is why you only see the inbox label.
F*cking lame system if you ask me.
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Once you start using it, the "old way" should start to drive you nuts.
@Ultraman: They changed it because that's pretty much what Google does for a living. They try to come up with a different (and hopefully better) way to do things.

Yeah the pop3/imap client isn't so great, but it looks a lot better than the Gmail interface in my opinion...
I notice a problem though with the pop3 client where it always displays messages as unread even if I've looked at them... for some reason I don't have this problem when I have the account setup as IMAP though.

I notice weird things happen... Where emails disappear from my inbox but I can see them when I view 'All Mail'. I check the label and it is set for Inbox and yet the message isn't listed on my G1 Inbox. I go online and sure enough it is listed in the Inbox online... so I have to view All Mail in the online version and select Move to Inbox (even though online it already appears to be in my Inbox) and then sometimes it shows back up on my G1 device.
Really loving that I have to continuously go online to reset emails... I love this new system... so much fun trying to hunt down emails. Wayyy better than folders. With folders everything was too predictable... drop an email in a folder and it stayed there... this new system is nice, keeps me on my toes

strangethingz said:
I notice weird things happen... Where emails disappear from my inbox but I can see them when I view 'All Mail'. I check the label and it is set for Inbox and yet the message isn't listed on my G1 Inbox. I go online and sure enough it is listed in the Inbox online... so I have to view All Mail in the online version and select Move to Inbox (even though online it already appears to be in my Inbox) and then sometimes it shows back up on my G1 device.
Really loving that I have to continuously go online to reset emails... I love this new system... so much fun trying to hunt down emails. Wayyy better than folders. With folders everything was too predictable... drop an email in a folder and it stayed there... this new system is nice, keeps me on my toes
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Click to collapse
Make sure your client isn't set to automatically delete email off your server after its fetched

hmm..yeah there might be a bit of understanding curve if you are new..
i been using gmail since early beta days and now i just cannot go back to those rigid folders used by yahoo etc..
i have so many labels and they are all intertwined..just cannot imagine living with the "old folder"
good luck with getting thru gmail

I know the labels seems confusing, but as one poster put it before -- When you put something in a folder, it's just in that folder, and nowhere else. Labels gives you the option of having things organized a little better.
For example, an email from my Dad telling me his new address can have the lables "DAD", "FAMILY" and "ADDRESS".
The labels come into play really well on the web interface, you can go to your labels on the left, click the label and get everything that has that label.
With the folder system, you have to chose ONE place for it. With the labels system you can tag an email with as many labels as it needs so when you need to find it, it's easy.
The labels come in really handy for sorting incoming email, I have a bunch of filters that do all kinds of things, for example -
Facebook Filter - I set this up to tag those Facebook notifications with a "FACEBOOK" label and then to mark them as read. I can see that I got them, but I don't have to worry about getting a notification on my phone about silly facebook stuff.
Work Filter - Anyone emailing from my theatre company automatically gets the label, so I can see all of the correspondence about the company very easily.
I love the threaded emails, makes it so much easier to follow the conversation. Not everyone's email is set up to respond with the text from the previous email, so this helps keep it all intact. I think it helps organize and keep the inbox looking tidy.
I would definitely play around with the PC version. The android version is limited, even the android-browser version is limited (but does have more features than the app). Once you get a handle on the PC version, the G1 version will make more sense. I don't know if they've fixed anything, but years ago I tried the IMAP way of checking my gmail in Outlook -- totally sucked, would pull everything, even deleted emails through. I just tested, and apparently this has changed, but it used to be the case that "deleted" emails weren't truly "deleted" they actually went to some other archive and you could bring them back if you wanted. They put a little notice or something letting you know it had been deleted and "do you want to recover the email?" sorta messaging.
Anyway, a lot of people like gmail a lot, but not everyone is going to like everything. Especially when it involves a new way of thinking. If you have Outlook 2007, they've done something very similar with lables - so gmail is definitely influencing and changing the way people think about email.

punkzanyj said:
If you have Outlook 2007, they've done something very similar with lables - so gmail is definitely influencing and changing the way people think about email.
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So true! Actually Outlook has had categories/labels for a long time but they were never well-implemented/supported until 2007. I actually use conversation view, categories and search folders now to mimic gmail in Outlook as best I can!

He,y guys, thanks for your input. I guess I wasn't aware of that in Outlook 2007. I've been using outlook based purely on folders and mail rules. Good to know.
I've been forcing myself to get comfortable with the new system. I find the less I mess with things, the better it works for me. Specifically I find if I remove the Inbox label from an email then later add it back on it doesn't always show up again in the Inbox... but it's probably something I'm doing wrong.
Aside from that one thing, the labels are working pretty well for me now. Like you mentioned I setup work, family, ecommerce, etc labels and I do like the way these labels show next to the message on the g1.
Slowly but surely becoming a believer... Thanks for helping me understand.

Question...
How do I delete an individual email message from a conversation? I tried to go into the conversation via the Gmail app, selected the message that i wanted to delete and deleted it, but it killed the whole conversation instead of the one individual email. What am I doing wrong? Thanks!

I don't think it can be done in the phone interface though you might be able to do it in the web interface.

Not a fan of the conversation threading for this very reason. Sometimes I get an important email with a few not so important replies... and I have to look through conversation thread to locate the important info when 90% is trash...
I wish i could have push Gmail with the old so-called *inferior* folder method that never had these silly issues. If you're going to re-invent the wheel, seems it would make sense to add functionality without taking away from the basics.
I'm going to re-invent a wheel that requires physical carrying until I can figure out how to get it to roll properly.. but it's gonna be way better than the old way because these new wheels have lights! ooh! Sorry for the sarcasm
Thanks for the reply!

In the web interface click the 'down arrow' next to "reply" on an individual email in the thread. Choose 'Delete this message'.
You can only delete a single mail from the thread in the web app - not the Android app it seems.
I've been using Gmail since the invite Betas too, and so the Android App is more of a supplement for me...

Okay, well it's good to know there is a way to do it. Thanks for the instructions on how to delete a specific message in a conversation! Much appreciated!

Sent Email Folders - list of sent emails - change view to show recipient names?

On my various sent email folders, the list of sent message headers shows my email name as sender. As I have a lot of my work emails on the device (synchronised via Exchange), having my email/name on each email, and not that of the person to whom I've sent it, makes it more time consuming to find the one I want to open.
Is there any way of changing the view (as one can in Outlook on a desk top PC via the 'customise current view' option) so that in my sent email folders the message list shows the recipient names?
The HD2 manual is silent on this, there are no obvious options when I click the menus, or from the pop-up optons I can get when I click and hold on the screen. Google searches are getting me nowhere.
Any ideas anyone please?

This is a known issue on all WM devices, there have been other threads in the past, but as far as I know, no solution.

Thanks sh500. I guess I'll have to live with it. Maybe WM7 will allow customosation of the mail folder view?

Gmail App and deleting from server

Does anyone use Gmail w/Sync that actually delete/marks as read from the server?
From what I can tell there is no option to set this up and it is quite frustrating as it makes the incoming message count incorrect...

krohnjw said:
Does anyone use Gmail w/Sync that actually delete/marks as read from the server?
From what I can tell there is no option to set this up and it is quite frustrating as it makes the incoming message count incorrect...
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Do you mean that if you mark a message as read or delete on the gmail web client it doesn't update the Gmail inbox on your N1?

the Gmail android client automaticly marks things as "read" once you open them. It will also delete from the server by default. If you long press on an item you'll get more options.
pretty much whatever you do on your phone will be reflected on your computer. As long as your phone has service.

If you're looking at both your inbox on your computer and your phone, you won't see the changes happen instantly. (I tried, lol) You gotta give a few minutes.

NexusMMM said:
Do you mean that if you mark a message as read or delete on the gmail web client it doesn't update the Gmail inbox on your N1?
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No, the other way around. Changes made on the phone are never reflected on the web client, e.g. marking a message read or deleting a message. Messages on the server will remain perpetually unread and in the inbox until I log in to the web client and delete/mark them read. In the meantime all new incoming message counts are wrong as a result (it will say 4 new messages when there is really only 1 new but the previous three are still unread on the server).
dills84 said:
the Gmail android client automaticly marks things as "read" once you open them. It will also delete from the server by default. If you long press on an item you'll get more options.
pretty much whatever you do on your phone will be reflected on your computer. As long as your phone has service.
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Click to collapse
This is the behavior I expect but is not what Polish occurring at all...the messages sever side remain untouched until I alter them (read, move, delete ) from the web client.

Ok, I did a factory reset as this doesn't appear to be the behavior experienced by others and the problem appears to have been resolved. It is now behaving as expected...odd that it wasn't before.

Phonebook

i love the Droid X, but freaking hate the phonebook. it truley is the worse contact list i've used. is there anyway to flash the stock android phonebook onto the phone?
if not, does anyone know how to limit what contacts are displayed? i dont want everyone ive ever emailed to show up in my contacts list. i've tried changing the displayed contacts to my phone contacts, or gmail contacts, but whenever i leave it for a bit it just resets and shows me hundreds of stupid emails.

I had a similar issue, have had my DX about 6 weeks and found some useful articles on the subject. I think (and only my recollection, could be wrong on this) what I ended up doing was un-syncing EVERYTHING in terms of email accounts and contacts (via My Accounts) and ended up ONLY syncing my gmail contacts.
This was done after finding a nifty Facebook Profile Pic sync to Gmail thing-uh-majig. If you sync contacts, preferrably you limit what you sync because as you said, it goes WAY overboard. It sounds like you sync'd corporate (work) email and contact which is a BIG no-no.

Once I started using roms all my contacts issues went away. Almost all the roms have the normal stock android contacts app. Some can even use WyContacts (the CM contacts app).
Edit: @DNak206, hey I'm from seattle too! My droid X is the one verizon gave away during their @droidlanding promotion thing in Seattle.

Yup dc seem to mic all the contacts but if you hate to look because everything seems mixed up ( facebook contact, phone contact and so on ) you can alway preds menu and select a display group.
The way I manage my contact is I have fixed and organize every thing on my gmail thnen I sync my droid.
The eay I use my contact is I dont go yo the contacts shortcut. I always go to the phone shortcut the select favorites since the droid is keeping a record of all of the contact that iI usually use and it has pwen put in order. I also use the defaul universal inbox to send email. I hit compost and start typing names and email and the droid gives a suggestion and I just select one from there.
Sent from my DROIDX

NICE! I have lived in Seattle awhile, I guess you could say I'm immune to the weather.
While we're on the topic of contacts though, has anyone noticed the default text messaging/SMS will populate ALL the phone numbers for contacts as opposed to identifying the "mobile" listed # for a contact?
For example, if I'm trying to send a text to Jon Smith. I'll compose new message, start typing "smi" in the :TO line and Jon will pop up in the selectable options (or scrollable rather?). The problem is, I have to swipe or scroll through his work, home, and then finally select his mobile number.
Maybe Windows had one thing over Android because neither my TP1 or TP2 would ever list a work or home # when composing a new text, it was actually smart enough to recognize the mobile # in terms of priority. Anyone else found a fix for this, maybe a text app (like handscent or whatever) will resolve?

Handcent or chompSMS might do the trick. When calling someone I know theres an option to remember the number you dialed, not sure about when texting..

If you always send msg or call john he will be under your favorites list. I always go thru the favoritw list and click the call icon on the side of the name to make a call or i click the name then clic the mail icon to send sms.
Sent from my DROIDX

live tile question

sorry guys if this is a question thats been asked a million times but search bar didnt actually bring anything up
My email tile does not update..i have 2 set for different bt internet accounts and the live tile never seems to tell me when mail has arrived. Infact when i go in and check my mail i can see that there is new mail in there but it actually looks like its been viewed already (not highlighted etc)
Is there some settings etc that i need to change or is there a way around it?
also i dont seem to get any notification tone when i get any notifications, do i need to enable it and where?
sorry for the stupid questions but just got the device and moved across from android

hpsauce37 said:
sorry guys if this is a question thats been asked a million times but search bar didnt actually bring anything up
My email tile does not update..i have 2 set for different bt internet accounts and the live tile never seems to tell me when mail has arrived. Infact when i go in and check my mail i can see that there is new mail in there but it actually looks like its been viewed already (not highlighted etc)
Is there some settings etc that i need to change or is there a way around it?
also i dont seem to get any notification tone when i get any notifications, do i need to enable it and where?
sorry for the stupid questions but just got the device and moved across from android
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Not that it matters, but what emails are you using? I have 4 emails and if I leave them as Live Tiles they will all update...especially after the initial setup.
First things I would do is....reboot the device...power off /on is good enough. Then check to see that you do have an update frequency set. While in mail, on the bottom right hand side of the screen, enter the menu, then settings, then account settings...make sure the frequency is set. Finally, for notification sounds, go into device settings. From the Home screen scroll right, then down to settings.....choose the sounds settings, scroll down. See if a sound is set for email. many times its set to none.
If this does not help, remove your email accounts, reboot and try again. I've never had my public emails fail in WP7. Corporate, yes sometimes....but never, Hotmail, gmail, yahoo.

thanks for the reply
the device is brand new (arrived today)
i have 2 personal email accounts set up both with bt internet.
i.e [email protected]
i have set the checks to be every 30mins on the accounts and have also set a notification tone now (thankyou) still however i never get any indication on the tile that there is mail.
The phone has the latest software as this was the first thing it did when i connected it to zune.
does it matter that i changed the name of the account? i.e how it is displayed on the tile? it first came up with 'btinternet 1' and btinternet 2 for the other....i just changed them to 'home' and 'darren'
i have also tried removing the battery and restarting the device several times but still same problem.
i wonder....do you think that the fact i have my iphone 4 receiving the mail also that this might have something to do with it? hmm..now i think about it i think it might....im going to try and stop the iphone from checking for mail and just leave my windows device doing it...see what happens then.

If you happen to check your email from any other device/PC/Mac other than the WP7 phone, then obviously you wont see any new mail notification. But if Windows Phone happens to sync before you read in other devices, then you will see it. Also see if your iPhone is set to mark as read when a message is pulled into it (not sure ..just a guess).
Does your DVP at least show all the new mails as read when you go into inbox?
Also try setting the sync to 'as items arrive' or 5 min and see if that makes a difference.

notebookgrail said:
If you happen to check your email from any other device/PC/Mac other than the WP7 phone, then obviously you wont see any new mail notification. But if Windows Phone happens to sync before you read in other devices, then you will see it. Also see if your iPhone is set to mark as read when a message is pulled into it (not sure ..just a guess).
Does your DVP at least show all the new mails as read when you go into inbox?
Also try setting the sync to 'as items arrive' or 5 min and see if that makes a difference.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the reply
yes the dvp does show my mail in the inbox and does show it as read allthough i havent actually read it on the device.
also, under the sync settings the minimum poll time is 15mins (how often it will check the server) dont see an 'as items arrive option' like push email etc.
quite frustrating really as this is a really basic function....i can kinda understand it with the 3rd party applications and other live tiles but not the 'basics'

hpsauce37 said:
thanks for the reply
yes the dvp does show my mail in the inbox and does show it as read allthough i havent actually read it on the device.
(
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This seems to indicate that some other Mobile Phone/PC (Outlook ?) is also configured to read the mail and its set to mark as read when downloaded. Or check your mail settings on the server (btinternet account) if such a option is enabled by default.