Accessing GMail IMAP from Verizon's Mobile Email

Before I get into the real topic at hand, I'll give you the backstory about why I had to get a new phone. To skip to the gmail / mobile email portion, skip ahead 2 paragraphs to the bold "Mobile Email" heading.

About a year ago, my old phone (motorola E815) started having issues with the charging port, in that it would randomly reset every few seconds while charging so it wouldn't actually charge anything. I found a way around it, keeping the plug on a slight angle, etc, and was able to still have it charged every few days (as long as the battery would last me). Sometime this past March even that stopped working, so I went on ebay, bought an extended life battery for my phone, a new back cover for it, and a charger that would charge the battery itself rather than the phone. This worked out very well, aside from the minor inconvenience of switching batteries which I had to do every week or so (good battery life!).

Well, last Saturday (May 31), I woke up to an almost dead phone, after putting in a charged battery on Friday morning. I didn't know why it happened, but maybe it just didn't charge right or something, I just wrote it off as a fluke. So I charged my extended battery, and a couple hours later I put that in after it was ready. Sunday morning I woke up to a dead battery again, which I didn't realize until late afternoon Sunday because I had no reason to look at my phone. Charged the other battery, put it in, and woke up Monday to a totally dead phone. Did the same song and dance, but now the batteries didn't seem to last longer than 10-12 hours. Tuesday evening I had enough, so I went into Verizon for them to take a look at it. They said this happens with older batteries, I said I just got this battery in March, they said this could happen with older phones and maybe the circuitry fried or something. I don't know why it would work for a few hours instead of not-at-all (especially after lasting a week last week, but who knows). The only thing I've done at all lately was sign up for the Backup Assistant to run 30 seconds each night, which Verizon swears wouldn't run longer than that. Maybe they just sent a signal to my phone to stop working so I'd have to get a new phone/contract. So I sucked it up, rewewed my 2 year contract, and after looking at all sorts of options, and researching all my options at home, I went back and I got an LG enV2 (VX9100).


Mobile Email
My phone had the option of using Verizon's "Mobile Email" application for email, and since I have a fancy(ish) new phone I might as well use it, see how it works. As I think I've previously said, I use gmail to consolidate all my other email accounts, so I only have to check it via IMAP for a synchronized view of my email from any pc. Really great stuff.

Well, I opened the app, entered my gmail username/password to sign in, and got a "Invalid account details. Please try again" error. I looked online to make sure the app would work with IMAP, and everything said it would. Tried again, same error. Not sure why I thought it might work the second time, maybe it was out of disbelief.

I then found a post on howardforums.com from someone who shared the same error I got. What they discovered was when logging in, instead of using your @gmail.com address, use @googlemail.com instead and it will prompt you for the settings while logging in. It worked!!

To save you the trouble of looking on that page for instructions and then going to gmail's imap settings page, here is what you'll have to change on the setup screen:

Email Address:         
[e.mail@googlemail.com]

Password:              
********************   
[X]Save password       

Username:              
[e.mail@gmail.com]     -- Enter gmail address here
[ ]POP3                
[X]IMAP                -- Check this              

Incoming Mail Server:  
[imap.gmail.com]       -- Enter this server       
Incoming Port:         
[993]                  -- Enter this port         
[ ]None                
[X]SSL                 -- Check this              
[ ]TLS                 

Outgoing Mail Server:  
[smtp.gmail.com]       -- Enter this server       
Outgoing Port:         
[465]                  -- Enter this port         
[ ]None                
[X]SSL                 -- Check this              
[ ]TLS                 
[X]Requires Login      -- Should already be checked

While playing with it the past couple hours, seems WELL worth the $5/mo, if email is important to you. If you're unsure, try it for a month, you have little to lose :)

For those curious, this is what my phone looks like. Click the picture for the specs at phonescoop: