Set Up Gmail The Right Way And Have New Mail Pushed To Your iPhone [iOS Tip]

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push-gmail-iphone

Apple makes it incredibly easy for you to set up a Gmail account on your iPhone — you simply hit the Gmail button when setting up a new account and enter your login details. But with just a little bit more effort, you can enjoy a much better Gmail experience — one that pushes new emails straight to your device as they come in.

Here’s how to set up Gmail the right way on your iPhone.

First, you need to begin setting up a new mail account, either through the Settings app, or directly within the Mail app if you haven’t set up an email account already.

Instead of selecting the Gmail option, however, you want to select Microsoft Exchange.

Now, in the ‘Email’ field, enter your full Gmail email address. Leave the ‘Domain’ field blank. Next to ‘Username’, you need to enter your email address again, including the “@gmail.com” portion. And next to ‘Password’, you need to put your password. In the ‘Description’ field, you can label your new account whatever you wish.

Now tap the ‘Next’ button in the top right-hand corner. If you get an “Unable To Verify Certificate” error, simply hit the cancel button and ignore it — it won’t stop you from connecting to your account.

A new field will pop up labeled ‘Server’. In this box, type “m.google.com” and then hit the ‘Next’ button again.

You can now choose to enable or disable mail, contacts, and calendar syncing with your Gmail account. I’m guessing you’ll want to keep the mail one on, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this tip, but you can disable the other two if you do not use them. Once you’re happy, simply hit the ‘Save’ button and your new account will be created.

You can now access your Gmail account using the Mail app, and new mail you receive will automatically be pushed to your device.

The first time you open Mail and it syncs with the server may be a little slow, because it’ll need to download all your emails, but everything should be pretty snappy after that.

If, after using your Gmail account for a day or so, you find new emails aren’t being pushed to your device, you may have push services disabled. To enable this, open up the Settings app on your iPhone and then tap the ‘Mail, Contacts, Calendars’ tab.

Beneath your mail accounts, you’ll find the ‘Fetch New Data’ options. Tap on this and ensure the ‘Push’ toggle is turned on.

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