Sunday, January 28, 2007

Push GMail on T-Mobile Dash

Here's how to set up push email for GMail on the T-Mobile Dash:

  • Log into https://my.t-mobile.com and click "Set up my email". Set up your GMail account there and enable alerts for new mail.
  • On your Dash, open Messaging and add a new account. Use "Other (pop3/imap)" for the provider.
  • Follow the wizard. Use POP3, name the account GMail.
  • The pop3 server should be myemail.t-mobile.com; require SSL. Use the username specified on the my-tmobile email page (under settings / mailbox / pop settings) (probably [yourphonenumber]:1) and your gmail password.
  • Use smtp.gmail.com for the outgoing mail server. Require authentication, require SSL; specify alternate credentials as [username]@gmail.com and your gmail password.
  • On the Dash, Start / Set Up My E-Mail / Configure my E-Mail Triggers / Enable Automatic E-Mail Updates should be checked for the GMail account.

That should do it. There are two tricks: first is to use T-Mobile as the intermediary for incoming messages. They send a "silent SMS" which triggers the GMail account to send and receive. The second is to use GMail's own SMTP server so that outgoing messages get saved in your GMail account (T-Mobile's SMTP server doesn't push it back to GMail). No more polling through POP3, no more crappy Java applet, no more mobile web-based interface. Enjoy the bliss!

Edit: I should mention that there's an up to fifteen minute delay on the push. It looks like T-Mobile polls GMail over POP at about that interval and pushes updates to the Dash when they occur.

7 comments:

Travis said...

[Imported comment* originally authored by Umar Saleemi.] Cool...I 'rike' it!!!!

Travis said...

[Imported comment* originally authored by Garry.] yes FINALLLLLLLLY someone that can help me out....tried calling the tmobile support about this mess...but this guy GOT IT DOWN
haha
THANKS !!!!! like u said BLISS!!!

Travis said...

[Imported comment* originally authored by corey.] don't forget to enable pop access in your gmail account or else none of this will work.
instructions on enabling pop access in gmail:
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=13273Enjoy!
--corey

Travis said...

[Imported comment* originally authored by Larry.] Please help. When sending email on Dash, the mail just goes to outbox and only goes out after pressing Send-Recv. How can I set it up to go out directly when I hit send.

Travis said...

[Imported comment* originally authored by Travis.] Great question, Larry. Let me know if you find a solution; I have to manually send and receive, too. I haven't seen a setting; maybe there's a registry hack?

Travis said...

[Imported comment* originally authored by Flora.] I followed your instructions and they worked, but now whenever I send an email from my Dash it requires me to put in my password. How can I make it so that I don't have to use my password every time? If I don't require authentication for the outgoing server it says there is an error each time and won't send the message.
Does this happen to you?

Travis said...

[Imported comment* originally authored by Travis.] Hi Flora. In the mail settings, there's a checkbox to remember password. The screen is laid out: User, Password, Domain, Save Password.