I am not really much of an email on the go kind of person, or a user who enters a lot of data at one go with my device. That’s because, I do not have a QWERTY keyboard and all those SIPs out there just don’t cut it for me to write long emails. That was until recently. I got hold of an iGo Stowaway Keyboardrecently and all that changed and now, I am not only crafting out draft posts on my Eten Glofiish X500 Pocket PC, I am also managing my emails from there. Which brings me to this guide: setting up an email account on Windows Mobile.

P.S. Before we continue, I just want to let you know that iGo has stopped development of their keyboard department which is really sad, considering how great they are. So if you want one, better grab one as soon as you can as stocks are limited. They’re currently going for going for $38.95 (at the time of this post) at Amazon.com, the lowest I have seen anywhere. For those of you worried about future support, all I can say is that your devices should be able to support this keyboard because most Pocket PC I know of have a built-in HID. The only drawback is that you MIGHT NOT be able to use the shortcuts. Still, for for $38.95, it’s a real steal.

Preparations

Now, let’s get to setting up that email. Before we begin, you will need some settings for your email which you can get from your email provider. These settings are similar as to the ones you used when you set up email on your desktop. If you can’t find such settings or have never set up email on the desktop, email your provider and ask them for it.

Anyways, for this guide, I will be showing you how to do it with Gmail, now that they support Windows Mobile fully. The settings for IMAP Gmail is as follows:

• Username: your gmail email address (e.g. username@gmail.com)
• Incoming Mail Server: imap.gmail.com:995
• Outgoing Mail Server: smtp.gmail.com:465
• Your incoming mail will require SSL authentication
• Your outgoing mail will also require authentication

So that’s all the settings you will need for IMAP Gmail. Let’s begin.

Step By Step

If you have not already done so, tap Messaging from Start > Programs.

Once in the program, tap Menu > Tools > New Account… Select Other as your email source and tap Next. Select Other (POP/IMAP) as your email provider and tap Next.

Enter your Gmail email address in full. Remove the tick that lets you get email settings from the internet.

In the User Information page, you can put anything you want in the Your Name field. Enter your gmail address in the username field and your password in the password field. You can tick Save password if you want to. Tap Next when completed.

Choose IMAP4 for your Account Type. In Name, choose any name that you want for this email. It could be My Gmail or Personal Gmail or something else to help you remember it easily. Just remember that once you choose a name, you will not be able to change it after you have completed setup so choose carefully.

In the next screen, you will have to type in the server information that you had gotten from your provider. In our case, it would be as the screenshot above. Leave the domain empty. Do not tap Next. Instead, tap on Options. This is where you do your advanced settings.

In the first one that ask how often you want to connect automatically and check messages, you can choose which one is suitable for you. You might be charged for downloads from your carrier, so choose careful.

I would also advice you to put a tick beside the Send/Receive when I click Send. This would send out your messages as soon as you click Send. Again, this might cost you more so choose accordingly. In the connection option, choose the connection which you will be using for this email. As I am planning to use this on WiFi, I selected The Internet. Once satisfied with your options, tap Next.

The first setting, how many days worth of messages you want to download is dependent on you. I prefer 3 so I shall leave it as that.Put a tick in the next 2 boxes such that both your incoming and outgoing mail mail requires authentication. Also tick the box for Use separate settings and tap on the Outgoing Settings button.

In the next screen, enter your username and password as you have done before. Your username is your full Gmail address. Tick ‘Save password’ if you so choose. Also, tick Require SSL for outgoing mail.

The next set of settings are also choices you have to make. If you selected HTML, then HTML messages will appear as such. Text Messages will appear as normal. However, if you choose Text Messages, then all messages will appear as text.

Choose how much email to download	And how much attachment as well

The download size limit is also something you can choose depending on your data connection. You could choose just to download headers or the first 2KB of each email or even the whole message if you want to. The same goes for attachment settings. The more or less you choose to download should depend on your data connection.

Once all done, tap Finish. A message box will come up asking if you would like to download mail for the new account. I say yes but you can also do it later.

Since I chose Yes, it will connect to Gmail and download all the folders and email messages according to my settings earlier. As this is the first download, it would take much longer than usual, so do set aside ample time for this. Once all emails have been download, you will see something like the screenshot above.

There you have it, how to setup your Gmail account on Windows Mobile.

Some Tips

- Sometimes, you can setup your email slightly faster by ticking the box to get email settings from the internet. While this might speed things up a little, there are times when the settings derived are wrong and you would still have to manually key in the settings. So if you use this options, make sure to double check the settings if you are encountering problems.

Main options page	Setting your signatures

- If you use signatures in your emails, tap Menu > Tools > Options. In the following screen, tap Signatures… where you can set signatures. You can set individual signatures for each email account but before you can edit the signature, you must tick Use signature with this account. Then you can enter the signature of your choice.

- Still in the Menu > Tools > Options page, choose the Message tab. Here, you can edit how your mails behave such as whether you want to include the body when replying to emails and keeping copies of sent items in the Sent folder.

- If you select the Storage tab, you have the option of storing attachments on storage card (highly recommended) so that your main memory does not get clogged up with it.

- If you are always on the go and your data connection is not unlimited, I would not recommend you download the whole message. Instead, just download the header or first 2KB. Then if it is an email that you need to read the full contents, you can download the rest of the messages. Sure this method is a bit troublesome because you have additional steps but it’s also faster because you can just skim through all your emails at one go. On top of that, it’s faster too because you are downloading less data.

- The same goes for attachments. My personal preference is to not download attachments. Instead, I do it on a case to case basis. You never know when someone going to send you a 5MB attachment and you will be stuck for some time downloading it.

- In the event that your mail does not download of you are unable to send any out, check your settings because that is the problem. See if you mistyped something or used the wrong options. Some examples include not ticking SSL requirement when needed (or the other way around) and using the wrong username. If you still encounter problems, check back with your provider and see if they have made a mistake somewhere.

Conclusion

So there you have it, a step by step guide on setting up your email on Windows Mobile. Hopefully you have found it useful. Feel free to leave your comments below.

Tags: guide