Gmail Account is Useless...Why?

[scrapser]

Recently I tried making Gmail my primary email because I was getting sick of Yahoo losing its link to my phone (or whatever it's doing). I created the mandatory Gmail account when I bought my Bionic last September. In order to get rid of the Yahoo account the phone said I had to reset to factory defaults. After doing this and signing in to my Gmail account I ended up with a slightly different email address and 590 emails that are not mine!

The email address was spelled the same but had a dot (.) in-between two of the characters. No matter what I try I cannot get my email address to appear as it should when I add the account (spelled correctly). I took the phone to Verizon and they were just as helpless so they are getting me a new phone but I don't think that's going to make any difference. To me this makes Gmail absolutely useless for email and security.

I know we all need to create a Gmail account just to use a droid phone but I think this is ridiculous. Does anyone here know anything more about this problem? Apparently it has been around for years. You'd think Google would have the resources to fix something so frustrating. When the time comes I think I'll try the new Outlook email from Microsoft.

Thanks

[jntdroid]

With Gmail, the dot is meaningless. For example, if I send an email to johndough@gmail.com, john.dough@gmail.com, jo.hndough@gmail.com, etc. - they'll all go to the same place. It actually adds a bit of security b/c you can create a custom filter based on a particular format. For example, say I use john.dough@gmail.com as my main email, but use jo.hndough@gmail.com for newsletters. If I start getting spam via jo.hndough@gmail.com, #1 I'll know where it's coming from, and #2 I can create a filter for emails going through jo.hndough@gmail.com specifically.

In your situation, my guess is that somehow the account was setup with the dot in the first place, and therefore defaults to showing that as the official email for account settings.

The other thing to know is that you don't have to have a gmail account - you simply have to have a Google account, and you can sign up for a Google account with any email address.

And the new Outlook is pretty nice! I think any hotmail/live.com address can use the format, though - you don't have to sign up for an outlook.com address.

[scrapser]

With Gmail, the dot is meaningless. For example, if I send an email to johndough@gmail.com, john.dough@gmail.com, jo.hndough@gmail.com, etc. - they'll all go to the same place. It actually adds a bit of security b/c you can create a custom filter based on a particular format. For example, say I use john.dough@gmail.com as my main email, but use jo.hndough@gmail.com for newsletters. If I start getting spam via jo.hndough@gmail.com, #1 I'll know where it's coming from, and #2 I can create a filter for emails going through jo.hndough@gmail.com specifically.

In your situation, my guess is that somehow the account was setup with the dot in the first place, and therefore defaults to showing that as the official email for account settings.

The other thing to know is that you don't have to have a gmail account - you simply have to have a Google account, and you can sign up for a Google account with any email address.

And the new Outlook is pretty nice! I think any hotmail/live.com address can use the format, though - you don't have to sign up for an outlook.com address.

The original email address was set up by me and I did not put any dots in the address portion. Plus, where are all those 590 emails coming from? But it doesn't matter now as I went to the Google Accounts website and deleted the entire account...forever. With all those emails showing up I simply could not trust it.

By having a Google account with some other email address would the phone still be able to connect to the app store? Maybe I don't understand what you're saying here. I just went to the "Create Google Account" web page and it auto fills "@gmail.com" where you enter the address. There's no way not to have that happen. But if what you say is true, I wish this information was made available to me when I first bought the phone. There is so much crap built into the whole dumb-phone industry...99% of which is there just to get you to give someone else your money (and as much as possible at that). I hate that you have to add all the useless apps you don't need just to get rid of the endless update prompts.

I too have my eye on the upcoming Outlook email service. Hopefully Microsoft will have learned a few lessons and make it clean.

[scrapser]

Thought I would add that Google does partially address this issue in a FAQ. They mention how the dot is not recognized and to think of the whole thing as like somebody calling you by mistake (wrong number). But they do not address the fact that once you get the alias assigned to your account, it is what you will see from that point on...forever. And they do not address that you will continue to receive emails from everyone who attempts to use a variation of your email address. The whole thing is inane.

[andro100]

you can use other email clients Emoze ,K9 etc..

[josh1980]

You just resurrected a thread that is more than 2 months old.