Email Notifications

[Jeff5886]

I have my droid sync'd with my hotmail account. It works very well except it tells me like every 10 seconds (seriously) that I have new unread emails; and I dont. Is there a way to fix this, it is very annoying. Or is there an app that handles email better?

Thanks,
Jeff

 

[Steve H]

I don't have a fix but I do recommend switching from Hotmail to gmail. I have had my Droid for 1 1/2 months and it has worked perfectly with gmail.

 

[Jeff5886]

I don't have a fix but I do recommend switching from Hotmail to gmail. I have had my Droid for 1 1/2 months and it has worked perfectly with gmail.

Ive had the same hotmail account for about 10 years......theres gotta be a fix.

 

[Se7enLC]

gmail uses "push" notifications - meaning that the towers are telling the phone when you have new email. Every other app and email client uses "polling" - where it needs to check with a server to see if new messages are waiting. Since that requires action and data use on the part of the phone, you cannot be constantly checking, or your battery would die. Most clients allow you to set a "polling frequency/interval". Google Voice, for example, allows you to set this as low as 5 minutes, but no lower.

A workaround would be to get a gmail account and set hotmail to forward a copy of all messages to it. You would get a notification for the messages right away, and you can just open up your other email client to read them. Not the best solution, but until they come up with a generalized push mechanism for arbitrary mobile data services, that's the best that can be done.

 

[famac!]

I have my droid sync'd with my hotmail account. It works very well except it tells me like every 10 seconds (seriously) that I have new unread emails; and I dont. Is there a way to fix this, it is very annoying. Or is there an app that handles email better?

Thanks,
Jeff

POP3 sucks on our phones. Check the sig and star the issue.

 

[640k]

I have my droid sync'd with my hotmail account. It works very well except it tells me like every 10 seconds (seriously) that I have new unread emails; and I dont. Is there a way to fix this, it is very annoying. Or is there an app that handles email better?

Thanks,
Jeff

the default email client regards every message that it downloads as an unread message until you've read the message. the problem with this action is that it doesn't donwload your entire mailbox upon connection. so if you delete a message, an older message appears as unread.

the best way to resolve this issue is to stop using the default email client and use a third party app, or have gmail check your hotmail account through POP3.

 

[Mr Steve]

the best way to resolve this issue is to stop using the default email client and use a third party app, or have gmail check your hotmail account through POP3.

Gmail (PC based version) doesn't pull from the POP accounts on a user configurable (or even standard) schedule. I've got one Gmail account that pulls from two different POP accounts. One was last checked 59 minutes ago, the other 32 minutes ago. Since there's no time sensitive emails in either of those accounts it's not a problem for me. And the spam filtering is an extra bonus.

It may be for others, though.

 

[640k]

the best way to resolve this issue is to stop using the default email client and use a third party app, or have gmail check your hotmail account through POP3.

Gmail (PC based version) doesn't pull from the POP accounts on a user configurable (or even standard) schedule. I've got one Gmail account that pulls from two different POP accounts. One was last checked 59 minutes ago, the other 32 minutes ago. Since there's no time sensitive emails in either of those accounts it's not a problem for me. And the spam filtering is an extra bonus.

It may be for others, though.

while this is true, i've been using my other POP3 acconts souly as an archive type thing. most of my email communications have switched to primarily gmail.

for people that this is not an option for and/or they need their emails faster, they can use a 3rd party app, or try having their email source forward the emails to gmail, instead of relying on gmail to check the mail. you can still setup your gmail account to reply this way.

 

[Mr Steve]

Agreed.

I just didn't want someone to assume that since it was Gmail (which pushes instantly to the phone) that it would automagically be pulling from the POP accounts as quickly as it pushes.

Like you, that account is mostly archival. While I have my Droid sync with it I've turned off notifications on that account. I just manually check it whenever the mood strikes. Might just be once a day.

Important emails are sent directly to my Gmail account with notifications turned on and received moments after they were sent.