Why do I need 2 email apps?

[modbuilder]

Newbie to smartphones and Droid here, so be kind. Wife and I each bought a Droid at the Verizon store and have been getting up to speed on what it does. The Verizon store set up our separate email accounts on our individual Droids. I'm getting mine via Gmail, and she's getting hers via the "email" app, not the Gmail app. Any reason not to remove the "email" apps, and just do everything by the Gmail apps? TIA...............R

 

[Backnblack]

Gmail should be using the App, I have 3 separate gmail accounts on my app.

Switch hers over then delete the account on the native app.

 

[natediddy1120]

Gmail app is only for Gmail accounts and the Email app is for other accounts like Yahoo and what not...you cannot remove either of these apps since they are default apps....unless you root your Droid and hack them to be able to remove default apps...

 

[R1Lover]

Gmail uses a native app, pop3 e-mail uses the normal email app. You need both if you use both.

 

[Backnblack]

Gmail app is only for Gmail accounts and the Email app is for other accounts like Yahoo and what not...you cannot remove either of these apps since they are default apps....unless you root your Droid and hack them to be able to remove default apps...

I do not believe the OP was looking to remove the actual apps, just the account on the one Droid.

 

[natediddy1120]

Gmail app is only for Gmail accounts and the Email app is for other accounts like Yahoo and what not...you cannot remove either of these apps since they are default apps....unless you root your Droid and hack them to be able to remove default apps...

I do not believe the OP was looking to remove the actual apps, just the account on the one Droid.

Oh yeah I guess so....I just seen where he said remove apps....and I figured thats what he meant. Like the other one is just sitting there taking up space and he wanted to see if he could get rid of it....but yeah he might've meant the accounts....

 

[jsh1120]

Does anyone know if having a gmail account is a requirement even if it is not used? In my case I've used gmail for years so I simply entered my usual gmail account for my Droid, but I'm under the impression that a gmail account is required. Is that true?

 

[KZIWarrior]

Does anyone know if having a gmail account is a requirement even if it is not used? In my case I've used gmail for years so I simply entered my usual gmail account for my Droid, but I'm under the impression that a gmail account is required. Is that true?

No it's not 'required' but users w/o a gmail will miss out on much of the 'cloud' experience. Thus that have used gmail for a while (and have paid attention to things like contacts and docs) will have a very quick (and relatively nice) setup as all their info is pulled right from the cloud. Others will have to setup contacts and such (I assume, I've used gmail since Beta days so....)

 

[modbuilder]

Man, what an active forum. FWIW, yes, I did actually think that I could remove the app that I call the email app. Now I've learned to just delete the account. I'm struggling to understand all this good info. For example, the wife and I both have POP3 email accounts with our local ISP, and we both have gmail accounts that were set up when we bought the phones.

Perhaps I need to reframe our problem. Our two phones have different behaviour when receiving email. I get a notification, pull down the notifications and select emails from the list. That opens a new screen with however many new emails have arrived. I can select any in the list and view them. However on my wifes phone, when you select emails from the notifications pull-down, I get a black screen with "inbox" at the top and a "Load more messages" hot spot.

In starting to troubleshoot the difference between the two Droids, I swear that mine is showing incoming email in the Gmail app and hers in the "email" app. Yet we both have POP3 email accounts with our ISP, and we both have newly set Gmail accounts that pull from the ISP.

Gotta tell you, this is whole phone-mobile 3G cloud thing is a different vocabulary and look/feel from MS Office on a laptop on a wifi network. Messages are now conversations. Stuff has to be "rooted". Sync'ing is a big deal, etc, etc. Thanks for your patience. I'm gonna keep plugging away on the forum, and sooner or later, it'll start falling in place. This forum is already helping a bunch. Thanks for your patience.

 

[bdbraaten]

You don't need both apps, but either way works.

I didn't like either the default email or Gmail apps, I switched using K9 email for both my pop3 email accounts as well as checking my Gmail via imap and have been a lot happier. The only headache was figuring out how to turn off the new message notification, its a setting under accounts and sync from the home screen instead of in the gmail program where I expected it to be.

 

[bdbraaten]

Deleted double post

 

[Hell Toupee]

Quote " Ive used Gmail since beta so..." Thats not saying alot since Gmail was in "beta" for 4 years and has only been out of beta for 6 months lol. But we all knew what you meant. Carry on.

 

[nerdbox08]

I will second the use of K9. Sometimes the native gmail app can hang on it's push, but I've run into no problem with K9.

You can actually have your pop 3 mail forwarded to gmail if you really wanted to get it all in the same place.

 

[bdbraaten]

There were two basic reasons I made the switch, one because of the email app and one from the Gmail app.

The default email app was constantly marking read emails as unread, haven't had this happen with K9

I couldn't find a way to control how often the Gmail app would check messages, this got annoying to some of my coworkers when my phone would go off. By configuring K9 to check it by imap I can control how often the phone checks and I am able to check the messages on my computer and read them so the alert on my phone almost never goes off when I'm on my computer.

 

[jsh1120]

Does anyone know if having a gmail account is a requirement even if it is not used? In my case I've used gmail for years so I simply entered my usual gmail account for my Droid, but I'm under the impression that a gmail account is required. Is that true?

No it's not 'required' but users w/o a gmail will miss out on much of the 'cloud' experience. Thus that have used gmail for a while (and have paid attention to things like contacts and docs) will have a very quick (and relatively nice) setup as all their info is pulled right from the cloud. Others will have to setup contacts and such (I assume, I've used gmail since Beta days so....)

Thanks. I've relied on my gmail account so much over the last few years it was a no brainer for me to link my Droid to that account. But I can understand that those who use other email services may find it somewhat confusing to set up a gmail account as the instructions for the phone encourage a new owner to do.