Don’t you hate having to go to a desktop to perform simple tasks that should be done from handheld devices like iPhones, iPads, etc… like adding new folders to your mailbox? Do you pull your hair out because marking emails as read doesn’t reflect on the mail server, meaning it is only marked as read on the phone but when you access your mail through a browser you will have to mark them as read AGAIN?

I am happy to announce you don’t have to suffer anymore, there is a way to perform a one time setup and you can spend the rest of your digital life living in heaven.

If you are like most users out there, you had your email client setup incorrectly. This post will specifically address how to CORRECTLY setup your Gmail account to support IMAP (a two way communication between the email client and server to allow changes to get reflected in both directions) as well as have your phone contact sync with Google contacts so you don’t lose all those precious contacts if your phone is stolen or you drop it and it shatters to pieces.

1. Enabling IMAP On Gmail

Before we can enable your iPhone to support IMAP, it has to be enabled on Gmail. This can be accomplished as follows:

1.1 Open Gmail Settings

Visit Gmail from your favorite web browser and click the settings button marked in with the red square in the figure below

1.2 Enable IMAP

Click the “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” tab (Red outline)
Select “Enable IMAP” under the section “IMAP Access:” (Blue Outline)

So now Gmail will support email clients (whether iPhone, Android, etc…) to communicate with IMAP. Now let’s setup the email client.

2. Setup your iPhone

2.1 Open the phone settings

2.2 Go to “Mail, Contact, Calendars”

2.3 Add Account

2.4 Select Gmail

2.5 Enter information

The fields are self explanatory but a typical setup will be as follows:

Name:        Joe SmithEmail:       joe.smith@gmail.com
Password:    Yourpassword
Description: Joe's Email

Now you should be good regarding your Mail, Calendars, and Notes. Let’s move on to synchronizing your contacts

3. Setup a CardDAV Account to sync contacts

3.1 Repeat steps 2.1 to 2.3

3.2 Select Other

3.3 Select “Add CardDAV Account” under Contacts

3.4 Enter information

You are all done, you now have your Gmail and google contacts correctly setup on your iPhone. The interesting aspect about the CardDav account is that it will not show up as additional account when accessing the mail app on your iPhone since it is not technically syncing your email, however, the contacts app will be able to access and update your contacts on the fly.

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