Short Nerd Chief

Update: the workaround is no longer necessary, as Google has fixed IMAP for WM users.

I recently complained that Gmail’s IMAP implementation is broken in Windows Mobile (original rant and renewed complaint).  This is true if you are using the default messaging application, and appears to be true in WM5 and WM6.  However, if you pay $30 to WebIS for FlexMail 2007, it works.  There was some suggestion in the WebIS forum post about the upcoming FM 4 beta that FM didn’t work either, but I tried the current version just to be sure.  Compare the default messaging application to FlexMail:

vs.

It’s not a great solution - you shouldn’t have to pay $29.95 for basic messaging functionality - but it works.  It also means I now blame both MS and Google for the mess that is IMAP on WM5.

If you do use FM here’s a couple of tips.  You can’t enable SSL in the default Gmail template.  Use the template, but before you synchronize, edit the Gmail settings (from the Folders tab, click Menu >> Settings >> Accounts…).  Under Incoming Server, make sure the port is set to 993 and check Use Secure Connection.  Click the Settings… button and check the SSL boxes under Protocol.  I also checked the TLS box, but I’m not sure that’s necessary.

A bigger problem is that you can’t edit the check mail settings until you can access the Server Folders options, and you can’t do that until FM has synchronized once.  Unfortunately, FM will default to downloading all of your Gmail (in my case, that’s 4,000 messages, which is still a lot of data even downloading only the first 5K of the message body).  So what I did was start the synchronization and canceled once it was receiving messages.   Now go back into account setup, and under Incoming Mail, click the Server Folders button.  Scroll down to Inbox and select Menu >> Download Details…  Change it from all mail to only new messages, or set it to only download messages from the last x days (I picked 7).  There may be an easier way to do this, but this is what worked for me.