Moving to Android

So, after a few years with a Windows phone, after a short stay with Symbian preceded by a couple of years with an iPhone, I'm now going to try out an Android phone.

I've got a Moto X Pure (Style as it's known in Europe) on the way. Any tips or tricks to Android that I should be aware of? I'm a fairly typical phone user I suppose, but I do use e-mail on my phone a lot for work. Any suggested e-mail clients? I've heard Outlook is good, and might be more familiar to me as that's what I'm using now on my Windows 10 phone, but open to try out anything really.

I think this phone already has Android M available for it, is that something I should update to right away?

Anyways, I figured the friendly crowd here my have some useful info, so thanks in advance for anything you can share!

Outlook on other platforms is completely different to Windows, they bought in another app and rebranded it Outlook. It is supposed to be quite good though.

Like Andy said, Outlook on Android is an app they acquired (Acompli, I think?), but it's gotten good reviews. There are plenty of other mail clients, but I don't have experience with them as I've always been a GMail user.

Welcome to Android! It can be occasionally frustrating, but I like the platform. I'm trying to think of things I'd recommend, but given how personal these devices are, your use cases might be completely different than mine. I'm pretty deep in the Google ecosystem, so my most-used apps are usually Google apps - Calendar, Photos, Music, Maps, Drive, Hangouts, and Keep are all used daily on my phone. Here are the other apps I use:

Pocket Casts - for podcasts, and Doggcatcher is another good one

Feedly - for RSS feeds

LastPass - fantastic password manager that can fill out login info in webpages AND apps

Dropbox - I use it almost exclusively to back up my photos to my NAS, and Google Photos automatically backs them up to Google

Timely - a great alarm clock and timer app that can sync alarms across Android devices, but it was bought by Google a while back and hasn't been updated

ES File Explorer - IMO, it's the best file manager for Android

Wifi Analyzer - I use this all the time on the job to test signal strength from wireless APs and see where coverage needs to improve

Email Note to Self - all this does is bring up a new email with my own email address in the from and to fields, and the cursor in the subject line or body so I can quickly send myself an email reminder, which feeds into my inbox zero lifestyle


The first few of those apps are available cross-platform, but the last 3 or 4 are only on Android, as far as I'm aware, and some tie into capabilities that Android makes possible. WiFi Analyzer, for example, might seem like a minor app, but it's one of the things I use on a very regular basis that I can't find a comparable app for on iOS. Additionally, I believe that apps like Lastpass have more capability on Android than they do on other platforms.

A quick note on widgets:

The idea is nice, and some folks might make more use of widgets than I do, but I've never been wild about them. Most of them are pretty bad at managing how much space they take up versus the amount of information they provide.

I use the following widgets:

Direct dial and direct text a contact: puts an icon on my home screen to call one person, or an icon to text one person, and I gather these all into one folder that holds all my most frequently dialed people (pretty much just family members)

Google Keep: this one isn't that necessary, but it puts all my notes on the screen for easy and direct access, really only saving one screen tap.

Chrome Bookmark: just a link to a site. I was using this for the Wells Fargo mobile site until they finally put their app on the Nexus 5X. I still use it for Facebook because the Facebook app is a resource hog.

InControl scene shortcuts: this won't be any help to you, but I have 10 small widgets on their own screen to initiate lighting scenes on my home automation system.

Matt,

I've moved from iPhone to Android too, now two weeks ago. I bought an One Plus X. I quite like the phone, even though it's only a mid-range phone. But it's all I need really. I've set it up a bit like my iPhone (hey, I'm getting older and find I'm sticking to my habits ), even got a lock screen that resembles the iPhone, with notifications on it. Standard Android didn't have that and I found I missed it. "Echo lockscreen" is a perfect app that fixes that though. But that's not what I wanted to ask.

I've got one niggle with the standard Gmail app. I use it read my 3 Gmail addresses. This works perfectly. There's just one thing: I read my emails from my desktop using Thunderbird or simply by using the Webmail application. I also use my iPad. And before also my iPhone, now my Android phone. Now, before, when I read an email on either of these devices, the email got marked as read on all other devices too (as it should). Somehow, this doesn't work for my Android phone. When I read an email on the phone, it gets marked as read on the phone, but it's still "marked as unread" in Thunderbird, the webmail app and the iPad. This is not a huge problem, but it's annoying nonetheless.

Does this sound familiar to you, and would you happen to know about a fix for this? To me, this sounds like a simple setting, but I cannot figure out which one. A Google search comes up with some results, but no concrete solutions and most thread about this item seems to be more than 5 years old.

Sorry for hijacking this thread, but I figure the question is on topic too.

Thanks!

My first guess about your unread mail issue is maybe your new phone's mail client isn't set up to use IMAP to access the mail server. For instance maybe it's set up as POP3 or something.

Cool, thanks for the app tips! I currently use LastPass so that'll be on my list.

As for the widgets, I hopefully can find some that are useful. I fear that's the one thing I'm going to miss from Windows is the at a glance information I can get from the live tiles.

One thing none of my "android" friends can confirm for me is something I make use of a lot currently. For my work e-mail I have multiple subfolders setup (hosted by my work's exchange server). I have a few of these subfolders pined to my home screen so I can very quickly see this there's mail there. Otherwise the main icon on the screen won't let me know that I've received any mail. Does that make sense? Is this possible?

Thanks Tony. This was my guess too, but I can't find where this can be set. In any case, in gmail itself, both imap and pop3 are active (I need pop3 too because I use it to pull the contents of two of those accounts to the first one - this was never a problem in the past with my iPhone).

I'll admit, those live tiles are nice. There are certainly widgets that will accomplish some of the same things, but it's not going to be as cohesive. It's more customizable, but finding just the right tool might be trickier.


I'm sorry to say that I'm another Android friend who doesn't know if that will work. It really depends on how MS has written the available widgets for the Outlook app, which is probably what you'll be using for your Exchange account.

Each app is responsible for its own widgets, which get installed/uninstalled with the app. If they haven't created a widget like that, then maybe another email handling app has done so. You'll need to find one that supports Exchange.


I'll be honest, I'm not sure what to make of that setup. I don't know how that even works. On the phone's side, it's not really possible to have messages from a POP3 account brought into an IMAP account. I might not be understanding your setup, though.

To recap, all three accounts you're checking on your phone are GMail accounts, correct? I assume that you have a primary account, which is the one that your phone is using across the various Google services you're using. If all 3 of your accounts are GMail accounts, and you want to have your 2 secondary accounts send their emails to your primary account, this would normally be done within GMail on the web, by forwarding the email from each of those two accounts to your primary account. Then you'd simply have a single inbox on all your devices.

If you want separate inboxes for each account, then there shouldn't be any kind of bringing email from those two accounts into the primary, so I'm just confused again.

I think I need to understand your goals a little better.

My most recent experience on Android was with a Samsung Galaxy S4, and my biggest recommendation is to immediately root the thing and figure out how to rip out all the useless crap that comes pre-installed on the phone.

Once I jettisoned the voluminous pile o' lameness that came with it, it turned out to be a decent phone.

I guess I'll find out soon! I'll try to replicate that as best I can. If I figure out a way I'll post it here.

That's one reason I went with the Moto X Pure. It's almost stock Android, with what are supposedly just a few, well reviewed changes.

"Nine" for an Exchange client is my pick. Actively developed and new features are being added all the time. Costs $10 though but you can try for 14 days for free.

For a regular Google account the normal GMail app works just fine for me too.

Lots of other apps though:

Dropbox I concur. Great for photo backup amongst other things.

I like Google Keep for simple notes and reminders (along with location based alerts)

Tasker allows lots of control of things based on events or states of the phone allowing customisation in a lot of detail.

PassWallet allows the use of Apple passbook .pbk files for boarding passes etc.

JuiceSSH for an SSH client.

RealCalc for a good scientific calculator.

Most of these I use paid versions. For that matter Google Rewards gives you free credit for some survey answers (you don't have to always answer correctly )

Ok, I can understand why my setup may be confusing. This is the case:
I have 3 Gmail accounts. The main account is actually my domain account, which is coupled to Gmail, so it's essentially a Gmail account as well. The other two are "true" Gmail accounts. (@gmail.com)

I import the mail from the two @gmail.com accounts into my main domain account, in a specific subfolder. I do this to be able to see all my incoming mail in ONE account. Why? Because at work I can only log into my mail via webmail. By using the browser, I can only log into one Gmail account at a time. By logging into my main account and having it import the mail of both @gmail.com accouts, I have a nice overview of ALL my new mail, on one screen. (my webmail screen is always open at work)

For the import I use the "check mail from other accounts using POP3" option that is built into Gmail. It's for this reason I have POP3 enabled on the @gmail.com accounts. If I wouldn't need the import of the mail into the main account, I would disable POP3 entirely and only use IMAP (now they are both enabled).

Now, this is my setup. With my iPhone, I only needed to also configure my main account, because the mail of the other accounts would also automatically show up (imported). This was very handy. (I would also have configured the other two @gmail accounts if I would have liked, but I found the email client of iOS not very handy to deal with multiple email accounts - so I only used the main account) When I read a mail on my iPhone from my main account, it was always "marked as read" (of course) This also immediately showed up like so on my computer's webmail, Thunderbird, etc. (like it should be)

Now, with Android, and its much better Gmail integration, I saw the opportunity to not only configure only the main email account, but also both @gmail accounts. (the Android client is better at this than iOS's email client is). Another reason: Android also allows for push mail with Gmail (which the iPhone client did not, not anymore anyway), so I figured I'd configure all three accounts this time.

This works very well, EXCEPT for the fact that mail read on my Android phone does NOT show up as "read" on my desktop's Thunderbird or the webmail app. It's like the Android app doesn't tell the mail server the mail was read.

I cannot find any setting to configure this. I'm sure my sync settings are on (all the rest works fine, calendar synching etc...)

Does this make it more clear to you?
Hmmm...I just got to thinking that my setup with the imported mail isn't all that important in this case. I'm pretty sure the problem would be the same if this would just be a plain vanilla Gmail account. I was going to edit this reply, but then just figured I'd leave it be for completeness...

Anyway: do you recognise this problem? Maybe know a solution for it?

Thanks!

Does the problem go away if you remove the other two Gmail accounts from your Andriod phone configuration and only have it accessing the 'main' Gmail account?

That's the reason I never recommend Samsung phones. I can't stand TouchWiz, it's just the worst.

Fortunately the two phones discussed in this thread so far (the Moto X and the OnePlus) won't have that issue. For the most part they're pretty close to stock, especially the Moto.

I'm still a little confused, but let me try to address some things:

When you say "The main account is actually my domain account, which is coupled to Gmail," what does that mean? Does that mean it's a Google Apps account? Or are you just set up on your web host to forward emails to a domain you own to a GMail account? For example, you own archeon.com, and have set up [email protected] to forward to [email protected]. You may never use [email protected], instead sending and receiving from GMail as [email protected] and just using GMail for mail handling. Naturally, the best way to do such a thing would be to pay $50 a year for Google Apps and truly integrate your domain with GMail through MX and SRV records, but then it isn't free.

Am I close on this part?

The other part is about using GMail account A to check GMail accounts B and C through POP. Naturally, this will work, but probably isn't ideal. Regardless, it would be helpful to know how this part is set up in order to fix your issue. When GMail account A checks B and C, are you telling it to leave a copy when it retrieves the mail?

If I were in your situation, I would log into all three accounts in my browser separately and then switch between them in one tab, or open one tab for each inbox. That would keep the accounts separate.

On Android, I think you want to handle things very differently than you are now. First, K447's suggestion would be the one I'd jump to immediately. From the description of your setup, it sounds like account A is already getting emails from B and C, but you've also set up your phone to get emails directly from accounts B and C. If those connections are POP, then it makes sense that your read status isn't synced because that's impossible with POP.

But this still leaves me confused, because it sounds like you should be seeing double emails on your phone. Account A would get emails from accounts B and C, and accounts B and C are pulling email to the phone separately.

One more thought:

One source of confusion might be the idea that accounts B and C need to be setup through POP or IMAP at all. They don't, and should be set up as Google accounts. You go to Settings > Accounts > Add Account > Google (not "Personal (IMAP)" for example). Enter your gmail address for account B or C and the password and you're set.

Now when you go into the GMail app, swipe from the left and at the top you switch to the new account. After that, you'll have an option for "All Inboxes" that will display a unified inbox.

You can also create GMail widgets on your home screen that will take you to a specific account's inbox or any other label.

This process would, however, require that you stop checking B and C via POP from account A. You'll be seeing double, otherwise.

*edit*
Of course, before following the instructions above, you'd want to remove the old entries for accounts B and C.

Does this widget app look like it will accomplish what you want?

I just got the phone tonight. It's updating to Marshmallow now so once that's done and I get things sorted out I'll try it out and report back. I'm going to install Outlook first and see how that goes.

Thanks and Happy New Year!

Congrats and Happy New Year to you too! And everyone!

My number one advice is to UNLOCK THE BOOTLOADER if possible. Do this NOW, before you customize anything, because unlocking it will ERASE the phone back to factory state (more or less).

Unlocking the bootloader is usually a requirement before a phone can be "rooted", which is something you WILL want to do eventually, so best to unlock it now. On a Google Nexus or OnePlus phone, this is as simple as typing "fastboot oem unlock" on a connected PC.

The downside of unlocking, is that it makes it easier for a thief (eg. USA border guard) to access the contents of the phone. You decide.

"rooting" an Android phone sounds scary, but all it really means is "installing a sudo command (app)". This is just like on (eg. Unbuntu) Linux PCs, where one is frequently typing "sudo" in front of privileged commands to run them as root. Except the Android equivalent is a lot more convenient.

I got that widget, but it apparently only supports actual gmail accounts. My work account doesn't appear in the widget.

This is really something I'm going to have to work on. I get way to many e-mails a day and ready access and at a glance info is critical to me. I'm sure there's a solution I just need to find it!

Hmm, this is something I might consider, but what are the benefits? I haven't really done much with the phone yet besides just load a few apps.

The only benefit of unlocking the bootloader, is that the phone can then be rooted at will without any repercussions. The bootloader can also be re-locked at will, though that kinda defeats the purpose.

Benefits of rooting? Well, this gives the ability to customize things beyond what the maker (and google) might normally permit.

Eg. Better Ad-Blocking. UI customizations. Titanium Backup (the best backup/restore app on Android), etc..

Note that rooting can prevent some applications working. In Australia the sole cable TV provider's application for watching live TV using your home subscription will not work on a jailbroken iPhone or a rooted Android phone/tab.

There are Xposed plugins to defeat stuff like that, dunno if they work or not.

But such restrictions are incredibly rare right now. Google Wallet payments in the USA is another, I believe.

Does rooting also allow any app you run su privileges ? Or are you prompted when an app wants to run something as root ?

That's the way it works. The prompt allows DENY, PERMIT-ONCE, PERMIT-ALWAYS, and has various controls/menus for tweeking things.

I tried that just now, and that indeed seems to have fixed it. Very strange!!

I'm now using my phone exactly the way I used my iPhone: one main account, which in the background imports the mail from the other gmail accounts and puts that mail in subfolders. This works for me of course, 'cause it has worked for 5 years like that before on the iPhone. But I do think it's a pity I cannot enter the other accounts directly, since that would have allowed me push mail on the other accounts as well. No biggie, but this seems like a bug to me.

Yes. It's my own domain coupled with Google Apps. This essentially makes it a Gmail account, it's just got a different domain extension.
So take eg. my domain would be "mysite.be", then my main email account would be "[email protected]". This site is indeed integrated with Gmail through it's MX records.



This may now cost $50/year, but I did this years ago, when it was free, and for me it still is. I just need to pay my registrar €12/year for the registration of my site, that's it. I also don't use this domain extension for anything else than email. There's no site that goes with it eg.


Yes.


Well, the problem has been pinpointed (but not fixed) as you probably have read in the post above this one, but as said, I don't think this "creative way" of pulling emails from other accounts into one has got anything to do with the problem itself. I'm currently back to again just using the mail email account, containing the imports of the other accounts, and in that configuration, everything works peachy. Of course, now I don't have push email on the imported accounts anymore. As said, this is no biggie since I've worked like this for years on my iPhone, but I do think it's a shame that Android seems to mess up in this "mark as read" department when more than one Gmail account is set up on the same phone.

But to explain a bit more: Take eg. A is my main account (mysite.be), B and C are Gmail accounts. In the account setup of B and C, I have both IMAP and POP3 enabled. POP3 because I need it for the import function.
I then setup account A to import the mail of accounts B and C via POP3. Account labels the imported emails from B and C correctly and puts them in their own subfolder. The original mail also stays on the account B and C. (or leaves a copy like you say)

Well, this exactly is the crux that got me into thinking up this alternative way of checking more than one email account in ONE account : what you say seems logical, but it's impossible. It seems you can only have ONE email account open at the same time in one specific browser. You can circumvent this a bit by installing multiple browsers and opening up one account in Firefox, one in Chrome and one in IE eg, but at work I don't have the admin rights needed to install extra stuff.


Correct, but I wasn't saying this about the subfolders with the imported POP3 emails of account A. I was talking about the true inboxes of all three accounts, which (I would think) are configured as IMAP.

Yes, this is true. But since I don't use one big inbox but rather read every imbox from each account separately (basically hopping from account to account, very easy to do in Gmail), this not an issue. Also, as said, the imported emails are stored in specific subfolders of account A, which I specifically have to tap to read. Again: no problem, because I don't see the imported email if I don't specifically tap on them.

I suppose one needs to do this from a Linux PC Mark? Or can this be done from Windows as well?



I'm pretty happy with the functionality of the phone as-is, but if I had the choice, I would like to install Cyanogenmod on it. I'm guessing I need to root the phone before I can do that?

Also, this Titanium backup app, would this allow me to make a complete backup of the phone, and completely install everything back and make the phone usuable again should anything should go wrong at some point? This is about the only thing I still miss in Android compared to my iPhone: I used to make backups on a weekly basis, and if anything went wrong, I formatted the phone, put the backup back and voila, everything was back the way it was. Can Titanium do this as well?

You can unlock the bootloader from Windows, you just need to install the Android dev kit.

http://nexus5.wonderhowto.com/how-to/unl...rience-0149956/

It is easiest when done from a Linux box, because Linux requires no special drivers to talk to a phone. Windows DOES often require special drivers for this to work. But lots of people manage it, so it can't be too bad of an ordeal.



No, installing a sudo (aka. "root") app is not needed to do that. But unlocking the bootloader is required if you want to install any system software (eg. Cyanogenmod) that isn't signed by Google as an update for the original system.

Android phones have two bootable partitions in flash: the primary "boot" partition is for the main operating system, and the "recovery" partition provides a stripped down mini-system for installing updates or wiping the phone back to factory status.

After unlocking the bootloader, install a TeamWin Recovery Partition image ("TWRP") to replace the limited functionality of the stock recovery image. TWRP can then be used to create an exact/complete "nandroid" backup of the phone. It can also be used to install other distributions (aka. "ROMs") in place of the original ROM.

Titanium Backup can do similar (but not quite the same) backups, but is more useful at the "app" level, where it can maintain multiple generations of app updates/data, and allow reverting back to older/newer copies at will.

Perhaps the very best thing to do with an unlocked bootloader, is to install MultiROM, which is basically a special second stage bootloader that prompts with a list of installed ROMs to boot from. I use this here to clone my primary system before installing newer updates. If the updates mess anything up, I can just reboot back in the original unmodified copy instead. Or switch back and forth at boot time between different ROMs (eg. stock versus Cyanogenmod versus better versions of cyanogenmod).

Cheers

Here's a good article illustrating some of the empowerment that comes from an unlocked bootloader with TWRP then installed:

http://android.wonderhowto.com/how-to/ul...r-need-0156006/

For MS-Windows users, there are numerous .EXE files available that simplify the drivers/tools/unlocking/TWRP/root process. It can get somewhat complex on MS-Win, thus those ever so "helpful" .EXEs.

The problem is, one doesn't know what is inside those binary .EXE files, or what else they just happen to install on both the PC and the phone while doing the biz.

From a Linux system, or even just a LiveUSB stick, one can see the entire process in action, and realize that it is much simpler than people may lead one to believe.

First, install the Android "fastboot" command on the Linux box. Just typing it at the prompt on a Linux Mint (or Ubuntu) system should give back the command to install it if not already present. You'll also need to locate/download a suitable TWRP image file for your specific phone.

Connect the phone to the Linux box with a USB cable.

Now, put the phone into "bootloader" mode. The exact method varies by brand/model, but usually is something like: power off the phone, then hold Vol-Up while pressing the Power button.

From the Linux box (as root):

fastboot devices ## See if it found your phone.
fastboot oem unlock ## Wipes the phone, unlocks the bootloader

After the phone resets/reboots, put it back into bootloader mode again, same as before. Then do this to flash the TWRP image, and boot directly into it for the first time.

fastboot flash recovery NAME_OF_TWRP_RECOVERY_IMAGE_FILE
fastboot boot NAME_OF_TWRP_RECOVERY_IMAGE_FILE

Enjoy.

Another useful thing to do, is enable "Developer" options on the Android device. This is normally done by going to the "Settings" app, then to "About Phone", and then repeatedly tapping on the "Build number" item until it says you are now a Developer.

The result of that, is a new "Developer Options" menu entry under Settings (one level up from "About Phone"). Go there, and enable "Advanced Reboot" and "Android Debugging". This will then allow you to get into TWRP more directly from the power-off confirmation dialog (press and hold power button, select Reboot, and observe the new menu that then appears).

The "Android Debugging" thing enables use of the "adb" command from a connected PC to manage the phone (upload/download files, issue commands, and generally poke around). The first time a particular PC is connected, the phone will pop up a security confirmation dialog to permit/deny access to the phone from that PC.

I cannot recall, but you may even find it necessary to do this step above before anything else can be done (eg. unlocking, flashing recovery, ..).

Cheers

This is very helpful info Mark, it sure doesn't look all that difficult, thanks!
I've got an old box here, I might as well put Mint on it. Or would this also work from a Windows system running Mint in Virtualbox?

I think it might be better standalone, mainly because USB device access is required, and I'm not sure how/if virtualbox might handle that.

But do remember, the "fastboot oem unlock" command WIPES THE PHONE back to factory state (but with an unlocked bootloader afterward).

So all apps/data/photos/contacts/SMSs/music vanish.

Virtualbox can handle passing through USB on Windows (and other platforms). But it can be a real pain to get working. Except when it just works first time, unexpectedly...

Thanks Mark! Also thanks for the warning about the phone getting wiped, but I'm not too worried about that. All my stuff like emails, photo's etc are stored in the cloud anyway. The rest is just a matter of re-installing the correct apps.

Note that not all Android devices have a "fastboot" compatible bootloader. The Nexus and OnePlus devices do have one, but some others require strange/non-standard tools to access the bootloader commands.

Yeah, I agree. That's my experience with it too, actually. So yes, it's probably better to do it from a native box. Or a Live distro.

The logic here, is that if somebody steals your phone, they cannot gain access to your stuff without knowing your lock code. If the bootloader is already unlocked, they can. So unlocking the bootloader wipes the phone to protect your stuff.

With a bit of luck, if you have Google Sync enabled for everything, the phone will automatically reinstall most of your apps and settings when you set it up from scratch again. The home screens and widgets will not be arranged correctly though.

Cheers

Nowhere above did I describe how to actually "root" the phone. That's all just unlocking the bootloader and installing TWRP.

Adding the "root" app (I highly recommend "SuperSU") is quite simple though. You'll have to download the .ZIP version of the app from the developer, rather than the Play Store (Android security won't allow it via normal Play Store). Then reboot into TWRP ("recovery") and "Install" the .ZIP from there. Done.

"Un-rooting" just means "uninstall the app (SuperSU)", best done from the in-app menu.

EDIT: By the way, I just checked here, and on my Linux box (Mint, but same for Ubuntu) the package required for fastboot can be installed thusly:

sudo apt-get install android-tools-fastboot

Same for adb:

sudo apt-get install android-tools-adb

Cheers

Ok, now that I'm clear on how you're configured, I can assure you that the problem your encountering has nothing to do with Android and entirely to do with the setup you've created. It'll work, but as you've seen you won't have push email with your current setup, the same as when you were on iOS.

The reason is simple: when account A fetches email from B and C and uses POP to do it, there's absolutely no way to change the read status of an email on those secondary accounts. When you added those accounts to your phone, you were no longer checking the same email, but rather two copies of the same email on different accounts.

The way I see it, you have three choices:

• Continue going as you're set up now, just like you were functioning when you had your iPhone, but understand that it's not an Android bug, it's a function of the way you've set things up.
• Eliminate the POP checks on account A and start using the three accounts as three distinct accounts, and add B and C to your Android phone as "Google" accounts like I mentioned above, not IMAP or POP. I have a tip about how to handle this on your PC below.
• Switch from fetch to forward. Wipe out the POP3 account checks on account A like in the first option, and go into accounts B and C and tell them to forward all mail to account A. This should immediately send incoming email to account A and not give you that delay you get with POP3 checking, which can only check so often. [side note: GMail tries to figure out the right POP account check frequency by analyzing how often you receive emails on those accounts - there's no real way for you to increase this]

It's not impossible, you just have to know the trick, and to not mind a couple extra clicks every morning when you open your browser. Here's how:

1- open account A in your browser.
2- click on your profile photo in the top-right corner of GMail.
3a- if you don't see your other accounts listed here, click "Add Account" and log into each of them.
3b- if you DO see your other accounts in here, Ctrl+click on them to open each one in a new tab (or right-click and choose to open in a new tab)

I just tried it and it works just fine for me.

Yes, I know that. That is exactly the reason why I added account B and B as separate email accounts on my Android phone. So that I would have actually 3 accounts, each capable of delivering push mail.

It's in that setup that the "mark as read" feature doesn't work anymore. On ANY of the 3 accounts. So as said before, my problem doesn't have anything to do with my "alternative" setup of account A. Because when I only use account A, it works fine. The problem pops up when I also add accounts B and C.

I still think that's a bug, because when I would remove the import feature of account A, it would still basically be the same setup (A, B and C) and the problem would still be there. (I can't imagine it would not be anyway).


I know. But importing those emails does not "mark them as read". Actually reading them should, that's the whole problem. (because it does NOT mark them, in my webinterface or Thunderbird (only on the Android phone itself) after being read.
Besides, the problem also occurs on the inbox of my main account (account A), which isn't imported anywhere. There's absolutely no reason why reading a mail from that account on the phone should only mark it as read on the phone itself, but not in the webinterface.


WOW! That is so cool! THANKS A LOT FOR THIS ONE!
This instantly solves my problem! THANKS!

I wasn't saying that importing the POP emails would mark them as read. I was saying that using POP at all does not communicate read status.

I'm still not convinced that when you had all three accounts set up, and checked the email in your sublables on account A, then went back to account A on your computer, the read status was not conveyed. That wouldn't happen. You're sure you weren't reading the email on account B, then seeing it still unread on your computer in account A? Because it doesn't matter how you add account B on your Android phone. There's no possible way for you to add it and make account A - on your phone or computer - reflect the read status.

Anyway, I'm glad I could help

Ah, yes, I can see how you would think that, but the problem was never when reading the (imported) emails in the subfolders of account A. I know those cannot communicate back to the server. No, I'm indeed absolutely sure it happened with the actual inboxes of all three accounts, A, B and C.

But your solution fixed my problem, albeit in a different way. Thanks again!