Stinsonddog’s Guide to Gmail and Yahoo Email on
a Blackberry
Generally when you sign up for
Blackberry service, your carrier will provide you with Blackberry Internet
Service. The current version is 2.3 The
Blackberry email will look something like user@mycingular.blackberry.net. You don't want to give out this email addresses out
as if it becomes the target of spam they are hard to change. You have to call the carrier and set it
up all over. Read the info on 2.3
carefully. Only Yahoo is two way sync.
Gmail is also synching both ways but deletes from your Gmail account
take quite a while to show up on the BB.
If you need to prevent email sent from your Gmail account on your BB
from showing up on your BB again read these instructions.
Version 2.3 Information from May 2007
BIS v2.3 offers subscribers
several feature improvements:
Added Support for Yahoo! Mail and Gmail
Subscribers using a Yahoo!® Mail account will now have two-way
synchronization of deletes to and from the Yahoo! Mail inbox, as well as
two-way, virtual real-time synchronization of message status (read/unread).
That means that when subscribers delete a message from their Yahoo! mail
account, the message is also deleted on their BlackBerry (and vice-versa). And
when they read a Yahoo! mail message on their BlackBerry, the message is
immediately marked 'read' in their Yahoo! mail account. There's no need to
manage messages twice. Also, subscribers using a Gmail® account are no
longer required to enable POP (Post Office Protocol) before integrating their
Gmail account with their BlackBerry service. And subscribers now experience
virtual real-time (instead of poll-based) delivery of Gmail messages.
Delivery Receipts and Read Receipts
Subscribers will have the ability to know when an email message has been
successfully delivered and read to another user who is using BlackBerry. If the
Sender and Recipients have enabled this Delivery Status Notification,a "D" will appear over the sent message
checkmark in the message list of the Sender when the message has been
successfully delivered to all or some of the Recipients and an "R"
will appear over the sent message checkmark in the message list of the Sender
when the message has been successfully read by all or by some of the
Recipients. The Sender can open this sent message to view which Recipients have
received the message. Users can enable this feature in the Messages application
by selecting Options/Email Settings and changing the status of Delivery
Receipts to "Yes" and selecting Options/Email Settings and changing
the status of Confirm Read to "Yes". Message recipients will then
have the option to configure (Send Read Receipts) to: (a) always send read
confirmations, (b) never send read confirmations, or (c) always be prompted for
each message received. This feature requires BlackBerry Handheld Software v4.2
or higher.
Auto-forwarding
Subscribers can have a copy of email messages that are sent to their
mycingular.blackberry.net email address automatically forwarded to another
third-party Internet mail account. This feature is ideal when subscribers need
easy access to mail sent to their BlackBerry email address (which is only
viewable from the device) from a desktop browser as well. Auto-forwarding can
be set for all incoming messages, or just messages with attachments.
Easy-viewing slideshow format
With BlackBerry Internet Service, subscribers can view popular attachment
formats on the move, including JPEG, BMP, TIFF, RTF, Microsoft® Word, Excel
and PowerPoint®, Corel WordPerfect and Adobe PDF. And now, PowerPoint
presentations and PDFs can be viewed in a convenient slideshow format. This
feature enhancement requires BlackBerry Handheld Software v4.2 or higher.
Attachment uploading
Subscribers can attach files up to 3MB in size stored on their BlackBerry
(i.e., pictures saved to the saved to the expandable memory card) to email or
MMS messages.2 This BIS v2.3 service feature is only available on BlackBerry
Handheld Software v4.2
Voicemail attachment playback
Subscribers who get voicemail messages from work or home sent as email
attachments (mp3 and WAV) can listen to these messages virtually anywhere,
which makes it even easier to stay up-to-speed and responsive throughout the
day.3 File size supported up to 500 KB.
Expanded Language Support
Subscribers can use their BlackBerry in the language they're most comfortable
with. For the user interface, BlackBerry Internet Service now supports:
English, French, Italian, German, Greek, Spanish, Chinese (simplified), Chinese
(traditional), Czech, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese
(European), Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian and Turkish. And for email
transport, BlackBerry Internet Service supports: English, French, Italian,
German, Spanish, Afrikaans, Arabic, Catalan, Chinese (simplified), Chinese
(traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Japanese,
Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Portuguese (European), Russian, Swedish
and Turkish. Plus, language selection can now be made right from the log-in
screen, so subscribers can proceed with the set-up process in the language of
their choice.
Wireless Meeting Requests
Subscribers can now save even more time each day by sending, receiving,
accepting and declining wireless meeting requests between BlackBerrys.4
Requires BlackBerry Handheld Software version 4.1 or higher.
Wireless Address Book Attachments
Now, subscribers can open electronic contact attachments (vCard format) using
their BlackBerry. They can also add these contact details directly to their
BlackBerry Address Book and even attach an address from their BlackBerry
Address Book to any email they send.
Historical Information from August 2006
Version 2.1 allows push email
on both Gmail and Yahoo with most carriers. (Apparently Cingular doesn't allow Yahoo
push). The Rim
documentation on BIS 2.0 can be found here. From experience here is what is happens
on 2.1. You can reply to any email
account that you have configured with the correct "from" and
"reply to" address, but you can't change those to another address for
your reply email. See below for a
new utility. For new outgoing
emails, you can select any account you have configured, plus your user@mycingular.blackberry.net
address. If you select the
latter, your settings on the BIS control your "from" and "reply
to" address. ALSO, you
can no longer view your email on the web as was the case with BIS 1.8. This is a show stopper for some. That wouldn't be so bad if complete
folder sync were supported so read on.
For Gmail, Yahoo or an IMAP
account, copies of emails from the BB are stored in the sent folder. Deleted emails are moved to the trash
folder. Items sent from your web
based email account and deleted from there do NOT appear or get deleted on the BB. Read and unread marks are reconciled
from the BB to the email account but not the other way around. Thus, it’s a one way sync unlike BES which is a two way sync. No
other subfolder moves are supported.
Thus if you typically file messages on the BB and then choose to hide
filed messages, you are out of luck right now. All the BIS messages will remain on the
BB message list. Thus, get on a
corporate BES or hosted BES for the best experience of reconciliation of all
folder moves, read marks, deletes, sent mail plus calendar, to do and memo pad
reconciliation.
When RESPONDING to a message, BIS 2.1 also does not allow you to choose a "reply to" email address from
the BB that is different from the email address that you received the message
from. You can reply from any of the
email addresses you have set up with only
that email address. For a NEW message, under BIS 2.1, you can
pick any address you have set up. Crossriver Systems has provided a utility they are calling
Reply As New.
This utility adds a new menu option when viewing email in the native BB
mail program. The utility takes the current email message, and crafts a
"Reply Looking email" using the standard compose screen where you can
select any of your email accounts to use to send the mail. Both the "From" and
"Reply To" fields will be the email account you choose.
Download OTA here: http://www.crossriversystems.com/files/pf/pdrn.jad
Important Note for Yahoo Users
If you want to consolidate multiple email accounts and
reply to them all from the Blackberry should check out this very ingenious
solution here.
When BIS 2.0 was rolled out
here is the marketing material that users saw:
The
BlackBerry Internet E-mail upgrade will improve integration with your personal
email accounts by:
·
All Yahoo! Mail
accounts, including free accounts, are now supported. No need for Yahoo! POP3
access to get your Yahoo! Mail delivered.
·
E-mails to your Yahoo!
Mail account are "pushed" to the handheld in real time.
·
E-mails sent,
received, or deleted on your handheld will reflect changes at the original
email account – no need to manage the same e-mail account from two
different places. The new BIS
supports a Sent and Trash folder.
Other sub-folders are not supported. See this thread.
·
E-mails sent from
your handheld will show the correct "Sent From" e-mail address, even
with multiple e-mail accounts consolidated to the BlackBerry device.
·
All account
management functions like adding new e-mail accounts, managing filters and autosignatures, can be performed directly from your
BlackBerry handheld by clicking the Set Up Internet
E-mail icon.
·
There will be no
storage space limitation on e-mails sent to your BlackBerry Internet E-mail
mailbox, but those e-mails will be removed from the server after 30 days. You
will have full access to e-mail content including attachments for the 30 days,
regardless of the size of the files. After the 30 days, you will still have
access to e-mails that are on the handheld, but not to attachments. This change
ONLY affects e-mails sent to a blackberry.net address. Other e-mail services
vary in their storage and time limits.
·
The big limitation for some is that you can
no longer view your email on the web, so be careful before upgrading.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
THE FOLLOWING SECTION IS MAINTAINED FOR HISTORICAL
PURPOSES ONLY. THESE CONCERNS WERE
GENERALLY APPLICABLE FOR BIS 1.8 AND EARLIER VERSIONS.
When using a Gmail or Yahoo
account and the BIS, the main issues people are concerned with are:
1.
Forwarding vs.
Pop
2.
Changing reply
too addresses
3.
Keeping a copy of
sent mail
4.
Reconciling the
BB handheld email with the server email.
Forwarding vs. Pop
The BIS can poll your Pop
email accounts and grab the emails to forward them to the BB. The delay can be up to 15minutes so
people favor the forwarding method.
With the new BIS 2.0 emails are delivered more real time.
Changing The
Reply Too Addresses
BIS 1.8 - In order to change your reply to
address, you must use BBreply and you want to change your reply to
address. This is a utility written
for the BB handheld. Note that if you have a email
address in your BIS setting "reply to using" field it will OVER RIDE
your BBreply SETTINGS and always have use your BIS
“reply to,” so make sure you change your BIS settings. BBreply does NOT work with BIS 2.1.
The way to use it is:
1) Start to compose a reply to the message.
2) Once it is composed before you send it out
3) You click on the track wheel and choose set reply
to.
4) A window pops up and you select the address you want to use as the reply to.
5) After you select the e-mail you will be returned to the e-mail. Here if you
look at the top you will now see the reply to address in place.
6) Now you are ready to click on the wheel again and choose send.
Keeping A Copy of
Sent Mail
With BIS 2.1 this is not
longer an issue for Yahoo or Gmail.
For BIS 2.0 and earlier for Gmail, this was the tricky part since you
wanted a copy of the sent mail to go back to your Gmail account but not be
resent to you. To do this you need
to use filters with the settings as follows:
Gmail Filter Settings
These updated directions on how to integrate a Gmail account
with your BlackBerry come from kbart63. The
directions will allow you to get functionality similar to a Yahoo! BIS2 account
but without reconciliation. The
instructions are done on T-Mobile's BIS 2.0 but should work on all BIS 2.0
systems.
1- Logon to your service provider's website and select your internet email
setup section. Edit your BIS settings for your blackberry.net address. Enter
the name you would like this email folder to appear on your BB in the
"E-Mail Account:" field. Enter the name you want to appear when your
reply to messages. Enter your Gmail account name in the "Auto BCC:"
field. Enter the email address you would like to reply from on your BB in the
"Reply To:" field. Save your changes. The image below shows possible
configuration for a T-Mobile USA user.
2- Select the filter settings for your blackberry.net address. Verify there are
no filters defined.
3- Old Gmail filter and forwarding clean up. Logon to the Gmail account and
select "Settings". Select the "Forwarding and POP" menu to
make sure that BOTH forwarding AND POP are disabled. Select the
"Filters" menu and make sure there are no filters that forward to
your blackberry.net address.
4- Create a new Gmail filter. In the "From:" field type a dash and
then the email address you entered in the BIS reply-to field. Do not place a
space between the dash and your address. Select the "Next Step"
button. Select the "Forward it to:" dial and enter your
blackberry.net address in the corresponding field. Select the "Create
Filter" button. The image below is an example of a properly formatted
filter.
Note on using a different reply-to address.
The example images show someone using the same Gmail account as the reply-to
address. If you specify a different reply-to address you will need to forward
all mail from that account to the Gmail account.
Summary:
All messages sent to your Gmail address will be forwarded to your BlackBerry
via a Gmail filter. (Advanced users can customize the filter to allow granular
control on which messages reach the BlackBerry).
There is no auto-bcc feedback problem. The filter is simple to create and has
no dependencies on other filters.
Messages sent from your BlackBerry will be bcc'd to
your Gmail address and will be labeled as "Sent Mail" and
"Inbox".
Messages sent from your BlackBerry will have a reply-to address that matches
your Gmail address. This will allow you to have email conversations via your
Blackberry and will keep all your email messages on your Gmail account.
Old Gmail Filter Settings- These are being
maintained for historical purposes only
These settings should avoid
spam, keep a copy of sent mail, and avoid the problem Gmail halting forwarding
because of a BIS limitation.
Use the following filter to forward mail: Matches: To: youremail@yourprovider.com (e.g. Stinsonddog@comcast.net or Stinsonddog@gmail.com) Do this: Forward
to yourname
@mycingular.blackberry.net.
Use the following filter to save your sent mail written from your BB to copy
to your Gmail.
On the Blackberry Web Client, BCC:yourname@Gmail.com.
Since the forward filter only sends mail addressed to the "to" filed and not the bcc: you won't get your sent mail coming
back to your BB. However you won't
get mail sent to you as a cc or bcc either.
This is why the complete integration of Yahoo with the new BIS is better.
An alternative method used by some:
These instructions were provided by nomerac
at Blackberryforums and are discussed in a thread
there.
You can set a series of two
filters in GMail to take care of the auto-BCC
feedback problem. This is really tricky, so pay attention to all the
details:
- In BIS (Profile), set Auto BCC on and direct the messages to
your GMail account. The reply-to address for messages
sent from your BB should be your GMail account,
e.g. xxx@gmail.com (See
the note below in black if you want to change this.)
- In BIS (Options), create and set an Auto signature. Make a
note of the exact text that you use for this signature. Typically, it says
"Sent via Blackberry" etc.
- Create a Label in GMail named
"BLACKBERRY SENT" or another of your choice.
- In your GMail account, go to
Settings/Forwarding and POP. Set "Disable forwarding". Yes, DISABLE
THIS. You are going to use filters to replace this function.
- In GMail, go to Settings/Filters.
You are going to create two filters, and the order of these filters is
critical.
First
filter. Set the following:
From: xxx@gmail.com (your GMail
account name) (NOTE IF YOU WANT
TO CHANGE THE REPLY TO ADDRESS ABOVE YOU NEED TO CHANGE YOUR FILTER TO MATCH)
Has the words: Sent via Blackberry (or substitute your custom words from step
2.)
Do this: Check Skip Inbox, Check Apply Label "BLACKBERRY
SENT" or your custom words from step 3
Second
filter. THIS ONE MUST BE LISTED BELOW THE FIRST FILTER.
Set the following:
Has the words: "in:inbox" Type the text
inside the quotes exactly. GMail will give you
a warning that this filter is invalid. IGNORE the warning. It will work.
Do this: Check Forward to yyyy@zzz.blackberry.net (This is your direct
Blackberry email address. Do not use your GMail
address here! This filter performs the main forwarding function to your BB)
- Tip: if the order of
the two filters is backwards, GMail will re-sort
them if you edit a filter, making the last edited filter appear first. So
simply make a trivial edit (insert a character somewhere), save it, then
go back and restore the edit, and save again.
- Messages you send from
your BB will appear in the GMail ARCHIVE, not
the Inbox, but will be labled "BLACKBERRY
SENT". It is possible to remove the archive designation after the
fact and put the msgs back in the Inbox, but I
prefer just to leave them in Archives.