Help "Hiding" Gmail

[redravenxo]

Sorry if this has been answered somewhere, but I've done a good bit of web searching & haven't found an answer. Figured a forum directed at my particular phone model might be the most helpful since the issue is sort of related to how the Optimus has its menus & such set up.

Anyway... I have my primary email account (through my ISP) happily set up on my phone. That's really the only email account I use or have any desire to use, and the one where everything I care about goes.

Now I've set up a Gmail account so I can use some of the Google/Gmail linked apps & such. However, I have no desire to have Gmail involve itself in my email. Okay, easy enough - just don't use that address for anything, right? (Which is my intention).

However, anything I get from Gmail insists upon going into my "Combined Inbox" along with the mail I actually want to see. I'd prefer that it didn't do that.

Basically I'd like to only get my regular email through the "Email" icon & only get Gmail if I specifically use the "Gmail" icon. Does that make sense? And is it possible? I can't find any options to control that particular behavior.

(Now, this may not be a big deal unless Gmail is prone to getting spammy. I don't intend to use that email address for anything but app access, so it may be a non-issue, but I'm OCD about these things. Does anyone else use a "dummy" Gmail address & use a different main email address? If so, do you have problems with getting a lot of junk through Gmail or does it basically leave you alone?)

Thanks for any advice & apologies in advance for any forthcoming silly newbie questions -- RXO

 

[t_wilson]

Did you add your gmail account to the "Email" app? If you did, remove it.

 

[agianne]

As stated above, remove your G-mail account from the e-mail app. If you want to be able to easily access G-mail from time to time, just use the G-Mail app.

G-Mail does a good job, in my experience, of routing spam to the spam inbox, so you won't see too much baloney e-mail in your main G-mail inbox.

To turn off G-mail notifications, open the G-mail app, access the G-mail app setting and turn of all/silence the notifications. You might get spam, but since the notifications are shut off, you'll never know and won't be bothered.

If you don't plan to ever access your G-mail account from your phone, ignore/delete the G-mail app. Go to the phone's settings menu (Menu key, then Settings), click on "Accounts and Sync", then click on your G-mail account name (not the check icon) and then turn off synchronization for everything except "Contacts". You want your contacts to sync up so that you've always got a back up copy stored in Google's cloud.

 

[redravenxo]

Thanks, both of you for such quick & understandable replies.

Did you add your gmail account to the "Email" app? If you did, remove it.

No- that's what I found odd. Only account I show is my primary ISP account. Apparently Gmail sort of adds itself invisibly. That's why I got annoyed about the whole thing. Hehe. Hate when my machines do things without my permission. *grin*

As stated above, remove your G-mail account from the e-mail app... (Edited for space)...turn off synchronization for everything except "Contacts". You want your contacts to sync up so that you've always got a back up copy stored in Google's cloud.

Thanks. I think that's pretty much how I've got it set up now & glad to know it shouldn't be bad about spam, so will just see how it does. I have a couple of old anonymous accounts floating around on Yahoo & such & they really never get any mail since I almost never use those addresses. So, hopefully, this one will do the same.

As far as letting the Contacts sync... Been doing a lot of reading up on this stuff & I've seen people mention problems with Gmail renaming their contacts. Would I be safe from that as long as the sync was basically "one-way?" I.E I don't add contacts to Gmail itself, just my phone? The backup would be a nice thing to have if it won't do anything obnoxious.

*Having amusing mental picture of a puffy cloud with names all over it* (Guess I better look that term up.)

Thanks again - RRXO

 

[agianne]

Cloud - sorry for using jargon, it just means that your data is out there somewhere on the Internet.

Apparently Gmail sort of adds itself invisibly.

It doesn't do that on my phone. I do not get G-mail via the e-mail app. I've sent myself a couple of test messages to verify and my G-mail does not show up in the e-mail app combined inbox. I only get mail from the ISP account I've configured. Based on the limited info at hand, I'm not sure what's up on your end. Something's goofy.

As far as letting the Contacts sync... Been doing a lot of reading up on this stuff & I've seen people mention problems with Gmail renaming their contacts. Would I be safe from that as long as the sync was basically "one-way?" I.E I don't add contacts to Gmail itself, just my phone? The backup would be a nice thing to have if it won't do anything obnoxious.

The G-mail sync is bidirectional and it's never renamed any of my contacts. Without really specific examples, I can't comment on why others would report the re-naming problem. Using the contacts manager on your phone, the updates you make are synced with G-mail's servers exactly as you make them. (Alternately, you can access G-mail on the PC and those changes will get sent to the phone.)

G-mail can change/goof up certain characters like the & sign when you import (not sync) contacts via a .CSV file that you've exported from another program (Outlook, Yahoo! Mail, whatever). That's an easily resolved, one-time issue when contact are imported the first time and not related to syncing contacts between the phone and G-mail on a day to day basis. Maybe that's what you read about?

Anyway, sorry the phone is doing something mysterious. Even though it's not that big a deal, that kind of stuff gets on my nerves, so I can relate. It sounds like you know what you're doing, but since you didn't detail how you checked, I'll offer: open the e-mail app, hit the Menu key on the phone, then hit Accounts and verify that there is only the one account for your ISP mail. To remove accounts that don't belong - long press on the account, then Remove Account.

 

[redravenxo]

It doesn't do that on my phone. I do not get G-mail via the e-mail app. I've sent myself a couple of test messages to verify and my G-mail does not show up in the e-mail app combined inbox. I only get mail from the ISP account I've configured. Based on the limited info at hand, I'm not sure what's up on your end. Something's goofy...

Anyway, sorry the phone is doing something mysterious. Even though it's not that big a deal, that kind of stuff gets on my nerves, so I can relate. It sounds like you know what you're doing, but since you didn't detail how you checked, I'll offer: open the e-mail app, hit the Menu key on the phone, then hit Accounts and verify that there is only the one account for your ISP mail. To remove accounts that don't belong - long press on the account, then Remove Account.

Hrm, odd. I used the exact process you described to check for the Gmail account under my Email accounts & it doesn't show there. Not really a huge deal, just found it odd. *shrug*

The G-mail sync is bidirectional and it's never renamed any of my contacts... (Cut for space)...

Ah, okies. I'll give that a try then. Would be useful to have Contacts backed up like that. I'm still migrating from stick-everything-on-a-PostIt world. Once I get more comfortable with all this I imagine it will save me a lot of paper & hassle.

Thanks again!

 

[agianne]

Would be useful to have Contacts backed up like that.

Yeah. If you lose your Optimus V or just buy another Android phone, even from another carrier, as soon as you configure your G-mail account on your new device, your G-mail contacts will get synched to the new phone automatically. No more losing all your contacts when you lose your phone and no more typing in all your contacts from scratch when you get a new phone.

Plus if your phone dies and you don't have your charger with you, you can still look up people's phone numbers and e-mail addresses by going to G-Mail from a PC.