Windows Mobile Pocket PC (Phone Edition) and Smartphone users have at least six broad techniques to work with email. The problem is finding one that works the way you do (or would like to).
- Microsoft Outlook Sync: This is the way most of us used to deal with email on Pocket PCs in the old days. Unfortunately, this tethers us to the PC running Outlook. There was some relief in the ability to use ActiveSync over WiFi until that option was removed with the introduction of Windows Mobile 5 and ActiveSync 4.
- Microsoft Exchange Server: If you are fortunate enough to have a mobile-enabled Exchange server and support staff help you with your device, this is a pretty good option. But, I suspect that this is not an option for many of us. There are some web/mail host services that provide Exchange Server services to individuals, however.
- Proprietary Client: A number of these are popping up these days. Good Technology for enterprise solutions probably comes to mind. But, there are also add-on clients from Google and Microsoft itself. I’m not a fan of this solution. It is just one more piece of software to take up valuable RAM space on my Pocket PC or Smartphone. And, it is redundant since we already have Inbox.
- Webmail: Â This is an if-fy area. Some work, some kind-of work, and some just don’t work at all. Of the big three (Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo!), I like Yahoo!’s mobile web email solution the best. However, it is also the only one that does not have session persistence. So, I am forever slowly and painfully entering my account name and password.
- POP3: Windows Mobile Inbox retrieves POP3 email fairly well. The problem is that email maangement doesn’t seem to work (at least for me). Deleting email does not delete from the server (though some people say it deletes things they want to keep). Sent mail is not saved. And, if you like to keep lots of email on the server, don’t try to send email from Windows Mobile Inbox using SMTP. Everytime you try to send email, Inbox will try to check all the POP3 email first (hundreds or thousands of messages) before sending email out through the SMTP gateway. Google’s Gmail provides POP3 support. Yahoo! provides POP3 support if you upgrade to Yahoo! Mail Plus for $19.95/year. And, I still have no idea what happened to Microsoft’s Hotmail/Live Mail. It kind of sort of works with Inbox. But, it doesn’t look like POP3 to me.
- IMAP4: This work moderately well though delete and savings sent mail doesn’t work for me. However, sending mail using SMTP works as expected (mail goes out without rechecking the server’s incoming mail again). This is my personal preference for Windows Mobile email service.
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Comments
11 responses to “Windows Mobile Email: Which One Works Best?”
I am using HTC TyTn II and am having problem with duplicate email in my mobile inbox. Has anyone got any solutution? Tq.
Friends,
i ve installed gprs settings as per our forum. internet is working very well. no problem in that. but when i setup a mail like yahoo or gmail at (start>messaging> outlook mail> xyz@gmail.com) . Setting is done. i can send and receive mails through wi fi , so mail setup is ok. BUT when i send and receive through our pre installed gprs settings it is not working. Message given check the internet connectivty. while through this setting i can exlore any web site through opera or internet explorer.
Any suggestion to solve this ? u ll help me a lot. as i want to set up a scheduler for mail checking and everywhere wifi is not available.
Thanks.
Is there a way to use both the desktop outlook sync AND connect to a POP3 account.
For example, I would like to store all emails on my desktop that I send from my desktop or WM5 phone. If I send and recieve emails from my phone for a few days is there a way of getting these onto my desktop? (by syncing maybe)
Any help appreciated.
Paul
Let’s be clear about it.
Pocket Outlook simply does NOT work behind a proxy.
There’s no good excuse for it 🙁 ?
FlexMail does look to me as a much better email client.
I’ve tested it, and it works.
Can you understand it? I Simply can’t.
Bruce: You don’t say whether you are using POP3 or IMAP4. If it is POP3 it shouldn’t happen (though I’ve heard/read similar reports that I can’t duplicate). If it is IMAP4, I can see where that might happen. The workaround for you is not to delete mail on your device until you find a solution.
Re Outlook Mobile not deleting mail on server, I just found that my TyTN does in fact delete mail on server, whenever I empty the trash (meaning empty deleted items in the e-mail client).
I’m really angry about this, since I’ve lost e-mail messages just because I don’t want them on my TyTN. The TyTN doesn’t even give an option to delete on server right away, clearly they treat the device as a copy not a primary e-mail reader, so why does it delete on server when emptying the trash? AND WHY ISN’T THERE A WAY TO TURN THIS FEATURE OFF?
If anyone knows anything to do about this, PLEASE reply here and/or comment on my blog at http://pdaphone-fan.blogspot.com/
This really kills the TyTN’s usefulness for e-mail reading.
Melisa: I’ve found Gmail’s POP3 support to be problematic on Windows Mobile devices myself. I’m not sure what the issue is, truthfully. It works fine with desktop POP3 mail clients like Thunderbird. And, Palm OS users do not seem to have an issue with it. In my case, the same Gmail settings on a Axim X50v (Windows Mobile 2003 2nd Editions) works once in a while but usually does not.
I was just wondering, I just bought a Axim x51 and for whatever reason, I set up my outlook for my gmail account, and I can not send or receive mail from it, can someone help me please.
Not knowing what ‘Good’ is, I just assumed it was another corporate push-email solution like Blackberry Connect or Intellisync. Not something most non-corporate users can really consider for the most part. (Although a few providers in the UK offer basic Blackberry service for a fairly low fee, so you don’t necessarily have to run your own Blackberry server.)
In my head, I consider MS’ Pocket Outlook to be basically the same as those, since I’m used to treating Exchange support as an add-on. (I normally deal with S60 handsets and only recently purchased by first Windows Mobile device.) Obviously, I do recognise that this is just in my head. :o)
John: Good point. And, I sort of implied it (maybe not well I guess) in mentioning Good as a popular add-on email client that people (or enterprises in their case) find a better alternative to Microsoft’s Inbox/Messaging.
Don’t forget that there’s third-party POP3 and IMAP clients which can offer much improved functionality over MS’ built-in one.
The first piece of software I installed when I bought a Windows Mobile 5 handset was FlexMail, so that I could have a decent amount of control over my massive (~1GB of email) IMAP account. I never even tried the built-in client because I knew it wouldn’t work how I wanted it to (from reading up before I bought the device).
The downside is that it’s something else to install and take up space and memory, and the integration isn’t always as good.