Email Stats: I use GMail for both work (hosted) and personal accounts. I dig it. Haven’t used Mail or Outlook at all, just been going strictly Web based.

Desire: I just want a way to keep all my email synced (Web, Mac’s Mail app, and my Blackjack)

What I’ve done thus far

So as most of people know, Gmail uses the POP protocol only for use with email clients. Which I don’t quite understand why they don’t utilize IMAP too, but whatever, I’ll work with what they give me.

So I was trying to figure out a way to ‘trick’ GMail to use IMAP via a 3rd-party email when I ran across Mike Davidson’s post on how he did it for his needs. Which for how he uses it is great and simply smart.

But I wanted to take it a step further…I want to add my Blackjack to the mix. And if anyone has tried setting up POP on their mobile phone, it works shoddy at best. You actually receive your own messages that you send back in your mobile inbox and of course, no syncing. UGH!

Anyway, so here’s where I stand.

I am using my web host’s MediaTemple to work as the email/IMAP-capable intermediary between Gmail and the world. I am able to get mail into my Mac’s Mail app as well as my Mobile and it is staying synced….to a point.

I am UNABLE to delete any message from my phone and have it know to sync back up to Mail. When I send/receive again it just brings the message right back. So no deleting is possible from my mobile. But marking things as read/unread are…that’s strange to me. Why can it do one and not the other?

I’d prefer to go strictly Gmail’s Web-based way but it looks like that isn’t possible. To get this to work you need a host with IMAP support. Can anyone help out there?

One more Thing
And before you ask about why I don’t just use the Java-based mobile app’s for Google it’s because you have to go into the Java midlet, execute it, pick Gmail, sign in everytime, and then have access your email. It’s a pain that way.

[tags]Gmail, sync, mobile, web, Apple, Mail, Samsung Blackjack, MediaTemple[/tags]