Forum Discussion

baldlea's avatar
baldlea
Joining in
2 years ago

Android Gmail syncing issue

Hi

I recently bought a new mobile. I wanted to tidy up my whole phone setup including emails.

I use an old ntlworld.com email address but have always kept on top of the correct virginmedia.com servers settings, IMAP etc. Over the years I have added my own folders to the account and wanted rid of them. I initially could not delete them via webmail but fixed that using the excellent advice here:https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Email/Deleting-my-unused-folders/td-p/5365901/page/2

I also noticed the Gmail folder that I wanted gone so I followed the advice here: https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Forum-Archive/Outlook-creates-Gmail-folder-for-iMap-VM-email-account/m-p/5100593#M3126501

The Gmail folder had over 1000 emails in it. I dumped them all in my Inbox and deleted the Gmail folder.

I immediately started having sync problems in my phone's Android Gmail client. Only emails from after I removed the folder will appear along with my oldest 300 emails (back in 2010/11!).

I messed around some more and after moving folders/emails about in webmail, only emails after that event will display along with the oldest 300 emails. I archived older emails by year so that Inbox shows all of 2023 only. Now the sync is the most recent emails plus the first 300 of 2023.

Other stuff:

  • When checking the Android Gmail IMAP settings, it has used imap.ntlworld.com (I think this cam from a non-manual setup and it tried my address domain). If I change it back to imap.virginmedia.com and hit "done" it has ignored me and gone back to ntl if I reopen the settings.
  • Sometimes a sync doesn't even show the most recent emails...just the oldest 300.
  • Outlook on Windows seems to be having no issues and correctly mirrors VM webmail and all emails.
  • Outlook on Android actually lets me keep the imap.virginmedia.com setting but has a similar problem. It syncs and shows the most recent emails, skips about 6 weeks then syncs earlier emails.
  • I've reset app password multiple times, uninstalled Android Gmail, cache, data etc.
  • I knew my old phone still had valid server settings so I created a new app password and that phone started doing the same thing (but did keep keep imap.virginmedia rather than using ntl).
  • The old [Gmail] folder still shows in the webmail IMAP subscription options but is greyed out and italicised and cannot be selected.

Please help. I technically have not lost any emails and I can get to them from a desktop or webmail. It seems like any synced folder on a phone client will only show 300ish emails, I could just live with the black hole BUT in 300 hundred new emails time, will the 301st oldest email suddenly not sync?

Thanks

  • coenoby's avatar
    coenoby
    Very Insightful Person
    2 months ago

    baldlea 

    I don't have a ready explanation for what's happening with your Gmail app but here are a few thoughts:

    1) When checking the Android Gmail IMAP settings, it has used imap.ntlworld.com 

    I seem to remember that a few years ago the browser version of Gmail always defaulted to the ntlworld servers when you set up an account to import an ntlworld account into Gmail. However, you could manually change that to the virginmedia settings without a problem. 

    However, lots of people seem to still be using VM's legacy servers so I don't think that's causing the erratic syncing.

    2) It seems Gmail has issues syncing your account correctly but "Outlook on Windows seems to be having no issues and correctly mirrors VM webmail and all emails."

    I am not sure this is a factor but Gmail itself does not work exactly the same way as most email services.  You probably know this already, but Gmail does not actually use folders at all.

    In Gmail, "Inbox" , "Spam" etc are labels attached to emails not folders that contain emails. The key difference is that in Gmail an email can have more than one label attached to it,

    So when you view the list of labels in Gmail an email can appear within more than one label whereas when you view the list of folders in other email services an email can only appear within one folder.

    3) When you say "I dumped them all in my Inbox and deleted the Gmail folder" I assume that you did that from within  the Gmail app because there is no option to delete the "Gmail" folder in VM webmail.

    That "Gmail" folder is a hangover from VM's  2015 conversion from the old Google email service to their current Ziggo service. You can delete its subfolders but not the "Gmail" folder itself,

    IMAP handles Gmail's "labels" and the rest of the world's "folders" very well but I'm wondering if Gmail's idiosyncrasy combined with fact that VM's "Gmail" folder is a bit of a one-off has resulted in the Gmail app having problems with syncing your ntlworld email account.

    Finally;

    4)Suggestion on how to resolve things.

     If the windows version of Outlook works correctly then it suggests the problem lies with the Android Gmail app. It seems you have tried reinstalling the Gmail app but have you tried any other Android email apps to see if they  sync correctly?

    Apologies for the ramble.

    Coenoby