Want to use MobileMe for push but don’t want a me.com address? Want to filter out spam before it hits your iPhone? Read on.
I wrote earlier about trying to find a way to reduce the amount of spam that came to my iPhone through my MobileMe pushed account. MobileMe is lacking in server-side spam filtering, so I was constantly getting c1al1s ads, which is not only mildly insulting but also annoying. These ads were, of course, filtered on my desktop, but only after I’d gotten them on my iPhone.
The solution I came up with was a little complex to set up, but now operates smoothly, catches 99% of my spam before it hits my iPhone, and has the added benefit of archiving all my mail in a separate, Google-searchable account. Simply put, I used Gmail for my own nefarious purposes.
So I’m laying out the steps required to achieve this effect. Rather than speak in the abstract, I’m going to walk through step-by-step, for the benefit of our less mail-savvy readers.
For the sake of this tutorial, let’s assume your name is Oliver Clozof, and your current email (the one you want to send and receive mail from) is oliver@clozof.com.
- Set up your MobileMe account (for illustration purposes, we’ll call this oclozof@me.com).
- Set up a free Gmail account (for illustration purposes, we’ll call this oliver.clozof@gmail.com).
- In whatever control panel your current (oliver@clozof.com) email uses, redirect all mail to oliver.clozof@gmail.com. There’s no need to keep a copy in the inbox unless you have some reason to; we’re not going to be using your current email system for anything more than forwarding mail.
- Go to your Gmail settings (for oliver.clozof@gmail.com), and redirect all of that mail to oclozof@me.com. Archive Gmail’s copy.
- Under the Accounts tab in your Gmail settings, set up the ability to send mail as oliver@clozof.com. This will send a verification link to that address, which will end up in your oclozof@me.com account. Check that account at http://www.me.com/mail, and follow the verification instructions. Once that account is verified through Gmail, go back to Gmail’s Settings page, open the Accounts tab, and make that the default account.
- Go to your iPhone’s mail settings and set up your MobileMe account (oclozof@me.com). Enable Mail and whatever other syncing you want done (contacts, etc – we’re assuming here that you’ve properly set this up on your computer).
- Under the MobileMe account in settings, open the SMTP preferences. Disable me.com SMTP; we won’t be using that. Add an SMTP server using your new Gmail account (oliver.clozof@gmail.com). Use smtp.gmail.com and enter your login details there. Enable this server. This should be the only SMTP server enabled for this account.
- Send yourself a test email (to oliver@clozof.com) and giggle when it comes through, pushed almost instantaneously to your iPhone. You’re done.
Here’s what happens with this set up. When somebody sends an email to oliver@clozof.com, it will redirect to Gmail. Gmail will filter out spam, archive a copy (which is handy if you ever need to search for an email you deleted), and forward the mail to oclozof@me.com, which will then push to your phone. When you compose mail or reply, it will use your Gmail account to send it. Your Gmail account is set up to use oliver@clozof.com, so all mail sent from your iPhone will show up as coming from oliver@clozof.com.
The upshot is that mail will be sent to oliver@clozof.com, will come from oliver@clozof.com, and you’ll get to use both Gmail’s huge account quota (to archive) and MobileMe’s push features.
You can then set up these accounts in a similar fashion in your desktop mail client (Mail.app, Thunderbird, Outlook, etc).
Note: If your current email is already a .mac email address (as mine was), you’ll have to upgrade to a Family account, create a new me.com account to serve as your new main MobileMe account, and simply use the old one to forward mail. You can’t, apparently, put two MobileMe accounts on your phone, or MobileMe’s ninja server monkeys get confused and won’t properly push mail. Hopefully they’ll fix this.
Are there drawbacks? Two. Emails don’t push quite as fast with all this forwarding. The email may take a full 10 seconds to push. I’m okay with that. Also, if you compose mail from your me.com web interface, it will show up as coming from your me.com account; MobileMe doesn’t have send aliases like Google does. All in all, though, I’d say those are some pretty acceptable casualties for spam-free push email to phone and desktop.
Further note: This is just for consumer mail. If your business uses an Exchange server, just set it up that way.
Jeremy Pippin is a writer and web consultant living in the New York metropolitan area.
Thank you! I’ve been having trouble finding a way to gather all of my emails in my .me.com account. Without having to add an account in MobileMe for each one. None of the other suggestions worked, either because they were to complicated or I did something wrong. Your worked the first time no problem AND its a spam blocker. Thanks again.
You mean… somebody actually read this blog? That’s amazing. Glad you were able to follow my convoluted explanation.
Yeah thanks man, I just set this up the same way as well, works a little slow for me (about 30 seconds or more) but that’s fine.
For Mail.app I’ll stick to using empty pop3 accounts to send out emails rather than using aliases though.
You can actually do that with the iPhone too, of course – setting up your original email address as a forwarder doesn’t prevent you from using its SMTP settings, so you can just go ahead and use those.
I use the Gmail as my SMTP for 3 reasons:
1. It’s easy to set up on the iPhone (plus it doesn’t involve a third server set up)
2. It archives all of my Sent mail in the same place it’s archived all the other mail.
3. I can use Gmail for .Mac aliases, which I use from time to time.
This looks like a nice work around, just left blackberry for iphone and didn’t realize you can only push .me emails. Thanks for this guide. I got to step 7 and I cannot find SMTP prefs in my mobilMe settings thought.
Mike
You can, by the way, push other email. Exchange-based server mail, for instance. I’ve also heard some tell that Yahoo! mail will push and do IMAP. But for glorious consumer-level OTA syncing of mail, contacts, pictures, and calendars, you’re going to want MobileMe.
To set your SMTP prefs, go Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > [Your Mail Account] > Account Info > SMTP
Man, after searching for days trying to find a solution, this is finally the one I needed. Thanks for posting! Seriously.
I mean come on, all i want is push email and the ability to send email as my WORK email address, not that .me one. Is that really too much to ask from MobileMe, considering we have to pay for it?