How often does mail app sync email status?

[teslapod1]

I have gmail and hotmail accounts both set to download new content "as items arrive". But when and with what frequency does the mail app update the server with "read" or "deleted" status of individual items?

In both accounts, I can mark items as read on my phone and 15-20 minutes later they still appear as "unread" when using a desktop browser. I would have thought that the status would be sent to the gmail or hotmail servers in real-time.

Are we supposed to do a manual sync to update the servers?

 

[jimski]

I have noticed that when I add some new contact info in Windows Live (desktop) it does not sync with the phone till the next push email arrives, or I manually sync. So maybe those statuses won't update till you receive the "next" email after the one you initially received. Just a guess.

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[CHIP72]

The (IMO) poor synchronization for e-mail services is by far my biggest issue with Windows Phone. Actually, it has cooled me to WP to some degree, even though I really like most other attributes of WP.

 

[jimski]

Really? For my two push accounts, Hotmail and Live, I get messages to the phone in less than a minute, usually in only a few seconds. Is that too slow? Absolutely the best email client I have ever used on a PDA, Pocket PC or Phone.

Sent from my HTC Surround using Board Express

 

[Pronk]

Delivery (with push) is fairly quick. Changes being sent back are slow if you don't do it manually. Which is why I have everything set to manual sync - I download all my messages, read them, reply to any I want to and delete any I don't want and then *sync again*.

It's the only reliable way to make sure your accounts elsewhere match what you do on your phone. And yes, in this respect WP is a little weak - changes made should sync back straight away even if you're only on 1/2 hour updates for download.

 

[welsbloke]

On a true push account the mail should be received or sent straight away. Changes you make such as deletions, calendars, new contacts and tasks for example are considered low priority and will only update periodically or when you send a new mail or new mail arrives. I would say this is by design and typically you would never notice. Of course if you want to sit next to your PC make a change and watch it arrive on your phone then you are going to be disapointed.

I am not sure how "push" on Live accounts are, mine did always seem to send the email straight away but I do not receive much email via my live account. All my mail comes via Exchange Push and it works as described above.

 

[CHIP72]

Regarding my own personal experience (with settings set to "as items arrive"):

1) E-mails often show up on my Droid 2 (via the Hotmail app) before they show up on my Trophy.

2) I've had e-mails take as long as 10+ minutes to show up on the Trophy after showing up on my Droid 2 or on my Hotmail account on a desktop/through the browser.

3) When I've deleted e-mails on my Trophy or in my Hotmail account on a browser, the change will sometimes not show up on the other "view" until I receive another e-mail.

Considering many other native e-mail clients on other platforms (particularly iOS from my limited personal experience) don't have these problems, I'd say these shortcomings are problems that are unacceptable.

 

[jimski]

Whatever.

Sent from my HTC Surround using Board Express

 

[MrBurrrns]

Whatever.

Sent from my HTC Surround using Board Express

Yeah, that's really mature and helpful.

I also had problems with my push gmail account, where it just suddenly stopped receiving new emails and I had to do a manual sync to "start" it again. Not very reliable to be honest.

 

[CHIP72]

Whatever.

Sent from my HTC Surround using Board Express

For the record, Windows Phone OS is my favorite operating system and I want to see it succeed in a big way because I think it is superior to other mobile operating systems (though I really like the gesture interface webOS and especially Blackberry QNX OS have, which I think works particularly well on tablets; I'll be interested to see if gestures are incorporated in any way in Windows 8 OS and the WP Apollo update). Having said that, poor e-mail functionality is a major, major problem for a mobile OS. I didn't have any problems for about the first 1 1/2 months I owned the Trophy, but I definitely have had issues over the last few weeks, and none of the things I've tried doing (clearing and rechecking the manual sync in the e-mail settings, permanently deleting deleted e-mails on both my Hotmail desktop account and my Hotmail on the trophy) have provided a long-term fix to the problems I described in my second post in this thread. Heck, I even had the link between the Hotmail server and Hotmail on the Trophy "broken" (i.e. changes on the Trophy wouldn't be reflected on the server) for a few days, even when I did the unsync/sync tweak in the e-mail settings or did a manual refresh on either the Trophy or in Hotmail in desktop mode. (Deleting e-mails in the Deleted folders on the desktop and on the Trophy did solve the "broken" connection problem.)

If Windows Phone OS continues to have issues with e-mails (and I think the problems people have described with both Gmail and Hotmail are related - I believe the problems are related to using one or both of those accounts heavily as your primary e-mail account), I'll have a hard time justifying Windows Phone OS in my own mind as my primary mobile OS in the long-term, even though I really like Windows Phone OS in most other areas. Hopefully Microsoft can fix these e-mail issues so WP OS can more fully shine and show off (IMO) its superiority as a mobile OS.

 

[TGBmark1234]

I'm sure I read somewhere that the sync of this low priority traffic is every 30 minutes. I would agree with the WP7 design that syncing read statuses and so on doesn't need doing straight away.

I usually get email arrive instantly (on both my hotmail and gmail accounts) but do sometimes have a delay that I can't explain.

 

[xpxp2002]

I agree that this is probably the biggest "bug by design" in Windows Phone. If you want Microsoft to fix this, vote for this issue on UserVoice.
Fix unread state for moved/deleted emails.

 

[CHIP72]

I agree that this is probably the biggest "bug by design" in Windows Phone. If you want Microsoft to fix this, vote for this issue on UserVoice.
Fix unread state for moved/deleted emails.

xpxp2002 - thanks for sharing this. I'll take a look at the link, and I definitely intend to give Microsoft some feedback on how Windows Phone could be improved. (I know they have links on certain Windows Phone pages where they actively request/ask for feedback.)