RIMM Blackberry breaks Google MAIL Messages Integration
Feb 9th, 2010 by Johnny
This past weekend, I upgraded from a Blackberry Curve 8320 to a Blackberry Bold 9700 and I noticed that there was a new Blackberry Enhanced GMAIL plug-in that gives you access to your GMAIL (and Google Apps Mail) account labels, as well as “mark as spam” and the ability to “star” a message. Great! However, it required you to delete your existing GMAIL account from the Blackberry and re-add it.
Well, RIMM / Blackberry broke the Google MAIL Messages Integration in their BIS service, but the GMAIL plug-in works as described (and that is GREAT). Here is what I found.
If you have a working GMAIL account on your Blackberry, think twice before proceeding. 
Once you’ve re-add the GMAIL account using the default Blackberry method (fill in the e-mail address and password, then Blackberry figures out the rest). So this mode is what some service providers are calling “G-IMAP”. Also, this seems the only option if you are adding the accounts from the handset itself. Once you have “synced up” (activated) the account, your GMAIL INBOX messages can be found in the “email address” icon and the Blackberry Messages (which is what it should do). However, your GMAIL ARCHIVED messages (those that “skip the inbox” via a GMAIL filter automatically) will also show in your Blackberry Messages (all messages folder, the “M” button), which is NOT what it is suppose to do. That is a problem for me, as I have a lot of e-mail that I filter away from the INBOX and do not want to see on my Blackberry.
So, I decided to try setting up the account and force it to use the old IMAP setting. To do this you must be adding the e-mail account from the BIS web interface from your service provider; go to add another e-mail to the Blackberry, but this time, I leave the password field blank so that it would now ask me for the server settings. On the next screen, put in “imap.gmail.com” for you server settings. Again, Blackberry figures out the rest of the settings. Let us now call this “IMAP” setup, which it is (and it does NOT use the new Blackberry GMAIL plug-in). However, Blackberry decides that for this particular IMAP server (imap.gmail.com), it should check “All Mail” and not the “INBOX” folder. Once again, we face the same situation with GMAIL ARCHIVED messages showing up in the “Messages” folder on the Blackberry.
Now, for a work around. For the “IMAP” setting configuration we just did, we can go and change the IMAP server name to “gmail-imap.l.google.com” (which is a CNAME for “imap.gmail.com”). Save your settings. Your GMAIL account is now back to the way it should work (before Blackberry decided to make its non-standard changes and break the GMAIL integration). 
NOTE: this does not use the Blackberry GMAIL plug-in, so in order to “mark as spam” or “change labels” you need to install the Google GMail App.
I’ve spent over 4 hours on the phone today explaining first to T-Mobile, then to a RIMM Blackberry customer service, then a Blackberry tech at RIMM, and then finally another RIMM Blackberry tech who had “access to a RIMM Blackberry Analysis:”. They kept saying it was my Blackberry configuration that was wrong, like my BIS Filters were set incorrectly (which were set correctly) and that my “Service Book IDs” were incorrect causing the problem. To top it off, they say that because I kept deleting the account and recreating it, my “Service Book IDs” will keep changing and resulting in blah blah blah.
Finally, I got him (Don) to agree to try it out on a handset himself. So Don was adventurous and said he had no problems with his GMAIL working on his Blackberry. He went ahead and deleted his GMAIL account from his Blackberry and recreated it. Then he want to his GMAIL account and created a filter (for all messages with Subject:archive, “skip the inbox” and “marked as read”). Now I had him send a test message with the subject “archive” from another account to his GMAIL account. He now saw that archived message showed up in his Blackberry Messages “as opened”, which should not have happened. He said “Ah, I see what you are talking about now” and went to talk to an Analyst.
So now Don tells me, it seems to be an isolated case with my account and that he would look into it further. Gave me a case number and said that I should call back in a few days for status updates. What!?!?! I told him that he should “Google” it and see how many other cases of this problem there are. He said he would keep the ticket open for the next 5 days. Oh my goodness, Research In Motion really wants some more bad press?
Damn, must we provide them the code too? All they have to do is fix their “special code” (probably one conditional statement) which pertains to “imap.gmail.com” and no other servers. Most likely they have something that says if the IMAP server is “imap.gmail.com” then check “All Mail” folder instead of letting it check the standard “INBOX” folder like all other IMAP servers it checks.
If you have experienced this issue with your Blackberry, please add a comment below and/or a URL to your forum posts.
Thanks so much for this workaround. I spent a couple of days with AT&T & got nowhere.
The only difference in my experience was that it didn’t let me enter the blank password. So I gave it a non-gmail address (non yahoo or gmail or whatever else it has an enhancement for), then had to select the “choose my own settings” option on two different pages.
So far so good! Thanks again!
Looks like RIMM still does not want to acknowledge that they messed up the IMAP calls to Google Mail. My case with RIMM is still open and they have no updates on it, which means they are ignoring it. =(
I have been having this problem too (messages that skip my GMail Inbox showing up in my BB Messages Inbox). I thought I was going crazy because I couldn’t find anyone else who seemed to be having this problem in my Google search attempts. I’ll have to give this a try and see if it works for me. Thanks!
But perhaps I’ll also log a case with RIMM.
The issue is actually worse…
Google Mail localizes their labels, since “All Mail” is in English, if you change your language settings, BIS *stops working*. For example, if you set it to French, your “All Mail” label is called “Tous les messages”, or in Spanish it’s “Todos”, or in Lithuanian it’s “Visi laiškai”.
Please, RIM, go back to using standards-based INBOX for delivery of email for Google Mail.
I suspect that the special GMAIL plugin works the same way for Starred and Spam messages, where it may not work with non-English Google accounts because those labels are localized.
Also, some people purposefully exclude “All Mail” from IMAP access using the Google Labs “Advanced IMAP Controls” because that folder is undesirable to many IMAP clients. Most notably, Apple Mail users routinely disable access to “All Mail” to avoid dupe emails.
Here’s the mail pushed to your BlackBerry about one to ten minutes after setting up a Gmail or Google Apps email account where “All Mail” is disabled for IMAP or if the account is localized in any language outside of English that illustrates the issue of not having a label called “All Mail”:
From: donotreply@blackberry.com
Subject: Action required. Update settings for
Your email messages are not being delivered to your BlackBerry(R) device. To receive your email messages, turn on the IMAP setting for All Mail in your account.
After you turn on the IMAP setting for All Mail, you must validate your account on your BlackBerry device.
1. Click the Setup folder (if available), then click the Email Settings or Setup Internet Email* icon.
2. Click Email Accounts.
3. Validate your email account.
The other email accounts on your BlackBerry device are not affected.
BlackBerry(R) Internet Service
* Note that some BlackBerry devices and some themes may have different icons or menus than those mentioned.
– Automatically generated email: Do Not Reply to this email –
I experienced this problem and it’s been driving me crazy! I use filters to keep a lot of junk off my blackberry; when I had to set up my account on a new phone I started getting a ton of junk that I didn’t want to see.
When’s that 4g iphone coming out again?
There are always some problems with it,I can’t fix it.So I think I will select some other types.
This has helped me a GREAT deal! I thought my phone was “broken” and or I had done some setting that couldn’t be reversed.
Thank you so much and I hope the RIM and/or Gmail Team see this and help do an update that will allow the “All Mail” to be shown instead of only the “inbox” on the blackberry.
Thank you again!