howto How to get around Google's restrictions and use Gmail on Windows Phone

[BajiRav]

Some background:

I upgraded to a Lumia 920 (from Samsung Focus) last week and last night recalled that I needed to do this additional step on my WP7.x/iPhone such that Gmail will actually delete emails instead of archiving (why does Google think that I want to archive junk/spam by default is beyond me).

To Google's credit, they've had this page, m.google.com/sync that you have to open on a mobile device and toggle archive/delete there. It seems that this page has now conveniently stopped working from any mobile device and instead links to a useless page which refers to Windows Mobile instead.

I finally managed to work around it when I found this page and decided to document/rant here for easy reference.

1. Open IE10 dev. tools (press F12) on your PC

2. In dev. tools menubar Tools > Change user agent string > Windows Phone 7* or Apple Safari (iPad)

3. Open this URL: https://m.google.com...=mobileproducts

4. Now log in and you will be on the old page where you can toggle the archive option.

5. Additionally you can also select to sync additional calendars here.

6. You can do this on Firefox as well but you will need to install add on to change user agent and also disable JavaScript.

*I tried first with WP8 user agent but then I reached a different page. Do no evil indeed, eh?

[Darrian]

I just forward all my gmail to my outlook account :D

Thanks for the info, though, I'm sure there are people here who will find it helpful.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Why doesn't Google just update the mobile page so it works on WP7.x/8 devices?

[BajiRav]

Why doesn't Google just update the mobile page so it works on WP7.x/8 devices?

Google engineers are either inept or purposefully breaking everything on IE. There is no reason this new Gmail interface shouldn't work on IE10 mobile but IE10 mobile is still served old UI.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/11/google-brings-ios-gmail-apps-interface-to-the-mobile-web/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+weblogsinc%2Fengadget+%28Engadget%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

[nub]

Why doesn't Google just update the mobile page so it works on WP7.x/8 devices?

Because then they wouldn't have an advantage.

[primexx]

m.google.com/sync/settings should work just fine with a mobile useragent. disable javascript is only necessary for the multi-calendar hack