Many people like the idea of using Gmail as the default mail app on their iPhone or iPad, instead of Apple’s iOS Mail app. However, they quickly run into trouble when they go to share a link from Safari or a file from another app and find the default Mail app pops up instead of the Gmail app you want to use. Nobody wants to have the same email in two apps at once or deal with duplicate notifications, so is there another way? In a roundabout way, yes, there is.
UPDATE: See How to Share Files, Photos & Links via Gmail on iOS for a cleaner, more recent, solution to this problem that Google fixed in an update to the Gmail app.
The truth is, you can’t completely do away with the iOS Mail app for what I am about to show you. However, you also don’t have to use it to check your Gmail (or your Outlook, AOL, Yahoo! or other email services) in Apple’s default Mail app. Confused yet? Stick with me. You’ll see what I mean.
1. Start by going to Settings >Mail, Contacts and Calendars and add the Google account you want use for email. Your name, email and password is all you need.
2. Here’s the important bit. Once your account has been added and appears in Settings, look for the option just below it that says Fetch New Data. Tap that option and change the setting for Gmail from Fetch to Manual, (see image below).
What this means is that the Mail app is now linked to your Gmail account, but it will not receive any mail unless you specifically tap that app to make that connection, (that’s the Manual part above). So, if you don’t intend on using the iOS Mail app at all, you can go ahead and bury it in a folder on the last screen of your device. If you want to save it for another email account, go ahead and leave it where it is 🙂
3. Now, when you find yourself in the position where you want to share a link from Safari, or email a file from another app, go ahead and select Email from the sharing options. The Gmail app will not open a new email for you, the iOS Mail app will. However, it will send it from your Gmail account, and in my book, that is the next best thing. Any replies to your email will go straight to the Gmail app along with the rest of your mail.
Other Tips:
- If you have more than one email account added on your device, you can choose the one you want by tapping on the email address field in the compose window and selecting the right one, or by going to Settings > Mail, Contacts and Calendars, and making Gmail the default account.
- Remember that you can set signatures in the Settings app too. That way when you do share from another app, you can still have your preferred Gmail signature on the email that is sent by the Mail app. Set your email signature in Settings > Mail, Contacts and Calendars > Signatures.
- You may want to turn off all notifications for the Mail app if this is all you use it for. That way, you won’t get double notifications or see the red badge icon showing how many new emails you have. You do this in Settings > Notifications. This can be done on a “per account” basis, i.e. you can disable notifications for your Gmail account, but leave them on for others in case you use the Mail app for multiple email account.
It’s a workaround, I know, but as of iOS 8.1.3, Apple does not let you set default apps in the same way that you can on Android. So, you have to get creative and this is about the cleanest solution I could come up with to accomplish what I wanted to do when sharing from non-Google apps.
[…] Check out this follow-up post on how to set Gmail as the default mail app on iOS. […]
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Is there a fix for this?
I am using iPad with chrome browser. In the past, when you selected SHARE from the menu at the far right side of the browser one of the choices was to share using Gmail. Sometime in the last few iOS updates, this feature no longer appears. The available choices are to share via Mail (Apple), messaging, Evernote, LinkedIn, etc.
I have researched quite a bit, but didn’t find this issue being raised let alone answered. Hope you or readers can provide some insight for a workaround.
Thanks!
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I have a feeling that option will return. Until then, try the process outlined in this article (above) to see if that will work for you. It will essentially achieve the same thing, but in the mail app instead of in Gmail.
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I ditch my iPhone 4 for an s2 back in the day just because of the keyboard with swype… I realized that samsung is not a top of the line brand, finally I get an HTC ONE M7 Google Play Edition and the difference is abysmal. But nothing like iPhone, when I heard of iOS 8 and support for third party keyboard I sign up for an iPhone 6 in Europe Unlocked… Si I started to see all new features that iPhone 4 with iOS 4.2 didn’t have… My question is: why other email apps have the option in the share menu and apps like gmail and inbox from Gmail doesn’t, is this Apple or is the app maker that does not include this option?
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I believe this is up to the developer if they want to enable this feature, but Apple will not allow anything other than Mail to be the default email app.
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Not exactly but you can do it… When you want to share anything from your iPhone you can select a hand full of app available in the share menu, if you have CloudMagic Mail App it will give you the option to select this Mail app and share via email without the stock iPhone email app…
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Good to know. If CloudMagic can do it, you would think Google could do it…
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Quick question. Once you share an email via safari with the work around featured in the article, doesn’t that infact utilize the native mail app thus activating the manuel mail request and double fill you inbox (native and preferred app)? I’m using the new outlook app with exchange and while the conventional OSX outlook to native functions like calendar, mail, notes, and reminders is seamless for ios8, I’d still like to try the app I guess. But as described I don’t want a double inbox notification.
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If you follow the steps I outlined above you can set your default mail account to Manual (step 2) so that it only checks for mail when you open the Mail app. That way, if you use the new Outlook app, you will not get mail in the Mail app unless you specifically open it, but you can still send mail from it by using the Share menu in other apps. You can also turn off notifications by going to Settings > Notification > Mail and disabling badges and alerts for whatever account you use to receive mail in the Apple Mail app. That should fix the problem of double inbox notifications.
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Im not sure if the email will be downloaded to your device, but If they are you can control how many of them to download, keep it at minimum and you can also disable notification for the Default Email App, this way you wont get double notification
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[…] of the more popular posts on my blog of late was a post I wrote about how to make Gmail the default mail app on the iPad. It worked great, but it was a workaround and you couldn’t help but feel that there must be a […]
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I so hope this helps. I am a medical professional and am sometimes missing urgent messages.
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Make sure you see the link at the end of the post Clara. This is the most recent information.
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Slightly different issue on a 6 plus with latest software updates.Touching mail icon resulting in mail page trying to open for a nanosecond then reverting to home scree,Done everything to try and sort from ,reboot to restore to reset. Problem not completely solved as the mail screen mostly opens but sometimes disappears either instantly of whist in use.Is this a latestest 8.1.3 update issue or is my phone faulty ?Thanks in advance
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Have you tried updating to iOS 8.4?
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Thank you!!!! Just the answer I was looking for!
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You are most welcome Carol!
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Hi Jonathan
Do you have any magic wand to wave over the latest IOS update disaster Apple has caused? My iPad air2 suddenly won’t open links via mail, although it’s still on IOS 9.2.1 and hasn’t tried to update to 9.3 yet. My iPhone tried but is giving the ‘you’re not connected to the Internet’ message so many people are getting.
Any help greatly appreciated – can’t describe the annoyance level!
Gill
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Ugh. That doesn’t sound good. Are you using the Apple Mail app or the Gmail app? I have not seen that bug myself yet, so not sure what exactly to try. My go-to fix for most iOS problems is the hard restart – press and hold the power and the home button and keep them held down until the iPad restarts and release both buttons when you see the Apple logo again. I have no idea if it will work or not, but it has fixed some things for me in the past. Other than that, 9.3 may be worth a shot to see if that clears out the bugs. I saw Apple had some problems with 9.3 on older devices, but have fixed it with a revised update – http://www.engadget.com/2016/03/25/apple-ios-9.3-bug-fix/
I hope you get your device up and running the way it should be soon 😦
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A very good well thought out trick. Thanks
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