IssueTracker

This issue does not reproduce with dev preview 4.

Closing this issue as per comment #2 from reporter.

As far as I know ICS support Imap Idle on yahoo and hotmail.
Why it support imap idle for yahoo and hotmail and not in general?

IMAP IDLE isn't supported in ICS for any email provider.

Can you tell us why please?
I really can't find a reason why google implemented the face unlock when they haven't implemented push email yet.

Probably I'm stupid, can you explain why my phone support face unlock but it doesn't support imap idle?
Hey google says that Android is a modern os. Is there an OS actually that doesn't support such an important feature?

Looks like a basic functionality to me.

Thanks, hoping to see a fix to this "bug" soon, don't want to call it a missing feature.

I don't understand why you have merged #1030 into this 48 hour old ticket.

Does it matter which is merged into which?

Doesn't matter which is merged, since there is now attention to this and has been set to Medium priority.

I really don't pay any attention to the priorities in these reports; I
track that elsewhere.

I was worried that users who had starred the other ticket would then be out the loop, so to speak. I see however the starred flag follows the merge, which is good.

I am however concerned by the tone of the ticket being patronizing and full of sarcasm, not to mention the "please read" tag.

So lets just keep this professional and perhaps it'll get the attention it deserves.

This is definitely something we need to address.

Along with QRESYNC. A phone is a sporadically-connected device. IDLE is nice while you can remain connected, but it isn't enough. To sensibly claim "push email" support in the 21st century, you also have to use QRESYNC to avoid refetching the same information over and over again each time you *do* have to reconnect.

People who lives in cityes does not need to reconnect since the connection is never lost generally.
I always used push emails with my older phones and never lost the connection during the working day.

You were evidently lucky then, and never roamed between wifi and GSM/3G, never got into a lift, etc.

Without QRESYNC you also end up refetching all flags on every folder change; not just reconnects. No decent MAP client lacks QRESYNC these days, and the lack of it should also be considered a bug.

Whilst I want this as much as any other person, you are fooling yourself if you don't think this is a feature request.

Very, very few servers implement QRESYNC or any of the other "lemonade" (or
P-IMAP) functionality, certainly none of the commonly used ones.  Which is,
of course, a shame.

QRESYNC is certainly supported in Dovecot, and has been for some time (since March 2008 I believe). Any server which doesn't have it is very much behind the times.

As for bug vs. feature, I'm not really sure why we have this new bug at all. I was assuming that it was an "OMG we shipped a mail client which isn't fit for purpose; let's fix it" bug, to supersede the previous feature requests.

Certainly when we realised that MeeGo lacked QRESYNC support, I fixed it and called it a "bug" to get it past the QA people :)

IMAP IDLE is something that we'd like to address; QRESYNC, however, is far
lower on our list of priorities (sorry).   (The vast majority of IMAP
users, as it turns out, are on Gmail, AOL, and Yahoo.)  Support for QRESYNC
would be a wonderful thing for a 3rd party app to do; I wonder if anyone
has risen to the challenge.

Sounds like a really bad thing to do as a third party app — throw away the entire IMAP back end and replace it. That the kind of approach which leads to K9... an almost-sane mailer which actually gets threading right, lets me avoid top-posting and send plain text, but can't access my ActiveSync email accounts.

Why fork? Why can't someone just provide a patch to fix it in the normal IMAP back end? Surely that would be better?

We've always encouraged patches, but in practice this isn't always simple;
often, the code base has changed enough that the patch requires a great
deal of work to incorporate.  Having said that, a number of external
patches have been added to the codebase...

I haven't understood onething, will we see the IMAP Idle support in ICS this year?

I can't comment on that, as you probably realize.

I realize that you can't comment and I realize why you can't comment also.

Android needs IMAP IDLE support for all email servers that support IDLE. The 3rd party email clients (like K9) are clunky and ugly. The built in one is not that much better looking, but it feels less clunky!

Please fix Asap! Important Feature!

Hello. Yes to have IMAP idle in any mail client in stock android is required for it to be a prime time offering. Ive been using android for mail for a while, along with trying to properly sync corporate emails with calendar, contacts and the like. Perfect if you want to only use google mail platform, but guess what, users want more than personal email services, they work for corporations, who have invested in said corporate email platforms that support things like imap idle, and synchronisation of calendars and contacts. This unfortunately is the reason the phone world will become a two horse race, apple and windows, as is the desktop. Sorry android/google, this lack of standards implementation and smart software on android will mean self destruction of your platform. What a shame.

are they kidding with all of us or what???
yes, probably we are stupid to understand what lies under this..
come on, enlighten us, what is it you are keeping this feature out of your box?

they are getting worse and worse, with not just this issue..

can anyone answer from google, are you going to sell the feature???

I agree that it's pretty sad that we still don't have this, but it's not
due to lack of interest; it's an unfortunate byproduct of the app's
history, resources, priorities, and bad luck.   We'll get there...

yea, we will get but issue is when

i am a lil surprised why there is no interest into the issue by the communities
or am I missing? where else this issue is being discussed?

As far as i remember, this issue has been since the first beta releases of android.
Clearly, Google wants something to distinguish between gmail (instant mail notifications) and "standard email" (polling).
Only thing to do for the user is to use k9mail or some other client that supports this.
Really sad to see no progress here :(
I've been on https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=1030&can=1&q=IMAP%20IDLE&colspec=ID%20Type%20Status%20Owner%20Summary%20Stars%20Opened since 2008 which eventually got linked to this one.
So, in around 4 years noone commented or worked on this one, as far as i can tell.

also, since k9mail is a fork of the standard mail client, afaik, it should be rather trivial to backport this. Clearly no interest to do so.

@34 There's no ulterior motive here.

@34,
Same at my position. Since 2k8 in Issue 36905726 (linked to this one).
Nothing  moved, no comment, no reaction.
I thougt that is an basic email tech wich every good Mail client should work with.
...but allready said this long time ago

You won't get an argument here...

I know that there won't be an argument here. I haven't commented on this for years, because i know that.
One only has to look at the facts: Arguments are not needed.

Little piece of information for everybody that mentions K9mail: I do use it and love it, but I've since turned off IDLE. Why? Because from what I can tell it's not perfect. It might be more of a carrier issue, but if I hook up your phone and watch logcat, my GOD errors come about every 5-10 minutes.

However that being said, this is still a fork and probably under a similar license that Android itself is under. I think it REALLY needs to become part of the system, along with other parts of IMAP. What's the point of implementing IMAP if you don't implement stuff like IDLE and server side deleting and all that?

Yes, I'd agree that we have a pretty mediocre IMAP implementation at
present; I expect that will change, but it's certainly true at the moment.

Right but the question is when? I've started out with a G1 and the Email app situation always had me the most frustrated out of everything the devices have to offer, considering that most of my email is hosted on my server.

If it's using the appropriate license, would somebody posting a "patch" with the changes necessary to get IDLE and a few other options speed things up?

@42 No, it wouldn't speed things up.  It's not as though we're unaware of
how to implement this (I wrote/sold a push IMAP application for Palm Treo
back in 2004); the application suffers from its history, internal
priorities, etc.  I would argue that things have been improving lately, and
will continue to do so, but that doesn't really help you in the short-term.
 For what little it's worth, I share your frustration.

Yeah, Google has a long history of burping out their software and moving on to other stuff.  But Hey!, it's free, it's generally pretty cool, it's generally cutting edge, it generally works fairly well, they just don't seem to stay on it and do enhancements and polish out the rough edges.  But Hey!, it's free!  These companies that charge for their stuff have motivation to stay on top of the issues and keep doing enhancement because their income stream depends upon it.  And Hey!, that's not free!  I'm not some Google shill, I just got super-frustrated over this a few years ago, and finally accepted it for what it was.  Now I'm ready for it, and it doesn't piss me off anymore.  That's just the way it goes.  

I was actually quite surprised that ICS doesn't support IMAP IDLE. My Motorola Atrix seems to do it just fine, but I guess that's a Motorola upgrade or something? I don't know. In any case, it's a major strike against my brand new Asus Transformer Prime.

 we are talking against the wall..
anyway noone asking them to invent anything.. if you are offering something, please be kind to deliver properly, and it is not the matter of free or not. damn, its not some 3rd party app, it's stock app and is installed on every device with this os.

Well, no; the app is on relatively few Android devices, not that it
matters...

hmm, you mean that there are android devices where imap idle is enabled on stock apps?

No, only that the AOSP app isn't on most devices; I can't speak for the
apps provided by HTC, Samsung, Motorola, etc.

The only thing that we can do is post every day on this issue to get it bigger and bigger. I'm sure that this issue will be seen by the big boss.

Actually, posting every day won't help, NOR DOES JUST COMMENTING.

If you want this issue addressed, the only thing that will help is "STAR"ring the issue (click the star next to issue name in the header). The more stars an item has, the higher on the priority list it gets.

Right now, only 139 people have starred this issue. That doesn't even put it in the top 100 issues. So, tell all your friends and relatives to come here and star it if you want to get it visibility.

K9 is the only free app which support this feature. But this app is ugly and not user-friendly. Google please add imap iddle!

ICS 4.0.4, ridiculous that it hasn't added this support.

K9 isnt the only free app supporting this: MailDroid supports and this new (Available now only via .apk outside Russia) http://www.aqua-mail.com/?page_id=22

But is REALLY a shame Mail app dont support PUSH. Gmail supports, why native mail app does not? ¬¬

Kaiten supports it too.  I tried K9 and it was too ugly, but Kaiten is pretty great.  And it supports IDLE.

Google just burps all this pretty cool, and free, software out, they don't do much follow up.  I think they just want to seed the market with stuff that pretty much works, and let the 3rd parties pick up and fill the holes.  I gave up on Google updating and improving stuff.  Like I said, they burp it out, it's free, it's cool, and that's pretty much all your going to get.  

Maildroid free? Yes, with a lot of adds lol. We talk about a true  free solution or a stock evolution. Kaiten is the same as k9, profitable!

I really like K-9, and I don't find it ugly. Does it have themes or something?

No themes. K9 is just an overload of stock-app to add imap iddle. But when you want to send an email without network there's a java exception... You have to go in the good folder to resend the message. Not very user-friendly. The app should resend alone.

Please provide IMAP IDLE Support! Thats a really important Feature

So is there a way to add that functionality to the source? Is the source part of AOSP? Support the community of coders (like CyanogenMod) to add this as a patch to the source and embarrass Google coders into getting it done? The mod community has pushed along many areas of the stock ROM.

It's open source, right? Waiting for Google to fix things is the same as waiting for Apple, Microsoft, or IBM.

I'd say that there's no reasonable way of adding this to the source; it's something that I'm prioritizing for a future release.

[Comment deleted]

Hi mblank,

  Can we expect this to come in ICS releases may be in v4.3+/4.4 ?? or will it take a very long time.

Not in ICS

I hope Samsung will add this... They are more active than Google...

im glad that i found this thread.
i manage  all of my email on my own servers with IMAP IDLE enabled.
..and im quit dissapointed that stock android cant handle push mails..


dear google
this should be high protiy!
we all use smartphone to communicate and you email app is soo 2002..


and K9 is just ugly and and not well written..

Agreed.

Why is this issue allowed to remain open when it's a moot point?  IMAP IDLE isn't supported in ICS and it's been made pretty clear that (at least for any official ICS) it won't be supported.

Google, is it a violation or against any rules to point people to outside efforts to get IMAP IDLE going in "google-based" firmware?

You are laboring under a few misconceptions here:

1) While it's true that the AOSP client doesn't support IMAP IDLE in ICS,
it will be supported in the future.
2) Most devices on the market don't even use the AOSP client (the client is
typically used only on Nexus devices, though some other OEMs may use it or
derivative versions); the Email/Exchange applications are NOT part of the
OS, by the way.   If you're using a non-Nexus (or Xoom) device, your best
bet is to ask the device manufacturer whether they intend to support it.
3) There are a variety of 3rd party options available that support IMAP
IDLE; there's no reason you couldn't or shouldn't use one

If you're referring to me on the misconceptions (please pardon my sarcasm - it's intended to make a point):

1) The issue references ICS specifically.
2) The issue was opened on Jan 5th, 2012 on a device that purchased with ICS already on it.  The only devices available on/before that are nexus devices.
3) That's almost like saying "There are other devices available that support imap idle, such as the iphone; there's no reason you couldn't or shouldn't use one."

Agree. Its total disgrace that in 2012 there still isnot support for sush a basic need. And its appalling that its not even concidered as high priority.

It's been a high priority of mine for a few years, in fact, but I haven't
been in a position to do much about it.  I expect things will
*greatly*improve, but probably not on a timescale that you're happy
with.

I'm upgrading my Note to ICS at the moment and hoped to get pushmail with it.
Actually my old Sony Ericsson W910i supports IMAP IDLE. Android doesn't in 2012. Fetching emails hourly doesn't work also. My phone only pulls mails between 2-6 times a day, according the "last refreshed time". Downloading an email also takes minutes. This renders the email-app somewhat useless. Sorry, but in my opinion the mail-client is not even beta... This (issue having only medium priority) really disappoints me.

You should report this to Samsung.

Mbl you say that he need to report this to samsung because he have a note. This is correct but I'm using a Google galaxy nexus, I reported this problem on January to google and still no support for such a basic and important feature.
What do you say to me?

I was referring to the buggy scheduled mail when I suggested he contact
Samsung.  Push IMAP won't be available in the AOSP app in the near future.

Thanks for your fast response!
The hourly retrieval of mails seems to be working since upgrade to ICS.
Anyway, the coding/code-changes required for IMAP IDLE would require how much time?!
Not really worth mentioning...
Exactly this is the reason why people don't understand (want to accept) that the mail client of the leading smartphone OS lacks IMAP IDLE, while on the other hand there was enough manpower available to code one extra application called "gmail".
I hope that more people will vote for this or leave a comment, so it may be implemented sooner.

More stars won't help, but we're getting there...  And I share your
frustration.

Is there any ASOP Fork with IMAP IDLE enabled?

Enhanced Email and K9 are both forks of the AOSP app; K9 does push, I know
- not sure about EE.

I use K9 only because it does IMAP IDLE. I would love to see the native app do it as well. In all honesty, the native app looks a lot better than K9. Unfortunately the lack of push email renders it useless.

I think this is extremely important. I'm glad you're getting there and I'm looking forward to seeing this ASAP.

Kaiten Mail also does IMAP IDLE.

Kaiten... Another ugly client from another time.  I think Google does not care about what we want only they can do to expand their business. Like Apple ? Yes ! But with roms always buggy and without core features like push imap. 2012 and you have two choices : ugly apps or refresh manually. Great future and innovation :-p

@87: I can see how it might look that way, but nobody is acting in bad
faith.

Stay tuned.. I plan (but won't promise) to have IMAP IDLE working in AOKP in the next couple of weeks.  Probably will go to cyanogenmod 9 soon after that.  Of course, I can't help if your phone isn't supported by either of these.  As well, using either of these AOSP-derived OS's will probably void any warranty you might have.

mbl..: I realize that in the grand scheme of things, I'm probably wasting my time.  However, the fact is that most android devices available for sale today won't see any upgrade to 4.1.  I'm even starting to question if the verizon version of the galaxy nexus will see 4.1 (considering how long it took for verizon to allow google to push 4.0.4 to it.)

@89: It makes a lot of sense to me.

Another vote for IMAP IDLE. K9 mail is clunky and has bugs.

@91 - I can't promise my code won't have bugs the first time around. ;)

@92: we can overcome that, K9 sees hardly any updates nowadays.

Comment #89, gar,

I've been looking for coders that want to patch AOSP, especially to roll into CM9. Have the community there embrace it, so it can get rolled in by Google. Great to submit it as a patch to http://source.android.com/source/submit-patches.html and get it rolled into the overall code. It's called "open source" after all.

Be great to have a thread started on XDA, encourage other coders, make a team, release an APK, drive it into AOSP as a patch. IMAP is the way to go! POP creates a nightmare when you've got a PC, tablet, & phone. Three separate copies of mail is a joke.

What is your timeframe for doing this?

Completely Unacceptable. Push gmail not supported on a Google android device. I may have to cancel my pre-order of the Galaxy S3. Very poor product integration on part of Google. So many battery issues can be solved and all round better user experience is just being ignored.

Gmail app has push of course.

Yes but not everyone has only a Gmail address! In my company, we used Exchange and IMAP and I have to use K9-mail or other ugly apps... The stock email app, is very poor... Features are really limited, more than iOS app mail xD

True, but that is essentially patch-work to hold off until a new
firmware addresses the issue. Gmail push support is expected out of
the box in the native mail app. Atleast knowing that something is
being worked on for the next update would make me happy though.

Sent from my iPad

On 2012-06-17, at 3:29 PM, "android@googlecode.com"
<android@googlecode.com> wrote:

Agreed.

Lots of changes are in the works, but push IMAP won't be available in the
next update.

If you care about battery and network usage, you *definitely* want QRESYNC support too. Without it, the client has to constantly re-fetch all flags for all messages in every mailbox it visits. With QRESYNC it just says "tell me what happened since I last looked". It gives a *massive* reduction in network traffic for many workloads.

Unfortunately, Gmail's IMAP server is stuck in the dark ages and doesn't support QRESYNC yet, but proper mail servers do, and it's a significant win. I could *see* the difference on my ADSL line's bandwidth utilisation graphs, provided by my ISP! And Gmail can't be *that* far behind the times — I'd hope that it's fixed by the time a new version of Android comes out.

There's no point in using Gmail via IMAP; it's inferior in every way to
using the native protocol.

Yes, but it's not really the problem... Gmail it's a tiers-app, not stock (at least in Xperia and HTC). We talk about stock app which does not support IMAP-IDLE, an old protocol which have to be supported in the stock app!

In this case, we could use only ONE app for all of our accounts : Gmail, Exchange, other Imap...

MBL can you tell me what is the native protocol?
Are you saying that GMAIL re-invented the classic email protocol POP/IMAP?
What is this protocol?

I am thinking of going back to my iPhone. I just want a phone that works without any hard labour getting there.

If  you need IMAP push, that's a good choice at present.

iPhone doesn't support Imap-Idle ! It's a troll-comment!
iPhone supports : Push for Yahoo!, iCloud and Exchange account. So, you can configure Gmail as an Exchange account but all features are not supported (as the delete option lol, you have to move to a folder / label).

mbl, we understand there won't be a support for IMAP-Idle in ICS. Can you tell us if it will be in Jelly Bean?

I will say that IDLE is not coming in the near future; as far as "Jelly
Bean", it's not announced so I can't really comment.

109:  That's an interesting comment considering google I/O (and likely also 4.1) is just around the corner.  My only question in regards to 4.1 (and I know it can't be answered here) is when will the AOSP source drop?

I hope your colleagues will say more at the Google I/O :-)
'Cause throughout this thread, we are not very advanced!

Gaah I can't believe this. We need, can't live without, IMAP IDLE!

Yeah, I feel your pain.   Things will improve greatly, just not quite yet.

use K-9 or Kaiten app in the mean time :)

Hi Marc Blank,

  Please let us know if IMap IDLE/Push is present in latest android release [ android v4.1 Jelly bean release. ].
And in general any new features added, optimization and others for email or exchange.

Nope; pretty much nothing new except for handling the 7" tablet better and
new style notifications.   It was meant to have more, but bigger changes
won't be around for a little while (but a lot are coming).

Sounds disappointingly promising. But still rude and not bothered attitude from Google... Shame rhere is no real competition for them...

Everyone means well; that doesn't always result in the best decisions,
though.

I have for a now android 4.0 device.
And i cant find normal email client for now.
I want:
- many email accounts (gmail, corporate mail etc)
- filter incoming mail by folders (work, passwords, spam etc)

No one client i see in best PlayMarket cant do this.

And IMAP not working this gmail in any client (k-9, profimail etc).
Android - sux!

There is a Steve Jobs email re: IDLE SUPPORT for IPHONE where he responded that Idle was a power hog (http://www.emailsfromstevejobs.com/2010/06/06/imap-idle-support-its-a-power-hog/).

I want Push as much as the next person, but having used K9 for the last few years, it's a pretty ugly email client with limited features outside of Idle. I'd like battery life too. I'd be really cool with an out of the box solution where you plugged your additional email boxes into your main gmail account and then let gmail synchronize them to the device and sort them back out again. That's how my calendars are working now. I'm not hooked on IMAP or idle, I just want that overall functionality.

IDLE doesn't have to be a power hog; it depends on a number of variables
including the implementation, how consistent your internet connection is,
how often mail arrives, etc.   If you get a lot of mail (i.e. mail every
few minutes), IDLE will always be expensive (as will push in EAS).

Of course, *true* push notification would involve receiving an SMS message which switches on the 'email waiting' indicator (e.g. TP-Data-Coding-Scheme==0xCA; see ETSI GSM 03.38 §4) and responding to it by making a connection to the mail server :)

Ugh; using SMS for push notification isn't a good thing, and it's in no way
"true push", as it uses a non-standard out-of-band mechanism for
notifications.  It can also be expensive.  Meh.

Doing it out of band is kind of the *point*. It means you don't have to keep a client-initiated data connection alive constantly. Yes, it can be expensive if you're sending the messages *yourself*, if you don't have a data plan on the sending side that allows for gazillions of messages. But if your email is being provided by your telco, it could well be free. They don't charge me for the messages that turn my voicemail icon on; why would they charge me for the messages that turn my email icon on? It's not *such* a hack to make the email client respond to those messages by actually connecting and syncing new mail, is it?

So who exactly is sending this notification SMS?  I'm not aware of any IMAP
providers that support this kind of thing (except, perhaps, Yahoo, who -
last I checked - did that only by agreement with OEM's).

Anybody can send it. I can hook up my home mail server to send it either through an attached handset/dongle, or through an HTTP SMS sending service, or over the landline with the telco's landline SMS service (via Asterisk and app_sms) perhaps — I did use app_sms to send the *voicemail* notification icon to my handsets for a very long time, when I was with a mobile telco who didn't use that icon for their own voicemail service.

But do note the smiley on comment #122.

@120 - Steve Jobs.. isn't he the same person that "invented" the mouse, dark rectangular objects with rounded corners, and GUI interfaces?  He's also the same guy who told users that they don't need any number of things on their music device or phone - until you had to buy a new ipod/iphone to get that feature at which time he dictated that everyone needs it immediately.  Steve Jobs claimed that IDLE was a power hog only because he wanted his iSheep to be happy without it.

Seriously, IMAP IDLE (and EAS) can be quite a bit more power efficient than polling, depending on the polling intervals, etc.

Example:  If you POLL for email every 10 minutes, but are only actually getting new messages every 20 minutes, and assuming a network connection will survive for over 20 minutes (which it normally would), polling is less efficient (wakes up the phone twice as often.)  

As well, when you poll every 10 minutes, it might take up to 10 after an email is received by your server before your phone gets it.  With push mechanisms, you usually have the email message on your phone within a couple of seconds.

---

As for my promise to implement IMAP IDLE, my efforts were seriously delayed by my having to leave Verizon as a wireless carrier (bad service in my area) and give up my galaxy nexus.  Switching back to AT&T, I found the GSM version of the galaxy nexus unsuitable as a daily driver (not enough storage.)  I'm looking to pick up a GSM version of the gnex now, however, as a second device just for development... I'm going to wait to see what the 4.1 code drop brings to Email.apk before I continue, however.

No IDLE in JB, but it will eventually be coming....

Unacceptable. Coming?! Really?! With Android 10.0.1?! These days if should be a common feature. Not for Android apparently... Why not to simply integrate k9 or other app that did not find it so difficult to develop...

---
Sent from mobile
Best regards, Rolandas B

Comment #128 on issue 36938245 by mbl...@google.com: IMAP idle (PUSH email) is
not supported
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=23971

No IDLE in JB, but it will eventually be coming....

It's not a question of difficulty.    And if it bothers you enough, use K9
or some "other app".   As far as "unacceptable" goes, I think you do not
know what that word means.

you are funny man. its not  unacceptable to have no imap on smartphone on
2012 I can tell you that.

+1 for rulan, it's not acceptable! Basic features are not developped, I don't understand! Google Now, Maps, Drive, Music, so awesome features... But w/ the basic, your management are wrong. We are not in a world with n00bs only!

okay, so maybe I won't have to wait a week for the drop

I agree it would be nice to see the stock Android E-mail application support IMAP IDLE Push. Motorola's Motoblur E-mail app did this very well, it is unfortunate the stock e-mail app can not and we are forced to use a 3rd party e-mail application. I own a Verizon Galaxy Nexus and I use K-9 Mail, it's okay but if I could get the same features out of the stock e-mail app then that would be ideal.

Google has Marc Blank and we still don't have a decent IMAP implementation? Wow...

Very sad, I agree, and its not for lack of trying.  But it's coming...

BTW, the current IMAP implementation is nearly 4 years old, and I can't
claim any "credit" for it...

It's pretty obvious you didn't write the current IMAP implementation.

I dont know if there is push or idle, but gmail not working on android k9, profimail and other imap clients. Pop3 is not a variant, because it is downloads all mail since 2008 year!

I just found out that too when I tried to configure IMAP mail on 'pure' jelly bean.
This feature should work out of box.

For those who are tired of waiting and if you have your own server, you can try installing "z-push" on it. It will provide ActiveSync from an IMAP account (local or another server) and that does support push.

I find the user attitudes here a bit disappointing as and app dev. We all understand frustration.  However, demands for features are inappropriate. There are no ads in this email client and it is open source.

abl, just wanted to say cheers for your continued level-headed and frequent communication on this.

I think users will begin to be much happier over time.  Lots going on...

what do you mean mbl?

I just mean that progress in these areas will start coming more quickly
(with an asterisk that limits this to recent OS versions).   I have my
fingers crossed.

Ok. Thanks. Please keep us posted on any news on this.

Many have asked why, but obviously Google promotes Google Mail. I guess
Google can skim mail content for personality hints to target ads. After all
that is where much of Google's profit comes from.

Perhaps a compromise could be to extend the Gmail client such that it can
directly handle non-Google mail servers as well, including ENHANCED_IDLE.
Perhaps the client could then do the personality hint skimming and send
keywords to Google for the purpose of ad targetting, ideally such that the
user can check what gets sent.

I know, it sounds like a crazy idea, but considering how many users have
their entire email folders on Google servers, this would actually be better
from a privacy point of view, because users could see and perhaps even
filter what Google gets.

I could imagine though that this would suddenly put the ad targetting
problem on the table, even though the problem has always been there in
Google Mail. Google could get bad press, even though such a system would
actually be more protective of users' privacy.

What would you think? As a user I personally prefer to control tightly what
I reveal about my person. which currently means that I do not use Google
Mail for anything but short, ephemeral messages. But perhaps most users
would not care.

Issues with the Android Email client aren't related to supporting Gmail.

If Google merged the two, they would be. That was the proposal, "... extend the Gmail
client such that it can directly handle non-Google mail servers as well, ..."

Noted.

Are you trying to tell us something?

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I had the same problem and I installed Emoze Push client which gives me the ability to push any type of email even POP3.
I've done benchmarks with the stock ICS email client and with several third party clients like Touchdown, Moxier, K9 and I find that Emoze has the advantage in almost every aspect.
Push notification is stable and fast ,less than 60 sec.
Battery consumption is low ,I’m able to work in push mode  without charging for 22 hours.
I’m quite a heavy email user so it was kind of a surprise to me because I used to have 6-8 hours max with only one account working in push.
I have 5 email accounts which is about 100-200 email per day so no kidding ,this one really improved my life ,I’m less paranoid about my battery.
Other features which are quit useful are the security options that allows you to find the device location by SMS or email
and also to remote wipe or block by SMS.
This is cool because you don’t need PC connected to the internet to get the job done ,you can simply send SMS to your phone number to activate the security process.

Any news about IMAP idle?

Will the improved mail client be in Android 4.2?

Hi Marc,

  Is IMAP IDLE/PuSH feature present in Jelly Bean v2 (Android 4.2) ??

[ Could not see IDLE feature in AOSP source released for android 4.2r1 ]

Thanks

Confirmed lack of IMAP IDLE support in 4.2.

Hopefully Gmail app and stock Email will never get merged, since they address very different groups of users. IMAP IDLE would be really, really appreciated.

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Hello, I am currently using a carrier which charges extra for IMAP/POP and SMTP access.  Can anyone confirm whether the Gmail app (Not the AOSP mail app, but the Google branded Gmail client) uses IMAP/POP or SMTP for access (Or conversely, can anyone tell me how I can figure this out for myself.)  Thanks! Any help would be greatly appreciated!

#153 That is probably when he left Google and joined Amazon. What that means for his comments is anyones guess.

google recently bought sparrow.  I think that's what might be bringing about some email changes on android.

I too, would appreciate IMAP-IDLE support in the next version. Just so I understand correctly, this is a limitation of the client and not the server? Shouldn't then it be preferred to have in Android's stock e-mail client? This would keep devs from having to tell their users to use 3rd party apps instead of the stock apps.

Still no IMAP push on 4.2.2. Come on, it's 2013 and this is basic functionality.  Please include this in the next update our at least in android 5.
Thanks a lot!
Markus

Seriously, how is push IMAP not supported on my Nexus 10 on Android 4.2.2? Please add this support Google! I am using IMAP e-mail for my business, and need to receive e-mails immediately!

if anyone is interested in a Great Push email imap client try AquaMail from the google market place. I use it amd it almost instantly picks up received emails that hit your gmail inbox on internet. ive even had a froend of mine send me a test email and i was in same room as him and very quivkly after he sent the test mail I received it via AquaMail. Im also running android 4.0.4 from samsung

<quote>Come on, it's 2013 and this is basic functionality.</quote>

There's basic functionality on gmail accounts, and google sync are gone.

You can pay to M$ for a exchange server, and have push on any platform.
You can pay to Google for a business google app account (you can't upgrade your usual account) and have push on any platform.

In any other case, android only have push for gmail, and iOS for iCloud.

P-IMAP isn't a good protocol. It's free, and the "big" email corporations doesn't receive any reneuve for their use.

Great method, Google. I'm thinking to change all my @gmail accounts to a hosted exchange server. I can pay for the service, but, i need the option to do this.

I want IMAP Push. I'm trying to run AOSP here....

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