Is it possible to have Android only alert me when specific email accounts have new mail?

Question

I have Froyo 2.2 on my HT-03A "Magic" phone.

Currently, I am in the process of consolidating all my email accounts into my Gmail account, so that I can access them anywhere. I want to be able to not only access them on my phone, but also through the Gmail interface at any computer I use.

However, one or two of my accounts are attached to some mailing lists. If I have my Gmail account connect to their POP server, my phone is going to be ringing like Quasimodo with OCD. In other words, constantly.

Is there a way I can get my Android phone to sound the email alert notification based on which account is getting the email?

Answer 1

I would suggest trying Priority Inbox, which can notify, vibrate, or ring on just your new important mail. Switch to using the Gmail app, instead of the standard Email app. Then go to Menu > Settings > Priority Inbox.

Additionally, mail filtering is a more "hands on" solution for this problem that both complements Priority Mail, and helps resolve the issue when using other email applications. For instance, in my Gmail settings I created a filter for incoming mail addressed to one of my aliases. I set that mail to Never mark as important, Skip Inbox and apply a label. When email addressed to that alias arrives, I am not notified. But I can use that label to go back and read that mail at my leisure. The same can be done for your mailing list accounts, using the list: search parameter. Gmail provides a few other useful search parameters such as has:circle and has:attachment.

Answer 2

I do this with multiple gmail accounts.

Load the email account that you want to skip notifications. Click menu, then find settings. Uncheck the box labeled "Email notifications".

That account will no longer sound a notification, nor show up in the notification bar. You can still browse and read all email just like you would expect.

Answer 3

I would simply turn off email sync for those accounts specifically. You can do that by going to Settings -> Accounts and sync, selecting the account, and unchecking Sync Gmail. You can still check mail manually through the GMail app, of course.

Edit: The newest version (2.3.5) of GMail now supports turning off alerts for particular GMail accounts.

Answer 4

By consolidating, I'm going to assume that you're having GMail do a POP download of those other email accounts and bring them into your GMail Inbox. If that's what you're doing, then I think the easiest way to have those accounts not notify you is to have them skip your inbox entirely and have a separate label applied to them.

In your GMail settings, under "Accounts and Import" --> Check mail using POP3, you'll have your accounts that you are downloading. For each account you don't want to be notified, use the "edit info" button, and set the account to be labeled, and to "Archive incoming messages (Skip the Inbox)".

Answer 5

I think you should try Mail Alert in the market !

It s a pager, where you can choose the ringtone / vibration / visual notification according to various filters such as from / subject / cc fields etc.

For IMAP account, you can choose the folder to be checked, which seems to be your need if you created a folder by account.

Answer 6

eNotify from Verietas provides this exact capability. It lets you create alerts that match various rules. One of the available rules is the account. So you can play sound X if from your gmail account. Play sound Y if from your yahoo account.

But it lets you do so much more than that...You can play different sounds based on the sender and subject and all sorts...There a free lite version too if you want to check it out. Cheers.