How to Sync Google Apps for Work Calendar, Contacts, & Mail on an iPhone Using Push

Friend of mine recently registered her new bar’s website domain name and naturally, asked the nerdy guy who runs a tech site to help. After registering her domain for her (yes, all I essentially did was push Add to Cart for her and deny all the other GoDaddy upsells that they try and make you buy on the way out), I told her she needs to get Google Apps for Work instead of using GoDaddy’s clumsy mail system for her work email for the new domain. Her only question: “Will it work on my iPhone?”.

Darn right it will.

Thing is though that Google got rid of Push support for Gmail on iPhone not too long ago and without that your phone has to manually fetch new mail in 15, 30, or 60 min intervals to get your mail, contacts, and calendar updates. Since this taxes the battery – and just is annoying – I wanted to make sure we could get her mail pushed to her device instead.

In order to get Push for your Google Mail you need to set it up a tad differently –counterintuitively using Exchange instead of the Google option when adding the account. Here’s how I got it to work for her Google Apps for Work account and hopefully it’ll help others out there trying to do it, too.

1. Head to Settings.

Settings

2. Tap on Mail, Contacts, Calendars.

Mail, Contacts, Calendars

3. Tap on Add Account.

Add Account

4. Even though there is a Google option, we’re going to use Exchange so it’ll sync our contacts, calendars, etc. Tap Exchange.

Exchange

5. Put in your Google Apps or Gmail email address and password and give it a description for your own reference.

Email Info

6. It’ll expand and ask for more info. Put m.google.com in Server, enter your email again for username, and leave Domain blank.

Server

7. Select whatever you want to sync and tap Save.

Save

That’s it. You should now be able to get your mail, contacts, and calendars without having to use fetch. You can confirm this by going to Settings > Mail, Contacts, & Calendars > Fetch New Data and make sure it says Push next to the account you just added.

Push

Let me know if this worked for you or if you have any other suggestions to help people using Google Mail with their iPhone (blasphemy!).

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4 thoughts on “How to Sync Google Apps for Work Calendar, Contacts, & Mail on an iPhone Using Push”

        1. Sorry but that means either your Google info is wrong or you didn’t put in all the correct info (maybe you’re missing m.google.com for the server, maybe your password is wrong, maybe you didn’t put in the full email address, etc.).

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