Gmail - google mail - push on iPhone alternative - forwarding only inbox emails - free solution

Gmail push does not work on iPhone.

So I thought of having a notifier for it - well kind of.

This requires two problems to be solved. Forwarding only inbox emails (so skip the ones that are filtered and sent into other folders (labelled)). And getting a push email account :).

What we need for it.
1. A yahoo account (free push email).
2. Set up a filter in your gmail (to forward ONLY inbox emails).
3. Set up gmail and yahoo on your iPhone.

1.
Create (if you already don't have one) a yahoo account. Say account1@yahoo.com.

2.
Open gmail (account2@gmail.com).
Create new filter (Settings-Filters-Create new) - with the condition - Has the words = "in:inbox". No quotes.
You will get a warning, ignore it.
In the next step, forward the email to account1@yahoo.com.

3. Set up both accoungs on iPhone using the given gmail and yahoo wizards.

That's all!

Test sending mails to account2@gmail.com and you should get instant notification in your yahoo mail. All you need to do now is open gmail account on the iphone to retrieve it.

Advantage:
You can switch off fetching of email and set it to manual. Saves battery and hassle of checking email for nothing.

Disadvantage:
The mail icon on the phone will show you new mails even if you have read all mails on gmail - simply because these mails still exist on your yahoo mail. What I do is, I delete all yahoo mails after every couple of hours. For me it's not a big hassle. Atleast I get instant gmail notifications.

Cheers