specific (g)mail notifications on iPhone?

September 11, 2015 5:13 PM

I'd like to be notified on my iPhone for email from one or two specific email addresses. I have gmail. I have it set up as my mail account on the phone. How can I be notified of only specific mail, not all incoming?

I have need-to-know timely email that will only be sent from one or email addresses. It will not be sent often, but is super important when it arrives. Is there a way to set up notifications only for this email? It is much easier for me to notice or check for notifications than to continually check email during the few times that this happens.

I hope that's clear, let me know of anything I can add. Thanks!

posted by cestmoi15 to Technology (6 answers total)

You could set up a filter in gmail to mark everything except mail from those addresses as read. So they won't show up as new mail. This will do what you want from your phone perspective, but may not be what you want. It's what I do for any routine mail I get to avoid constant new mail notifications. Takes a bit of time on the gmail side but it does the trick and I just manually scan my email to check for non-urgent stuff.

I don't think there is any way to have only a selection of your new mail trigger a 'new mail' sound/notification and other (new mail) not.
posted by Brockles at 5:21 PM on September 11, 2015

There's a few ways to do this. One is to set your Gmail account up in the iPhone Mail app, add those email addresses as VIPs (tap on the email address and and tap "Add to VIP") , and set Mail to notify you only for emails from your favorites (Settings > Notifications > Mail > Allow Notifications > VIP)

Plan B would be to set set up IFTTT to trigger on emails from that address in the GMail channel, and then have it notify you by whatever means you want (text message, notification if you install the IFTTT app). However, this option can delay up to 15 minutes and relies on IFTTT not flaking out... which happens periodically.
posted by neilbert at 5:25 PM on September 11, 2015 [3 favorites]

If you use the Gmail app I think you can do this. You certainly can in the Gmail app on Android.

Basically, set up a label for the mail you want to be notified on. Then go into notifications in the Gmail app, turn off notifications for Inbox and turn on notifications for that label.

I use this on all my accounts.

Possible it doesn't work on iOS for some reason, I guess, if the notification system is very different.
posted by thefoxgod at 7:22 PM on September 11, 2015

I think IFTTT is the easiest solution. I've done this for an important email before.
posted by three_red_balloons at 7:58 PM on September 11, 2015

The VIP feature of the Mail app should work for this.
posted by Night_owl at 8:11 PM on September 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Another possible solution. (Not as elegant as IFTTT, but probably more robust.)
posted by kickingtheground at 9:11 PM on September 11, 2015