There is a delay when checking other emails in Gmail [Solved!]

Do you experience a delay when checking other emails in Gmail too? So I thought I’d post this on the off chance it helped someone else. For a while I have been using Gmail to pull all 4 of my personal and work emails into the one spot (I find it easier to manage multiple emails across multiple devices this way). I noticed, however, there was an annoying delay – anywhere from 20 minutes to, in some cases, what seemed like hours (maybe I was imagining it 🙂 ).

I did a little research online but most answers pointed to some kind of widget issue or were identifying issues that aren’t related to my problem.

Then I discovered the solution, at least the solution that worked for me. The trick is that when Gmail receives identical emails, it will automatically only display one of them (somehow ridding itself of the other). So, the idea is to set up your usual POP based email configurations within Gmail – where you have Gmail check all your other emails. Then (and this is the key) go to the source of your other personal/work emails and set up forwarding. This causes Gmail to receive one very quick version of the email (because of the forwarding) and then one delayed one that arrives sometime later (that I assume it “ignores”).

The reason you can’t just use forwards (and not setup the POP accounts) is because your “root” email storage will continue to grow and grow because Gmail (without the POP) won’t know to remove the message from the original server.

Hope that helps someone, it works for me anyway. Good luck! PS: A nice gentleman by the name of Evan Kline has a bit of a write up on this very topic too that might help some folks.