How To Create Separate Email Icons On Android

Davis Wallard1976 · Tuesday 23 November 2021

This is my biggest complain with android, its a mess. Its like a desktop from 1990, a bunch of icons. I think what I need is common and ive read many threads and such, however not many talk about the S7, and so I thought I would ask.

I need two email icons that open up two separate accounts. What is the easiest way to do this? I could do it on my HTC M8, but perhaps that was a function of nova launcher.

Thank you everyone, I'm rather frustrated.

07-26-2016 05:58 PM
Set up one in the Outlook app and one in the Gmail app.
Set up one in the Outlook app and one in the Gmail app.

07-26-2016 06:09 PM
That just seems like a bit of insanity to me. Install a separate app for each email account. I am considering it.

07-26-2016 06:12 PM
Originally Posted by MrPragmatic

That just seems like a bit of insanity to me. Install a separate app for each email account. I am considering it.

Your name is "MrPragmatic" lol but seriously this is what I do. I have gmail running my work and personal accounts on my work phone, but mail sync off on work and use Outlook for work email. Outlook's actually quite a bit better for work email for me anyways. On my personal phone I use Inbox for personal and forums stuff and gmail for my school account.

07-26-2016 06:15 PM
Welcome to the forums. I'm not sure if you can do that with Touchwiz or would need a custom launcher, like Nova. Worth a try though. Long press on your home screen, select 'widgets', scroll down until you find Gmail and see if there's a 1x1 widget to add label. If so, drag it to your screen and select account.

I use Nova launcher to add shortcuts for my different accounts. With swipe up actions you can even use only one shortcut for both accounts, one will open when you tap and the other one when swiping up.

07-26-2016 06:56 PM
Listen to Javier P we should. Very wise he is.

07-26-2016 07:26 PM
I did it, but there is no notification flags on the two tags. Ill keep working on it.

07-26-2016 08:59 PM
Originally Posted by TJ Cooper

I did it, but there is no notification flags on the two tags. Ill keep working on it.

With Touchwiz or Nova? With Nova you need to try with Tesla unread plugin.

07-26-2016 09:08 PM
All these extra apps and crap to do the obvious. Android has the apps, but doesn't have the polish.

I like bluemail, but it doesn't sync contacts or calendar.

07-26-2016 09:47 PM
Originally Posted by TJ Cooper

All these extra apps and crap to do the obvious. Android has the apps, but doesn't have the polish.

I like bluemail, but it doesn't sync contacts or calendar.

I didn't know that one app (email) needed two icons. The original poster wants one email app with two icons, one for each account. Even on a Mac/Windows PC, an email client only has one icon (ie Outlook, Thunderbird, etc), at least those that I know of. I fail to see how this is 'obvious'. Especially since these are different email services and each service has its own app that best works with it, like Gmail and Outlook apps.

And you don't need your email app to sync contacts or calendar. Let your phone's default sync capabilities handle that, and let your email app handle email.

07-27-2016 09:37 AM
Originally Posted by TJ Cooper

All these extra apps and crap to do the obvious. Android has the apps, but doesn't have the polish.

I like bluemail, but it doesn't sync contacts or calendar.

I don't see it this way. The OP is trying to add some very specific shortcuts for different options inside the same app. The good thing is that Android let you do this and I'm not sure if this is even possible with other OS.

If you're talking about the notification badges, this is even more specific. Trying to get individual badges for a particular account/label it's not an easy task and nothing to do with obviousness or lack of 'polish'. Maybe it can be done with Tesla and Nova Actions or Activities, but I'm not sure, never tried it myself. Personally I don't like those badges on my home screens.

07-27-2016 10:04 AM
Originally Posted by chanchan05

I didn't know that one app (email) needed two icons ...

Yeah, that's the whole point. You don't need them but you can have as many as you want. I have three, one for each inbox account (same icon with different actions) and another one for a particular label, placed in a different home screen folder.

07-27-2016 11:39 AM
I am coming from a windows phone, where it was baked in, you can have multiple icons with notifications, it wasn't hard to do. My point is this, it should not be programmatically difficult (unless the underlying code for android is dated), and many people want it. Some of us don't want our work and personal email lumped together. We want to see a personal email has come or a work email and chose to act accordingly. I am not the 1st or 1 millionth person to want this. Its all over the forums.

I am also a bit confused regarding settings - accounts and email. If I add an account to settings - accounts, doesn't that automatically add it to the corresponding mail client? How do I separate the two?

BTW, my dream is Microsoft drops their windows phone and focusing on developing for Android, the windows 10 OS is a fantastic OS for phones. As I said, apple and android are basically desktops with icons.

07-27-2016 12:18 PM
The standard Android email app can display your personal or work emails. Or together if you want. It's your phone and you do as u please, but I don't see why I would need two icons on the home screen, one for personal and one for work....

Posted via the Android Central App

07-27-2016 01:31 PM
Whether you see why I need it, is irrelevant. Many people have asked for this. Its actually quite simple. As a working professional, I often ignore personal emails, but have to respond to work ones promptly. Having to go into my app to figure out which is which is not efficient. I will use the lock screen to screen what I can.

Love the apps in android, but the OS is crap.

07-27-2016 03:27 PM
Originally Posted by MrPragmatic

Whether you see why I need it, is irrelevant. Many people have asked for this. Its actually quite simple. As a working professional, I often ignore personal emails, but have to respond to work ones promptly. Having to go into my app to figure out which is which is not efficient. I will use the lock screen to screen what I can.

This is why I use two apps. Outlook is great because it has a focused inbox and another that sorts out the junk for the work email. Inbox is great because it sorts your personal emails into categories and you can set up which ones you wan to be notified for. I get approx. 2 notifications for personal email a day and most of them just quietly sit there. Work emails, I need to know what's going on, so emails in Outlook's focused email provide notifications and the ones in the "this is basically garbage" folder don't notify. It's great.

07-27-2016 04:02 PM
I am using the outlook app now. It is having trouble syncing my hotmail contacts, which was not an option in the gmail app at all. Ive had an iphone, samsung, htc, windows phone, and now samsung again. It was easiest in the windows phone. I dont see notifcation on my outlook icon, I have to work on that.

07-27-2016 04:06 PM
Originally Posted by MrPragmatic

Whether you see why I need it, is irrelevant. Many people have asked for this. Its actually quite simple. As a working professional, I often ignore personal emails, but have to respond to work ones promptly. Having to go into my app to figure out which is which is not efficient. I will use the lock screen to screen what I can.

Love the apps in android, but the OS is crap.

I don't see how the OS has to do anything with it if the apps themselves don't support it. It's certainly possible to code an app to do this. Just give it a widget to show different emails by inbox. Or a shortcut to those inboxes, as seen when using Nova Launcher. The facility is there in the OS, but is unused by app developers. Why it has not been implemented, is anyone's guess. But I'd think it has more to do with not many people actually asking for it hence the email app developers not bothering to implement it. If you want it in an email app, simply contact the developers via their feature request facilities. It's often baked into the app. Otherwise your only choice is to use third party apps to get shortcuts, or look for one that can show emails on widgets by account.

Edit:
So I just checked the widgets on the stock email app on my S7 Edge. You can choose a widget to only show a particular account. Hence you can have a widget for your work account, and a separate widget for your personal account, displaying on your homescreens. Sort of solves your problem.

07-27-2016 04:50 PM
"I don't see how the OS has to do anything with it if the apps themselves don't support it"

The underlying OS is what provides to tools to the developers (API and such). I think its not implemented because the underlying framework doesn't provide a robust enough solution, which would cause most developers to shy away from trying it,

I think Android needs a big overhaul, it feels very dated. You can try to pretty it up, but you just wind up breaking something, especially you if you run anything other than a default config.

The tardis gets a new look all the time!!!!

07-27-2016 05:00 PM
Originally Posted by MrPragmatic

"I don't see how the OS has to do anything with it if the apps themselves don't support it"

The underlying OS is what provides to tools to the developers (API and such). I think its not implemented because the underlying framework doesn't provide a robust enough solution, which would cause most developers to shy away from trying it,

I think Android needs a big overhaul, it feels very dated. You can try to pretty it up, but you just wind up breaking something, especially you if you run anything other than a default config.

The tardis gets a new look all the time!!!!

The tools are already there. Otherwise the stock email app can't show the different inboxes in separate widgets, and Nova as well won't be able to show separate shortcuts as well, as suggested prior. They are just not using them the way you want by default hence the need for a third party app that utilizes it to your liking.

07-27-2016 06:37 PM
For what it's worth, gmail can do separate widgets per account, and it can do a different icons per account, or even different boxes in each account, but the unread counts is a little different. Two apps really seems like the easiest way to nail this down.

07-27-2016 07:36 PM
Use meraki and enable the android for work it is free

Posted via the Android Central App

07-28-2016 09:18 AM
Gmail will not add my Hotmail account with calendar and contacts, it only adds email. There is no option to sync contacts or calendar like my exchange account.

update - I think I got it to work. Had to disable two-factor authentication, which also jacked up my xbox for the kid, oh well, I enabled it after and fixed it.

https://support.office.com/en-us/art...rs=en-US&ad=US

07-29-2016 01:29 PM
Use the BlackBerry Hub

Posted via the Android Central App

07-29-2016 08:59 PM
I use the Outlook app for my work Office 365 email, contacts, and calendar, and I use the standard Gmail app for my personal email, contacts, and calendar. It generally works well, though the Outlook app syncing has slowed up dramatically in the past few weeks. I contacted Help and Feedback and they suggested resetting the app, which helped somewhat, but still way too slow. Why was it speedy at the beginning of the month and now slow? Unfortunately, somehow my work contacts have been vacuumed up and added by my phone so all contacts show despite setting up custom filtering to only show my personal contacts. I don't want to see my work contacts (thousands of them) on my phone! That is the most frustrating thing for me. I would like to keep my work and personal stuff entirely separate on the phone within separate apps.

09-30-2016 09:32 AM