My Kindle Fire Read online

  6. Tap Next.

  7. Enter your name.

  8. Enter the display name for this account on your Kindle Fire.

  9. Check the box if you want new email messages to use this account by default.

  * * *

  Gmail Contacts

  If you’re setting up a Gmail account, you’ll have the option to import your contacts if you want.

  * * *

  10. Tap View Your Inbox.

  Adding an Additional Email Account

  The start screen that shows you a collection of buttons for setting up a new email account only appears when you haven’t set up any email accounts. The steps for setting up additional accounts are slightly different.

  1. Launch the Email app.

  2. Tap the Menu icon.

  3. Tap Accounts.

  4. Tap the Menu icon.

  5. Tap Add Account and follow the steps as they are described in the previous section, “Adding a Basic Account,” or in the following section, “Adding a POP3 or IMAP Account.”

  Adding a POP3 or IMAP Account

  You can set up your Kindle Fire to read and send email from a POP3 or IMAP account.

  1. From the email provider list, tap Other.

  2. Enter your username.

  3. Enter your password.

  4. Tap Next.

  5. Tap POP 3 to set up a POP3 account.

  6. Tap IMAP to set up an IMAP account.

  * * *

  It’s Not All Good: No Exchange Support

  The built-in email app doesn’t support Microsoft Exchange servers. You can get an app called Exchange By TouchDown that allows you to configure your Exchange email on your Kindle Fire, but the app carries a relatively steep price of $12.99. If you want to try it out to see if it fits your needs, you can download the free version and use it for 30-days.

  * * *

  Configuring a POP3 Account

  After you select POP3 as your account type, you need to configure the account. Most of this information is already filled in based on information you’ve already entered, but you should check it to ensure that it’s correct.

  If you’re unsure about a setting, check with your email provider.

  1. Enter your username.

  2. Enter your password.

  3. Enter the address of your POP3 server.

  4. Tap Security Type and select a security type if necessary.

  5. Tap Authentication Type and select the authentication type.

  6. Enter a new port number if required. Note that the existing port number is based on the security type, and it’s likely correct already.

  7. Tap Next.

  8. Enter your SMTP (outgoing server) address.

  9. Tap Security Type and select a security type.

  10. Enter a port number if required.

  11. If your SMTP server requires you to log in (most do), check Require Sign-In.

  12. Tap Authentication Type and select the authentication type. Leave it set to Automatic if you’re unsure.

  13. Enter your username.

  14. Enter your password.

  15. Tap Next.

  16. Tap Folder Poll Frequency and select how often you want to check for new mail.

  17. Tap Next.

  18. Enter the name that you want to display on emails sent from this account.

  19. Enter a display name for this account on your Kindle Fire.

  20. Check the box if you want email to be sent from this account by default.

  21. Tap View Your Inbox to go to your inbox.

  * * *

  POP3 Emails Remain on Server

  Unlike many POP3 email clients, the Kindle Fire’s email app does not remove emails from your server when you read them. Therefore, if you have your email account configured on another device or computer, you can still see your mail on that device after reading it on your Kindle Fire. Even if you delete an email message from your Kindle Fire, the email message remains on the server by default.

  * * *

  Configuring an IMAP Account

  After you select IMAP as your account type, you need to configure the account. Most of this information is already filled in based on information you’ve already entered, but you should check it to ensure that it’s correct.

  If you’re unsure about a setting, check with your email provider.

  1. Enter your username.

  2. Enter your password.

  3. Enter your IMAP server’s address.

  4. Tap Security Type and select a security type.

  5. Tap Authentication Type and select an authentication type.

  6. Change the port if required.

  7. Scroll down to reveal additional options.

  8. Enter an IMAP Path Prefix if necessary. (This can be left as-is in most cases.)

  9. Check Wi-Fi to enable compression if you want. If you have metered Internet, this can save some bandwidth. (Mobile and Other aren’t applicable on the Kindle Fire.)

  10. Tap Next.

  11. Enter your SMTP (outgoing server) address.

  12. Tap Security Type and select a security type.

  13. Change the port if necessary.

  14. Tap Require Sign-In if your SMTP server requires you to sign in.

  15. Tap Authentication Type and select an authentication type if necessary.

  16. Enter your username.

  17. Enter your password.

  18. Tap Next.

  19. Tap Folder Poll Frequency and select how often you would like to check for new email.

  20. Tap Next.

  21. Enter a name to display on emails sent from this account.

  22. Enter a display name for this account on your Kindle Fire.

  23. Check the box to have emails sent from this account by default.

  24. Tap View Your Inbox to be taken to your inbox.

  Removing an Account

  You can remove an account from your Kindle Fire if you no longer want to read email from that account on your device.

  1. While viewing your inbox, tap the Menu icon.

  2. Tap Accounts to access the Accounts screen.

  3. Tap and hold the account you want to remove.

  4. Tap Remove Account.

  5. Tap OK to confirm the removal of the account.

  Managing Your Email Inbox

  Your inbox is where you can view all of the email messages that have been received. Without opening a mail message, you can see who sent the mail, the subject of the email, and a brief snippet of the message. You can flag your mail, sort your mail, and delete messages you aren’t interested in as well.

  Choosing an Inbox

  Your inbox can display email messages from a single account or in a unified account view that shows all messages from all accounts.

  1. From your inbox, tap the current account name.

  2. Select a different account to view the inbox for that account.

  3. Select Unified Inbox to view the inbox for all accounts in a unified view.

  Choosing a Folder

  Most email providers allow you to create folders so that you can organize email that you want to keep. You can choose which folder is displayed when viewing an account’s inbox.

  * * *

  It’s Not All Good: Creating Folders

  You can’t create folders on your Kindle Fire. To create folders for your email account, you’ll have to use an email program on your computer. Some email providers also provide a Web interface that you can use for creating folders and managing your email.

  * * *

  1. From your inbox, tap the Menu icon.

  2. Tap Folders.

  3. Select a folder to display that folder.

  4. Tap to load messages from the selected folder.

  * * *

  Loading Messages

  Your inbox loads 25 messages at a time. You can tap to load another 25 messages.

  * * *

  Sorting Email

  By default, email is sorted with the newest emails liste
d first. You can change this sort order.

  1. Tap the current sort order.

  2. Tap the desired sort order to resort your inbox.

  Searching Email

  You can search your email messages. Only email messages that have been downloaded are searched. Search only displays results for the current folder.

  1. Tap the Search icon.

  2. Enter the text you want to search for. Your Kindle Fire can search the email address, subject, and message text.

  3. Tap Search on the keyboard.

  4. Tap a message from your search results in order to open the message for viewing.

  * * *

  Shortcut to Search

  You can also access the search box by swiping down when you’re at the top of your inbox.

  * * *

  Synchronizing Email

  If you chose a poll frequency of Manual when you set up your account, your Kindle Fire only checks for mail when you manually synchronize mail. You can also manually synchronize mail at any time to check for new messages between polling intervals.

  1. From one of your mailboxes, tap the Synchronize icon.

  2. Tap Load Up To 25 More at the bottom of the list of messages in order to load additional messages if necessary. (The Kindle Fire only retrieves 25 messages at a time.)

  Selecting and Managing Multiple Messages

  You can select one or more messages in your inbox. You can then choose to delete the messages, move them to another folder, or mark them as read or unread.

  1. Swipe right on a message you want to select.

  2. Tap other email messages to select them.

  3. Tap the checkbox at the bottom of the screen to select all messages in the current folder.

  4. Tap Mark as Read to mark all messages read.

  5. Tap Mark as Unread to mark messages as unread. (Only available if all selected messages are currently marked as read.)

  6. Tap Move to move the selected messages to another folder.

  7. Choose a folder to move the messages.

  8. Tap Delete to delete the selected messages.

  9. Tap Done when finished or swipe left on any message.

  * * *

  Another Way of Selecting

  You can also select multiple messages by tapping the Menu icon, tapping Edit List, and then checking the messages you want to select.

  * * *

  Accessing Email Settings

  There are several configuration settings available for your account. They are all available in the Settings screen. All settings changes apply only to the account you are viewing. If you want a setting to apply to all accounts, you must change the setting for each account.

  To access the email Settings screen, while viewing the inbox for your account, tap the Menu icon and then tap Settings.

  Changing Polling Frequency

  You can change the polling frequency that you selected during the initial setup of your email account.

  1. While in the Settings screen for the desired account, tap Fetch New Messages.

  2. Select a new poll frequency.

  * * *

  IMAP Polling Frequency

  IMAP accounts only list Manual and Push for polling frequency. Push downloads new messages as they are available. Manual only downloads messages when you manually synchronize.

  * * *

  Controlling What Happens When Mail Is Deleted

  By default, deleted messages are not deleted from your email server. (IMAP accounts other than Gmail are an exception. When you delete a message from a non-Gmail IMAP account, it is deleted from the server.) You can change the default behavior from the Settings screen for the account you want to modify.

  1. Tap When I Delete a Message.

  2. Tap to select what happens when a message is deleted.

  3. Check Sync Server Deletions if you want mail deleted from another device or computer to also be deleted from your inbox on your Kindle Fire.

  Adding a Notification Sound

  By default, no sound is played when new email arrives. You can add a notification sound from the Settings screen for the account you want to modify.

  1. Scroll to the bottom of the Settings screen.

  2. Tap Notification Sound.

  3. Select a notification sound. The sound plays when you tap the sound option.

  4. Tap OK when you have chosen a sound that you like.

  Emptying the Trash

  After you’ve deleted messages, you can empty the trash to remove them from the folder that contains deleted items.

  1. Tap the Menu icon.

  2. Tap Folders.

  3. Tap the Menu icon.

  4. Tap Empty Trash.

  * * *

  Faster Trash Emptying

  While you’re on the Accounts screen, tap and hold an account and tap Empty Trash to empty the trash for that account.

  * * *

  Flagging a Message

  You can flag a message so that you can more easily locate it later.

  1. From one of your email folders, tap the flag to mark a message as flagged.

  2. If a message is already flagged, tap the flag to unflag it.

  3. Sort by Flagged to easily locate flagged messages.

  Reading Mail

  Having email on your Kindle Fire is a great convenience. Not only is it nice to browse through your mail while you relax on the couch, but it’s also easy to triage your email from the Kindle Fire. By that, I mean that you can quickly peruse your inbox and delete junk mail or other mail you’re not interested in, move mail to another folder, mark important mail for follow-up later, and so forth.

  Reading a Message

  While reading a message, you can view information about the message, mark it as spam, move it to another folder, or delete the message.

  1. Tap a message to open it.