Slow Gmail on iPhone

Lately Gmail on my iPhone has been really slow. (This is the web version, not the mail app.) The screen pops up right away, but it takes a long time to finish checking for new mail - maybe 30 seconds.

I don't have a lot of messages in my inbox, often none. And it happens with a good wifi connection.

I didn't really think too much about it, but I let my sister check her gmail and it was much faster. Very strange.

I searched on the internet but didn't find too much. Most of what I found was for the mail app.

So I just did the usual "kick the machine" - I cleared the history, cache, and cookies. That seemed to do the trick - it was fast again (less than 5 seconds).

So I wrote this blog post and then went back and tried it again and it was slow!!!

Next, I tried deleting the databases for gmail. Still slow.

Try again, delete the databases and this time also clear the history, caches, and cookies. Log back in and it's fast again. And it seems to be staying fast this time, although I'm not totally confident that it'll stay that way.

If you're having the same problem and want to try this, go to Settings > Safari, scroll down to the bottom. Click on Databases, then Edit, then delete any gmail entries. I always seem to have two entries which appear identical. Then go back to the Safari settings and click on Clear History, Clear Cookies, and Clear Cache (one at a time).

NOTE: Clearing cookies will log you out of sites, so don't do this if you don't have your passwords handy to log back in.