Gmail For iOS Gets Full Support For Background Refresh

Google today released version 3.0 of Gmail for iOS, which finally includes full support for iOS 7’s background app refresh. This means Gmail can now download your email in the background (even when it’s not open) and your inbox will be up to date whenever you launch the app.

Oddly enough, last November, a number of outlets reported that Google added this feature when it relaunched Gmail for iOS, but it never appeared in iOS’s settings (unlike Google+, Google Maps and others).

What’s clear, though, is that it is available now, and if you regularly use the native Gmail app on iOS, it’ll definitely make using the app a bit faster. You just have to remember to turn on background app refresh and notifications for the app.

The only other addition to the app is support for sign-in across all of Google’s iOS apps, including Maps, Drive, YouTube and Chrome. Just sign in to one of them, and you’ll be signed in to all. While this sounds like a minor thing, if you use Google’s 2-step verification system to keep your accounts safe (and you should), this means you won’t have to type a 27-character password into every single Google app once you are logged into one.