Windows Phone emails look like encoding hell in GMail? Here’s the fix

If you use your Windows Phone to send emails from a GMail account then the recipient may have complained that your emails are illegible. They get caught in encoding hell that kick out all of the headers. But don’t be so fast to blame your Windows Phone…or Microsoft. It’s Google…screwing us again.

Go online to GMail and follow their instructions and that will fix how phone messages are sent:

http://support.google.com/mail/answer/22841?hl=en&ctx=mail

Send with UTF-8 encoding

Each time you send a message, Gmail automatically selects an appropriate encoding for the language(s) in which you’ve composed your mail. It’s possible, however, that the recipient may not be able to properly view the message you’ve sent.

If your contacts are having trouble viewing messages you’ve sent them, we recommend using ‘UTF-8’ (Unicode) for all outgoing mail. UTF-8 is a standard encoding that’s accepted by many email clients.

Here’s how to use UTF-8 encoding:

1. Click the gear icon in the upper right, then select Settings.
2. Scroll down until you see the ‘Outgoing message encoding:’ section
3. Select Use Unicode (UTF-8) encoding for outgoing messages

That fixed it for me immediately and I stopped getting complaints that emails sent from my Windows Phone were illegible. Give it a go and report back to the group.