How to set the iphone mail app to send email only

Solution 1:

You can setup iOS to send only, you just have to fool it :)

Here is how I did it on iOS 7...

• If you have an existing GMail account setup in iPhone Mail, delete it.
• Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts... > Add Account
• From the list of choices, select Other
• Select Add Mail Account
• Fill in your details for your mail account, press Next
• Choose POP instead of IMAP
• For Incoming Mail Server I used dummy info like
  • Server: blah.gmail.com
  • User Name: blah
• For Outgoing Mail Server I used the proper settings
  • Host Name: smtp.gmail.com
  • User Name:
  • Password:
• Press Save
  • If it asks to save without SSL answer with NO
• Press Save again!
  • It will warn you that it may not work. Confirm save.
• Go to Settings > Mail,Contacts,... > 'your account' > SMTP > Primary Server
• Verify SSL is on
• Change Server Port to 587
• Press Done and exit to Accounts.

That is it! You can now send emails and if you open the mail app it will complain because of the dummy Incoming Server.

Also check that you have the Settings > Mail,Contacts....> Fetch New Data settings to off/manual.

Hope that helped.

Solution 2:

The good answer by Vic above almost did it for me, but it made me realize there is this method too, which disables incoming mail by using the disallowed non-ssl:

1. Add your gmail account as per normal if needed.
2. Go to Mail in Settings, to your Account, then Advanced and finally switch off Use SSL under INCOMING SETTINGS.

This cancels the ability for normal mail fetching to happen. You will have to press Done/Save again after the error pops up about imap not working etc