How to sync gmail sent only by specific contacts? I used to be an email-on-the-phone junkie. Then, I read 4 Hour Work Week, which convinced me to un-sync my email (gmail) from my phone (Samsung S3). I started checking my email once per day on my laptop... then once per week. My productivity skyrocketed, and my stress levels went down. Some weeks, I spend less than 1 hour per week reading and returning email.

After 6 months of not having email on my phone, things are pretty good. But, there are 3 contacts (my wife; my PhD advisor; and a key customer) whose email is actually worth reading in real-time. I'd like to sync email from ONLY these 3 people with my phone.

Here's what I've tried so far:



First idea


Configure Android phone gmail to use me@gmail.com
In me@gmail.com, create a label called "Send to phone"
In me@gmail.com, create a rule to tag wife@gmail and advisor@gmail as "Send to phone."
In me@gmail.com, create a rule to forward all "Send to phone"-labeled messages to me.phone@gmail.com
In the Android gmail app, under Settings &gt; me@gmail.com &gt; Manage labels, I was able to unsync all labels (including Primary, Social, Forums...) except for "Send to phone."


But, it didn't work: emails to my Primary inbox (from people other than wife/advisor/customer) are still syncing to my phone. WTF?!



Second idea


Create a new account called me.phone@gmail.com. 
In me@gmail.com, set up a rule that forwards email from wife@gmail.com and advisor@gmail.com to me.phone@gmail.com
Use me.phone@gmail.com on my Android phone


But, it didn't work: I like having the me@gmail.com calendar on my phone. I haven't found a clean way to use the me@gmail calendar but me.phone@gmail email account.



Has anyone done this before?

What else should I try?
Give this a shot. http://www.howtogeek.com/171178/how-to-get-notifications-for-only-the-emails-you-care-about-with-gmail-on-android/

It's not exactly what you want, but it should only notify you when you get an email from those contacts. If this does work for ya. I'll edit my answer and detail how to do this, incase the link goes inactive at some point. Hope this works out for ya.