For some reason my Softbank iPhone started displaying “You got a mail” with every SMS. I looked into how to suppress the Softbank “You got a mail” message that precedes every single SMS or MMS message, charmingly ungrammatical though it is. It’s easy to do, but as always with Telcos (perhaps especially Japanese ones?), the setting is not really in a logical place.

Update: Softbank finally came to their senses and discontinued this “you got a mail” service as of Jan 2015 anyway, so this information is not relevant.

Turn off Sofbank’s “You got a mail” pop-up

Here’s how:

  • Log into My Softbank on the iPhone (you cannot make this setting via their PC site for reasons unknown).
  • Tap “メール設定”, then scroll down to “Eメールi” and tap “設定する”.
  • Tap next on “Newly arriving e-mail notification setting”.
  • Select “Not Send”, then tap Next.
  • If you’re really sure you don’t want the meaningless popup, next tap Change.
  • Since there’s no turning back now, if you’re truly certain about it, tap O K.

That’s it. Less noise in your life.

It is odd that this setting impacts SMS/MMS messages but is in the “i” (meaning, Softbank’s imap mail) section and not the dedicated section for SMS / MMS. I don’t use Softbank’s imap mail since I don’t want another email address, and only use the SMS/MMS. Admittedly, it might be different for those souls who use both.

By the way, Softbank? Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks called from the 90’s. They want the grammar fixed right pronto! And AOL is surely gonna sue.