Comment Email Notification Issue

Thank you everyone who has been patient and supportive with my computer issue the past week.  While the problem isn't fixed to perfection (or my way!), it is much better and I'm able to work around it so much easier. 

I thought I would share what I learned, what I know and how it was eventually fixed.  

The problem:  Not receiving email notification when a comment was left on my blog.  

With no prior issues, I was totally flabbergasted when all of the sudden I wasn't receiving notifications.  What I eventually discovered was the notifications were going straight to the trash in my gmail account.  What threw me off was the fact that I would receive other notifications from my gmail account for Pinterest and Etsy.  Naturally I assumed it had to be a blogger/google issue.  After contacting Blogger and Google, I waited and basically got nothing from either place. Crickets!

I continued to search, look, read and pull my hair out for several days.  This is what I eventually learned:

You should go check your gmail account every once in a while.  Make sure your settings haven't changed on their own!  My primary account was all I used.  I didn't feel there was a need to gmail check!  

If you are unsure what to do, this is what I did:

Go to your gmail account, click on the gear, scroll down to settings.  

Settings will get you to this screen.  From here I clicked on the 'Forwarding and POP/IMAP' tab. (my eyes glaze over at this point!)

The only way I was able to receive comment email on my primary account was: 

Forwarding:  Forward a copy of incoming mail to 'my primary account' and mark gmail's copy as read.

~and~

POP Download:  #2 When messages are accessed with POP mark gmail's copy as read.

I didn't touch any other areas, and for the record, after setting up this gmail account I have never changed any settings at all.  Nothing.  I don't know why all of the sudden things went south, but they did.

It still isn't an ideal solution.  I will have to go in my gmail inbox and delete messages often. Plus delete the trash.  But at least I'm getting notice that I received a comment!  Whew!!  I'll take that!  

I don't know if it made a difference or not, but I did disconnect from Google+ as well.  I don't think that was a big deal and frankly, I don't even know what it's all about!

Thanks your for your patience!  If anyone is having issues like what I had, hopefully this will solve your problem!  Sometimes you plain and simple do not know where to start!