Gmail on iphone

i have looked all over and cannot find a simple answer to my problem.
I want to get all my gmail messages in both my iphone inbox, and my mail.app inbox. i can get all my messages if i enable recent mode in the settings on my iphone, but then i get all of my sent messages in my inbox as if i have CCed myself on every message. if i turn recent mode off, then i don't get my sent messages, but i don't get most of my new messages in both inboxes. if i look at a message on the iphone, that message does not appear in my inbox on my laptop. if I look at a message on my laptop, it does not show up in inbox on the iphone. Is there any solution to this?