Mail not working on iPhone after iOS 18 Update

What I find is that mail in iOS 18 is extremely slow to sync with the server. I can pull up outlook at the same time mail is struggling to connect and see messages that ultimately appear in mail way faster with outlook. I am on iOS 18.2. Can Apple finally take this issue seriously and address the performance problem in their mail application?

Try using webmail to check your imap server settings.

In webmail account settings it should tell you things about the server setup. These need to match your iOS Mail settings.

Also your email service provider should be ensuring that with each iOS release their imap servers are tested & compliant. With the billions of iPhones out there being tested & compliant to the most used mobile email client is a must do.

Ever since they did 18.2 update mail does not show up unless you hit one of the new tabs they put in the email folder it’s very frustrating as when you look at the app it shows no mail you have to go into each account and hit the tab for mail to show up.

When is Apple going to fix mail in ios18 it’s very frustrating. Had to wait until I can go on my computer to get mail. Even the mail app on my computer says no content in the message but it’s there on my iPhone

Yes, we know the mail is not working for thousand of people. I have no answer for that.

Your "view every account" issue is unrelated to this discussion, however I thought I'd post this as I think this will answer what I think the problem is you (and probably others) are having with the new iOS mail app (default) interface.

https://osxdaily.com/2024/12/16/disable-mail-categories-inbox-iphone/

I didn’t pay one 1k for a phone to have to do all the technical rubbish on here being suggested. It has gone belly up since that update it might be

pure coincidence but I find that hard to swallow quite frankly

Clearly in OS 18 Apple has decided to pursue development of a MAJOR overhaul of the OS but partial implementation has so far resulted in multiple problems that apparently will require a series of MANY incremental updates AND the full cooperation of external product and service providers before full, stable functionality is achievedֶֶ. From my experience the best results at least regarding Mail problems were achieved by contacting (by telephone) both Apple AND my external IMAP mail service provider to ensure that both were aware of my observed problems and that they were in need of making whatever changes necessary in BOTH of their “back ends” to get the problem resolved ASAP… when I did so I was assured by my external email service provider that THEY were already aware of the problem and that they expected to have it fixed at THEIR end within a week or so (which did in fact turn out to be true!) while the APPLE “support” rep. that I spoke with initially professed to be unaware of the issue until I persisted by insisting that I knew for a FACT that a multitude were reporting the very same issues online - eventually he finally took the time to actually check relevant company records and discovered that the issues WERE in fact well documented prior to my call and stated that he had no idea when any “fix” might become available. My external IMAP email provider was WAY more knowledgeable about the matter, anticipated resolution and provided an expected time to resolution than Apple “support” was.

Apple consumer tech support is DEFINITELY not at the level that it once was, apparently now relying more heavily on subcontractors who simply roll us through standardized “troubleshooting” steps that sometimes require us to waste our time with them on the phone until EITHER they conclude that they have no idea what the problem is and so report it to Apple OR they finally - after spending an hour or more with us on the phone - take the time to actually look through company documentation when pressed to do so and then discover that it was indeed a problem already known to Apple but that they have no clue as to when or how long it is expected to take for resolution to be achieved.

This is the kind of thing that happens when a company becomes so big that it produces too many different types of product lines within which it produces too many models with too much hardware (and thus software) variation among them, resulting in higher costs and consumer support staff becoming less able to be truly helpful, ultimately resulting in consumer satisfation decreasing over time. Most automobile manufacturers - especially Japanese - learned the relevant lessons a LONG time ago; “tech” companies not so much. I do not expect Apple to improve in these regards to any significant degree until its revenue and profits suffer to a meaningful degree - something that does not yet seem to have occured. One thing I DO know is that complaining about such issues HERE does NOT result in improvement, as THIS “board” was actually created to take the “load” off of corporate customer tech support by encouraging us consumers to help each other out instead of contacting Apple support. Solution: Be prepared to spend the time and energy necessary to CONTACT APPLE customer support (and customer support of relevant external material product and service providers) AS OFTEN AS YOU CAN. That, unfortunately, is the reality of the situation. And if you think OTHER companies of the likes of Apple are much better, I would say you would be mistaken as they ALL “think” alike in these regards.

I wish I was as lucky as you. You should go buy a lottery ticket. My new iPhone 16 Pro Max is buggier than the Amazon rainforest. I have tried every fix suggested to me by Apple support, and nothing has worked. This has been an issue since I got my phone, two weeks ago. The native mail app works fine, as long as it is connected to a power source. When not connected to a power source, I have every single mail issue that has been mentioned in this thread.

Nightgoat - Your problemS sound so severe that I would recommend considering doing a full reset to original factory conditions (be sure to do it CORRECTLY! then reinstalling the OS over WiFi, all while plugged in (or downloading to a Mac and installing from there) and if that does not correct the problem paying a visit to the Apple store closest to you even if it’s an hour’s drive to get to it - still better than having to call Apple and spending the hour or more on the phone only to have to ship it off to them. It’s entirely possible that the phone you received has one or more hardware faults and/or that its OS installation was corrupted.

My Mail App is working again. I don’t know if this a coincidence or not but after I turn off my vpn in the control center. My Mail App start to receive mail again. Also , websites that previous deny my device access are now allow me to access it again.

I think there are/were multiple issues, which confuses diagnosis. As a workaround I had disabled imap-IDLE on my (Dovecot) mail server and my iOS 18.2 iPhone was able to get mail, but was still hanging at times.

After updating to iOS 18.2.1, I re-enabled imap-IDLE and mail seems to be working normally. It uses imap-IDLE (near-realtime delivery) when the mail app is open and fetches every 15 minutes otherwise. It gets the mail messages and alerts correctly.

@JoninDurham - I suggest you contact your local ISP and ask if other clients are having this issue. I had the EXACT issue you described. I ended up taking my iPhone and iPad to the tech at my ISP. They changed some settings and now both can send and receive emails. There remains this issue on my Mac mini, but I am hoping we can figure that out over the phone. In short, the local provider had received a LOT of tech calls from their customers with Apple devices and were prepared to help.

nxnw wrote:

Lucky you that the bug has not impacted you, but it has caused a lot of trouble for a whole lot of people.

It doesn't affect most people. That doesn't mean that it's not awful when it affects you. And that's why I gave the contact information for Apple, so that, if you are one of the unfortunates, you can get help.

The person to whom I was responding was specifically asking for Apple to address the matter.

I agree with rjsqxxx that this issue appears to be improving. It caused havoc for my wife's email when she upgraded to a new iPhone on which iOS18 was obligatory. Our third party email archive disappeared as did the archive on her phone and iPad, but not her Mac from which I was able to recover about 4 years of emails via the export utility. Apple's initial support was unhelpful and wasted three 90 minute support calls, one at the Guru Bar which is another 90 minute round trip. Anyway, and for whatever reason(s), her email now appears stable and my reticence about upgrading to 18.2.1 is slowly waning. - unless I see a flurry of fresh problems.

I suggested that back on Nov 17, 2024 8:34 AM in response to Careyrx7 on this thread.