Sent mails from iPhone only visible on IPhone - same for Drafts
Starting a new thread, since the last one and the previous ones are now closed.
Quick summary:
- sending emails work, but the copy saved in the "sent" folder is not visible on other devices, or on the server's web portal - only on the device that sent it
- non-mainstream but plain IMAP mail account (i.e. created with the "other" link)
- configuration is correctly set to save sent mails on server, not on device
Full details (largely copied from my comment in the previous thread):
- First noticed in early March, 2025, on iOS 18.3.1, but the issue can be older. Still present today, on iOS 18.6. Per other threads, this might have been introduced in iOS 18.
- Intermittent. Goes away around the 10th of the month, and comes back around the 1st of the next month. Which is crazy. I'm trying to see if I can pinpoint more accurate dates, but haven't yet. It might start on the first of the month at midnight UTC and not midnight local.
- Impacts iOS and iPadOS. Apple Mail on all releases of MacOS from March, 2025 to today is not impacted.
- Only reproducible on Apple Mail. Outlook for iOS and Edison Mail for iOS are both fine.
- Out of three phones (SE 2016 w/ latest iOS 15.x, SE 2022 w/ latest iOS 18.x, 15 w/ latest iOS 18.x), only the two running 18 have the issue. All three tested with the same IMAP account, on the same server. I don't have another account or another server to test. I might have an opportunity soon to test on an iPhone 8, which is limited to iOS 16. That'll be interesting. I'll update if it happens.
- Fully resetting the phone (the 15 in this case) to a minimal state (i.e. without importing anything from another phone or the cloud or anything), then manually setting up the mail account allows to reproduce the issue.
- In one of the past threads, a suggestion was to change the server folder. I can't test: changing the folder isn't persisted on the phone (applying the change and then coming back to that settings page shows that the change wasn't persisted). I consider this to be a second, distinct issue.
- Reported to Apple Support. No solution.
I'm failing to find another explanation than a bug in Apple Mail.