Syncing mail accounts with "iPhone"

Sorry to post a "me too" but I'm in the same boat. I have no mail to sync with my iPhone and do NOT have the option chosen to do so in MobileMe pref pane. However, iTunes hangs with "syncing mail accounts" and quitting iTunes will not help--only a reboot of the Mac will (temporarily) get rid of the problem. The ever-spinning sync icon in the menu bar hints that this is a deeper problem with the OS or sync services, not iTunes. I would appreciate any feedback from Apple or others on what to try to alleviate the situation.

Kurt Tappe1 wrote:
Sorry to post a "me too" but I'm in the same boat. I have no mail to sync with my iPhone and do NOT have the option chosen to do so in MobileMe pref pane. However, iTunes hangs with "syncing mail accounts" and quitting iTunes will not help--only a reboot of the Mac will (temporarily) get rid of the problem. The ever-spinning sync icon in the menu bar hints that this is a deeper problem with the OS or sync services, not iTunes. I would appreciate any feedback from Apple or others on what to try to alleviate the situation.

Just to see if I understand what you mean, you have the option to sync mail accounts turned off within iTunes?

OK, I have some more info, and possibly an answer.

The problem appears to be that if you change more than 5% of your contacts, then a dialog is presented asking if you're sure you want to proceed. That's all well and good....except that sometimes this dialog apparently is not placed in front. At that point, the sync is halted, awaiting user input but the user doesn't know that--the dialog is hidden behind other windows. I figured this out on my most recent reboot just by sheer luck because I was watching the screen for the split second that all the other windows were removed and that Contacts dialog was shown oh so briefly before it too was dismissed as the GUI shut down.

Point being that this is a very minor fix that Apple might want to take a look at--be sure that the Contacts sync confirm dialog, if holding up the sync process, is in fact presented front & center to the user. Thanks!

Hope this helps some of you,
-Kurt

My iPhone just started hanging up at the same point when synced. After a couple of months with no issues, this is a surprise. Yesterday it never finished syncing, even after a couple of hours. Were you ever able to get your problem resolved?

If you have select email accounts selected under the Info tab for your iPhone sync preferences and the email account setup info for the selected email accounts was successfully transferred to your iPhone's mail client, you can deselect this option under the Info tab for your iPhone sync preferences.

Email account setup info on the iPhone is included with your iPhone's backup.

Unless you make an email account setting change on your computer (which shouldn't occur often if ever) that you want transferred to your iPhone, you can keep the option to transfer email account setup info deselected under the Info tab for your iPhone sync preferences.

Allan: I know you posted this a while ago. Just wanted to say thanks b/c it just helped me NOW as well.

Ding Ding Ding! Kurt solved this problem for me. Based on his information I simply hit F10 during the iTunes hang, spotted the confirm dialog that should have been in the foreground, and was able to progress through that step in the process. Thank you very much Kurt!

Kurt had it right, after about an hour of cussing I came across this discussion and immediately activated expose and saw the sync change dialogues and smacked myself in the forehead while hitting the sync anyway button. If iTunes ever hangs while syncing be sure to check for the dialogues.

Totally makes sense, as I did in fact change my contacts on the iPhone before syncing, but I am not seeing the sync dialog box (which I totally thought would be the solution once I read it here).

Frustrated now.

Also, when I manually cancel the sync, the sync spinner in the menubar never stops. Apple has some fixing to do it seems.

I ended up force-quitting the Sync Server from the Activity Monitor, quit & restarted itunes and plugged the iPhone back in, sync worked fine after that.

My mail got over to my Iphone just fine but here is my question.. When you sync your email accounts from Itunes and your computer does everything from your email come over.. I mean I have lots of subfolders in my accounts for bills etc and they are not going over on my phone.. Thanks

First you need to make sure you are using IMAP email accounts. If you've done that, note that the iPhone will only pull the most recent messages from each IMAP folder. I think you can get more in 25 message chunks though. I think it only pulls messages from the folders you have actually navigated to also.

Great catch Kurt. For me it was an altered calendar item. I used the iTunes:Hide Others menu items and there it was. The calendar dialog. Strangely, the sync finished OK if I turned off mail account syncing under the Info tab. Thanks.