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iPhone Mail downloads automatically even when set to Manual

Even though schedule is set to "Manual" and Push

is off, iPhone will still download mail even with the Mail app closed. This can

be verified by turning on Airplane Mode before opening Mail which would

otherwise initiate a manual download of mail. This has been a problem for years

and still occurs with iOS 13.3 which is the most recent version as of this

writing. How can this problem be solved?

iPhone 7, iOS 13

Posted on Dec 18, 2019 3:10 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Dec 21, 2019 10:19 AM

Hey there wardjk,


Thanks for reaching out to Apple Support Communities. It sounds like Mail is downloading to your iPhone unexpectedly. I’ll be happy to help.


To verify, do you have multiple email accounts on your iPhone? If so, make sure all set to Manual. 


If this is happening with just one account, remove the account from your iPhone and restart:


Restart your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch


Add the account back and see if this has any impact on the issue:


Add an email account to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch


I hope this helps.

3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 21, 2019 10:19 AM in response to wardjk

Hey there wardjk,


Thanks for reaching out to Apple Support Communities. It sounds like Mail is downloading to your iPhone unexpectedly. I’ll be happy to help.


To verify, do you have multiple email accounts on your iPhone? If so, make sure all set to Manual. 


If this is happening with just one account, remove the account from your iPhone and restart:


Restart your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch


Add the account back and see if this has any impact on the issue:


Add an email account to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch


I hope this helps.

Dec 22, 2019 9:04 AM in response to wardjk

Hi wardjk,


Thanks for that update. Based off that info, you may want to back up your iPhone, restore it to factory settings, and test Mail in this state. You can look at how to do this in these links:


How to back up your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch

Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to factory settings


If it works in factory condition, restore your backup and test once more:


Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from a backup


If that doesn’t help, use the following link to reach out to Apple Support so they can look into this with you:


Contact Apple Support 


Cheers.

Dec 21, 2019 12:09 PM in response to raina_b22

becky_s22 marked the problem as solved but it is not. The suggestion to remove the account and add it back has been suggested to others many times in the past but it has also been proven to not solve the problem. I have not seen a documented case of this suggestion working. It may initially appear to have solved the problem because new email messages were not immediately seen but they were downloaded later due to another event. In this specific case, there is only one account but even if there were multiple accounts, they should not have to be set to manual to ensure the affected account is not updated automatically. Even if this were proven to be a workaround, the bug still exists. Individual control is provided for each account so the setting for one should not affect another. Opening the Mail app is not the only event that occurs that triggers the download of email messages for accounts set for Manual download. Something else is occurring around midnight that triggers the download.




iPhone Mail downloads automatically even when set to Manual

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