Level 1

72 points

Mac Mail not Syncing with Exchange email server on MacOS devices

My work e-mail account is on a Microsoft Exchange server. Starting today, October 21, 2020, this account stopped syncing properly. Other accounts are not affected. The Exchange account is also NOT affected on iOS devices, but is affected on MacOS devices. Interestingly, the MacOS devices were updated overnight, to iOS 14.1, so it is possible that this is interfering with the syncing on the MacOS devices.

Incoming mail on the Exchange account appears correctly in the inbox in iOS devices, but not on the MacOS devices. Outgoing mail appears to work properly in both systems.

Posted on Oct 21, 2020 9:40 AM

Top-ranking reply

benveen

Level 1

14 points

Posted on Feb 16, 2021 12:38 PM

I agree its is a reoccurring issue with the Mail app and Exchange. I had it several times in the past too but have the feeling it is triggered by large mailboxes. So what i did was:

clean up my mail box and archive older mails locally to bring my inbox <10GB
delete the exchange account
delete the Exchange folders from Library/Mail (in my case the folder was V8)
empty trash
reboot
reinstate the Exchange account
wait till it has fully synced

I noticed that rebuilding and syncing takes a lot of time (indeed up to 3 days depending on the size of your inbox) during which the Mail app has its own way of syncing and not necessarily prioritizing the Inbox over subfolders. To overcome this in order to retrieve the latest mail during this period, i noticed it helps to restart mail after which the latest mail in the inbox will come in. You may need to repeat this until all mail has been synced.

Hope this helps and someone at apple also starts reading this

View in context

Similar questions

57 replies

jeff216

Level 1

4 points

Jan 20, 2021 5:19 PM in response to Jean Desnoyers

not working for me

Jan 21, 2021 1:54 AM in response to jeff216

With me everything started to work normal again by itself after a few days.

Jan 22, 2021 5:33 AM in response to bezef

@bezef let us know if it holds up I tried that before at least 2-3 times and always broke between 7-14 days after

Jan 29, 2021 2:08 PM in response to tresinnoctem

When you deleted the Exchange account on your MacBook did you lose anything?

Jan 29, 2021 2:30 PM in response to baltdawgfan

No, but resynching may take a while depending on the numbers of emails, in my case its over 20k messages to synch back, ouch

Feb 16, 2021 5:44 PM in response to chabberdabber

That's good news. Just for kicks, I tried sending emails, and I can send an email through the Exchange account, but I can't receive them.

Feb 20, 2021 7:42 AM in response to Jean Desnoyers

Me too Jean. Just happened a few days ago, tried deleting and re-adding exchange mailbox, got all my new mail but none incoming after that. So frustrating. Did you find any resolution?

Feb 24, 2021 8:29 AM in response to tresinnoctem

Thank you! Your advice helped me.

Regards.

Mar 17, 2021 1:48 PM in response to bezef

That worked for me for 2 months and today the issue resurfaced. If I read an email on my laptop it still shows as unread on the iPhone.

-MarkH-

Level 1

4 points

Feb 15, 2021 8:24 AM in response to tresinnoctem

Hi everyone,

I'm having the same issue with Big Sur after updating to 14.1

Tried all the advice on the forum, but no use. I'm now on using outlook which I hate with a passion.

Anyone manage to find a fix yet?

Thanks

Mark

benveen

Level 1

14 points

Nov 23, 2020 12:24 PM in response to nocteproxima

I have exactly the same problem. Exchange works on my iOS devices and on my Macs using Outlook. But on my MBP2018 and 2015 iMac, exchange does not update my inbox. Other folders will sync and I can send mail but not the inbox. Sometimes restarting the mail app will help syncing the inbox, or a complete reboot of the device.

Shutting down iOS devices does not help. I also reconstructed my exchange mailbox with no success (even with deleting all ~/Library/Mail. and ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail folders). It looks like the mail app just randomly syncs the inbox and is sometimes (but not always) triggered by the following events: reboot the mac, restarting the mail app or checking the "acccount info" option.

Any other suggestions. Outlook is still an option but this is nit the reason i am using a Mac, it look horrible

Feb 15, 2021 9:01 AM in response to -MarkH-

Like a replied earlier, I waited a few days and everything started to work all by itself normal again. I also worked for a few days with Outlook which I really hate to work with.

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

Mac Mail not Syncing with Exchange email server on MacOS devices