ICloud Mail is Slow

I've been having this same issue for weeks as well. Mail is extraordinarily slow across all my devices and on the iCloud website, regardless of the internet connection I'm using.

I've spoken with Apple support about this several times. They've had me run various debugging steps which have had no effect. They claim there's no issue on their end but imo there clearly is – this is ridiculous, it takes 45 seconds to load my inbox. This has been going on for weeks now and is clearly a problem on Apple's end.

Apple: this needs attention ASAP.

It seems just a little better this morning but thinking about it, it’s the weekend and business and commercial email traffic will be reduced as it is overnight. It’s apparent that Apple’s servers can’t handle the traffic during peak hours and days.

Concerning the 200GB vs @TB plan and related to email in inbox - I have a 200GB shared plan with my daughter, between the two of us, we are using ~50GB of 200 GB at the moment - and we both are having delayed/slow .me/icloud email. In the case of a full inbox - I clear out my email, either deleting or saving in an off line folder, thus my inbox has limited (<20 emails) except for what comes in during a given day.

My wife & myself have this issue across multiple devices (Mac/iPhone/iPad). These include a work iPad that’s locked down pretty tight, so no issue with new unauthorised software/apps and even an older iPad running older iOS.

There was an issue about 4-5 weeks ago where the icloud email status showed as having problems and this issue seems to have occurred after that was fixed so not impossible there’s a connection.

Is the elephant in the room and the reason this isn’t resolved. that many Apple employees are still ‘working’ from home…?

Yep of course back to being painfully slow as of around 10 EDT today. If apple's goal is to become a services company this doesn't bode well for them - capacity and uptime are totally critical for such businesses.

I’ve been waiting for a survey to respond to about the rep that I’ve been dealing with. I would definitely praise him, but this issue is unacceptable. However now this morning I see that a major internet service has gone down affecting major sites and services. I saw that Amazon Web Services was also affected which could also affect iCloud. I’m now wondering if this is connected in any way to our issues.

Working perfectly for two days now. I am assuming someone actually fixed my problem. I learned long ago that with customer service to just keep calling until somebody actually listens and goes beyond their script. It only took me about 6 hours over three calls talking to first tier, second tier, and a couple “supervisors” to get it fixed. Sadly, looks like this issue only affects a relatively small number so that it isn’t on the radar, so every one will probably go through the same process to get their issue fixed.

I think I'm one of the first people to have this problem. For me it stated in April. I've spent over 10 hours on the phone with 4 Apple technicians at this point. They've acknowledge the problem is on their end even if they won't do so publicly. It got so bad at one point my emails were taking 10 to 14 full minutes to load. Today however, is the first weekday in all of that time, where all of my emails are loading properly so far. (my problems would always begin at 9AM and be bad until midnight) Fingers crossed things stay working properly.

There was a big outage end of May, around May 27. They acknowledged that and eventually stated it was resolved. We had a few short term issues back then but nothing like now. You’re only the second person I’ve seen post that there’s been an improvement. But maybe some progress is being made. I’ve been an Apple fan for a long time and issues can arise in any service but to not acknowledge there’s a problem or give some idea on what’s being done to resolve it is inexcusable. In this instance Apple has failed completely. Sad!

if you look at the outage map on https://downdetector.com/status/icloud/map/ you’ll see the major problem areas are the Baltimore/Washington area where I am, New York, Atlanta, and Los Angeles. They have a lot of work to do.

Maybe I got lucky - I had already tried 3 devices on separate networks as well as iCloud.com, and was able to confirm that other POP email accounts I have were performing normally. Added the fact that my husband's iCloud account was NOT experiencing the same issues. That shot me straight up the chain of command, and then a referral to engineering. I'm not seeing any improvement - if anything, it's getting worse. Add to that, if I quit Mail before my deleted messages get moved, they come back when I restart Mail.

At this stage, my iCloud mail is unusable. Everyone having this issue needs to contact Apple Support.

Same here, slowness suddenly awful as of right around 10am. It's got to be people getting to work. I had a support agent tell me yesterday my account is now being individually investigated and I should be hearing back today so fingers crossed. Definitely call in! I may also try this archive trick.

The messages are coming in very quickly and loading instantly. But you're correct the syncing is a bit sluggish. I had read and deleted this thread’s notification emails from my iPad. But when I went to my phone they were still in the Inbox with the blue unread indicator. It took a while for “checking for mail” to complete and have the ones I had read and deleted on the ipad to clear from the inbox. And the number badge showing one unread message remained for a minute or two even though all messages had been read. So that mechanism is still wonky but compared to the way it was it’s 99% better.

Same it is significantly improved for me today! I am continuing to monitor since this could obviously be a fluke but many of my problems seem to be gone. I had a case open as well, everyone should contact Apple and get a case going if having this problem.

Just to update everyone. This issue is now front and center in the execute suite at Apple. I would go so far to say, Mr. Cook is even aware of it and was disturbed by how poorly it's been handled. I urge everyone with this issue to please open a case. They want to hear from us! This is definitely not how Apple conducts their business and sounds like they are going to do whatever it takes to make it right. My full faith has been restored in this amazing company.

I was told they completed a full maintenance on my account and it seemed to be working normally. However, I have just noticed that I have absolutely no record of any sent email since 6/15/21! Which is actually even more disturbing than the slowness. I have reported this to Apple (executive suite). Just want to say again to everyone - please be sure to open a case ASAP with a senior advisor or they won't know you have an issue. I was feeling better about Apple, but now not so much.