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User profile for user: Pyrazol
Pyrazol Author
User level: Level 1
12 points

Notifications on Apple Mail app extremely late

This has been a problem for me basically since I started using iCloud as my email provider:


When I receive email at my iCloud address, the push notification to my iOS Mail app takes a long time to arrive, usually at least 30 minutes, sometimes even up to several hours. Needless to say, for time-critical email this is very bad.


When I launch the app on my phone at any point before receiving the notification, it will load mail and I will instantly receive the notification for those.


I do not have "Background App Refresh" turned off.

Notifications settings for the Mail app are turned on.


Other apps don’t seem to be affected in any way, just Mail.


It also doesn’t seem to be account related as my secondary (Gmail) account also gets notifications very late.


Does anyone have any tips on what I could try?

iPhone 8 Plus

Posted on Aug 30, 2021 8:14 AM

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User profile for user: Pyrazol
Pyrazol Author
User level: Level 1
12 points

Posted on Aug 31, 2021 8:40 AM

Thanks for your response.


barberlives123 wrote:

First, if you want your incoming email to be sent to your phone whenever possible, ensure that "Push" is selected (green).

Push is selected for my iCloud account.


Then check the Fetch settings for how often the phone will check for new messages. Specifically:
"Go to Settings > Mail, then tap Accounts.
Tap Fetch New Data.
Choose a setting — like Automatically or Manually — or choose a schedule for how often the Mail app fetches data."

I have tried basically all of the Fetch settings, none of them make a difference (which they shouldn’t anyway because iCloud is set to Push). Currently it is set to fetch hourly.


The problem isn’t that I don’t receive notifications at all, it’s that they can be extremely late (up to multiple hours). For example, in relation to your response I received an email at 4:17 PM my time, but the notification on my iPhone didn’t arrive until 4:55 PM. This delay can easily be up to 8 hours.

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User profile for user: Pyrazol
Pyrazol Author
User level: Level 1
12 points

Aug 31, 2021 8:40 AM in response to barberlives123

Thanks for your response.


barberlives123 wrote:

First, if you want your incoming email to be sent to your phone whenever possible, ensure that "Push" is selected (green).

Push is selected for my iCloud account.


Then check the Fetch settings for how often the phone will check for new messages. Specifically:
"Go to Settings > Mail, then tap Accounts.
Tap Fetch New Data.
Choose a setting — like Automatically or Manually — or choose a schedule for how often the Mail app fetches data."

I have tried basically all of the Fetch settings, none of them make a difference (which they shouldn’t anyway because iCloud is set to Push). Currently it is set to fetch hourly.


The problem isn’t that I don’t receive notifications at all, it’s that they can be extremely late (up to multiple hours). For example, in relation to your response I received an email at 4:17 PM my time, but the notification on my iPhone didn’t arrive until 4:55 PM. This delay can easily be up to 8 hours.

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User profile for user: barberlives123
barberlives123
User level: Community Specialist

Aug 31, 2021 7:17 AM in response to Pyrazol

Hello Pyrazol,


Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.


We understand that you are not receiving incoming email as soon as it is available. You can take a look at the following support article to check your Mail Fetch and Notification settings. First, if you want your incoming email to be sent to your phone whenever possible, ensure that "Push" is selected (green). Then check the Fetch settings for how often the phone will check for new messages. Specifically:

  1. "Go to Settings > Mail, then tap Accounts.
  2. Tap Fetch New Data.
  3. Choose a setting — like Automatically or Manually — or choose a schedule for how often the Mail app fetches data."


If you can't receive email on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support


Best regards.

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Notifications on Apple Mail app extremely late

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