iOS Mail App not doing Scheduled fetch and notifications

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Level 1

86 points

iOS Mail App not doing Scheduled fetch and notifications

iOS Mail App not doing Scheduled fetch and notifications for favourite mailboxes on IMAP mail accounts that do not support Push (Yahoo/ Gmail / IMAP accounts)- fetching in such favourite mailboxes only on manual opening.

Observed behaviour:

the iOS Mail app is not performing the scheduled fetch for favourite mailboxes of accounts (like Gmail, Yahoo, IMAP third party) which do not support Push. Notifications for such new mails are also not generated. Scheduled fetch and notifications do not occur with any of the fetch frequencies (every 15 minutes, every 30 minutes, hourly, Automatic) on favourite mailboxes even after a lapse of many hours/ multiple consecutive fetch cycles.

Upon opening the Mail app, the respective favourite mailboxes of non-Push IMAP accounts shows unread count displayed against each. Only the unread count is shown but the actual mail is not fetched. The notifications did not happen for those mails in favourite mailboxes.

The notifications occurs for Favourite mailboxes only if its mail account supports Push, or it is manually opened.

This erratic behaviour occurs irrespective of whether the iPhone is connected to the charger or not, network connectivity is WiFi or cellular.

Expected behaviour:

The native iOS Mail app should perform scheduled fetch and notifications on favourite mailboxes in every fetch cycle for all IMAP/ Gmail/ Yahoo mail accounts even if they do not support Push. The scheduled fetch should should work on any of the available frequency options (Automatic/ hourly/ Every 30 minutes/ Every 15 minutes).

All the favourite mailboxes of non-Push IMAP type accounts should get fetched at least once in every fetch cycle as per schedule and no such mailbox to be missed and left out from any scheduled fetch - e.g. if the fetch frequency is ‘Every 15 minutes’, then every favourite mailbox should get fetched once every 15 minutes. A notification should get generated for every new mail received on scheduled fetch in each favourite mailbox.

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Posted on Sep 4, 2021 9:53 AM

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Answer 1

Sep 4, 2021 10:56 AM in response to sn72

If you're not killing mail that is not your problem. The background fetch schedule is managed by the mail app; if it’s not running it can’t fetch. When you restart the phone any apps that process notifications are launched; that includes mail. So a sub-process of the app is running.

If you have those accounts set to a fetch schedule they should be fetching; I can’t explain why they aren’t. However, Fetch will only fetch the Inbox, not any other folders until you open them. Also, Fetch only fetches the header; it doesn’t fetch the body until you open Mail. But that’s true for Push also.

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Answer 2

Sep 4, 2021 1:23 PM in response to sn72

I suggest letting Apple know: https://apple.com/feedback.

BTW, gmail and yahoo and will Push if you put their apps on the phone.

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Answer 3

Sep 4, 2021 9:56 AM in response to sn72

Are you in the habit of killing apps from the quick launch feature?

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Answer 4

sn72 Author

Level 1

86 points

Sep 4, 2021 10:09 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

If you mean the closing of apps from app switcher, then no. I am not killing apps (particularly mail app) from app switcher.

Even if it were so, how is it related to background fetch on schedule? The native apps are expected to fetch in background even if they are not launched any time. Moreover, if the app is misbehaving then it should also not show correct unread count against the respective favourited mailbox.

Am I correct?

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Answer 5

sn72 Author

Level 1

86 points

Sep 4, 2021 12:40 PM in response to Lawrence Finch

Thank you.

I checked your suggestion.

Immediately upon restart of the iPhone, it shows notifications even for favourite mailboxes of IMAP account and not just Inbox.

But does not show notifications for any subsequent mails received in favourite mailboxes. This happens even though Mail app is running in the background and has not been killed.

I think mail app of iOS should also give out notifications for mails of favourite mailboxes of IMAP accounts too, like it does for favourite mailboxes of Push accounts. This is supported by the fact of having alert option for generating alerts for favourite mailboxes in iOS Settings > Mail > Notifications > Favourite mailboxes.

I am not keen on fetch, but require notifications should happen on every fetch schedule on IMAP accounts.

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iOS Mail App not doing Scheduled fetch and notifications

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