Email not sending on iPhone

::sigh:: DON’T SWIPE UP TO CLOSE THE EMAIL APP JUST AFTER SENDING. Advice that has been posted many times in this 8 page thread. iOS 16 has added a feature that lets you change your mind after hitting send; it holds the message for a period of time that you can set. If you force-quit the app before it sends the message is lost. If you don’t want this feature you can turn it off, but it is on by default.

In general, you should NEVER force quit any app unless it isn’t working; force-quitting slows down your phone and uses more energy than just letting it sit suspended, ready to restart. PLEASE read this→Do not close "background" apps | Communities.

FWIW, I have over 100 apps in the quick-launch app.

BcnPhil wrote:

Just found this thread: I've had the same problem with one of my email system in iPhone's 'Mail' ever since I upgraded to iOS 16.5.1, which simply sends my emails to 'Outbox' and it stays there; I have 'Delay Sending' switched off. I have iOS 16.5.1 on my iPad and the same email system in 'Mail' sends no problem at all, with exactly the same credentials: most odd and REALLY infuriating!

Your issue has nothing to do with the subject of this thread. Your symptom means that the settings for your outgoing mail server are corrupted, or the outgoing password (which may or may not be the same as the incoming) is wrong or missing. If you recently changed your email password you missed the outgoing mail server.

The easiest way to fix it:

• Go to Settings/Mail/Accounts and tap on the account, then remove it
• Restart your phone
• Go to Settings/Mail/Accounts and add the account back

churchie70 wrote:

Similar issue. However it "sends", I hear the swoosh. it disappears, But then it is not in the sent folder, not in the drafts, not in the outbox, no where, and I follow up with intended recipients, they didn't get the email. this seems to happen more with forwarded and replied emails than new created but happens with all. this is a HUGE issue especially when work time related emails... claiming "but I sent the email!!!"

I’ll assume you didn’t read the thread you posted to, so I will summarize it.

1. If you are in the habit of force-closing mail, don’t. Or if you absolutely insist that you must for some reason that goes far beyond the recommendations of Apple’s engineers not to, leave mail open until the “undo” send times out (default: 10 seconds)
2. If you still must force-close mail and can’t wait 10 seconds after sending, go to Settings/Mail, scroll to the bottom, and set Undo Delay to None.

I was hoping the restart helps but it didn’t.

Nobody got the « Sender address was invalid » ? Of course I’ve checked several times my login details, both IMAP and SMTP ones… But I can send emails if I disable iCloud Mail. It’s really getting on my nerves!

Was there a solution to this? This has been happening to me for the last few months.

Same for me, for my case it seems that iCloud Mail is involved. I have custom email adresses (OVH hosted) and an iCloud email address. If I disable iCloud Mail I can send emails with my OVH email, otherwise I have the same alert as you, which is still showing no matter the settings saved (SSL, port number…).

All these email addresses work great on macOS though…

So any idea is welcome.

And if you don't leave the app too quickly, but send other emails which also do not appear in the sent folder…??

This is not confined to single emails, this is random, intermittent issue and where one one occasion I have been in an email dialogue, the recipient waiting on an email that I have sent, which they haven't received, and I'm sitting there waiting for their reply unaware that my email has disappeared into the binary either never to be seen again.

Also, I have reported this on three occasions to Apple and they have gone away to do their investigations and come back simply to ask me if I have updated my software, other than that they have not heard of the issue before and have no solution to offer for the problem

I am having the same issue with two different email providers. One just sits in the outbox until I resend it from the outbox and the other won’t send at all. It just keeps telling me the username or password is incorrect. I have deleted and the re-added the email addresses, restarted the phone several time, updated everything there is to be updated, but the issue persists

I'm afraid that is a different issue to the one where the email has been sent but completely disappears with no evidence of ever having been written or sent.

Your issue sounds like an outgoing server issue, or connection issue.

I wasn’t having this issue before ios16. Several users posting on this thread are saying the same thing. Maybe my emails aren’t “disappearing”, but there seems to be some issue with the new undo feature and several email issues on iOS 16

A user I support has a device that is enrolled with MobileIron specifically. It is occurring on their Exchange account that is setup on the native iOS mail client with 16.1.1. We have tried disabling the Undo Send Delay feature last Friday 11/18; that seemed to have resolve the issue but just received a message from the user yesterday 11/20/2022 that he is getting the "Cannot Send Mail - An error occurred while delivering this message," prompt again. This user only has an Exchange account setup within the native iOS mail client.

It was the Undo Send Delay option for me too. At the bottom of the Mail tab in Settings, turn Undo Send Delay OFF, reboot iPad (in my case), and I could finally send email again.

I’m logged into several accounts through the apple email app, both yahoo and gmail, and I couldn’t send mail from any of them. As others have said, I’d hit send, I’d hear the swoosh sound, but the email would be sitting in my outbox and no matter how long I waited, even hours and then overnight, it just sat there. I could try to resend from there, I could delete the message from there, but no matter what, everything I tried to send stalled in the outbox.

I tried deleting my primary email account and re-logging in through settings, nope, same problem, every email I try to send stalled in the outbox. I did also try turning off Undo Send Delay because of other people on this thread who mentioned it, but that didn’t work at first either. It wasn’t until I tried again this evening, turning off Undo Send Delay *and rebooting my iPad before I tried sending an email again and finally, for the first time in days, I can send an email from my iPad. So annoying!

I have exactly the same problem. I’ve had 3 emails just completely disappear since iOS 16.1.1 installed on my phone…no error message, not in drafts, not in any folders. Just disappeared in cyber-space somewhere.

I have tried emailing myself then hitting “undo send” but that makes the msg show again so it can be canceled, added to, etc. It does not make the msg disappear.

I am now checking every email to make sure it was sent. Help!