Mail not working on iPhone after iOS 18 Update

This thread does not make encouraging reading and is filling up my inbox with far too many emails. I'll just stick with Outlook for my Yahoo and Gmail accounts, and unsubscribe from the thread.

Bye, everyone!

I have discovered something that is by far not a fix, but maybe it points to the root of the issue (at least for me). Seems that when on Wi-Fi connection and while charging, the e-mails are being fetched properly (for yahoo accounts) as per the fetch interval (15 minutes). I checked if I have some kind of restrictions for background app refresh for the native email app, but there are none (as there were none on ios 17. Moreover the Maill app is not even present in the list of apps that can be forced not to sync in the background and on top of that I have all enabled in that list) so I guess that is the issue that needs fixed (for me at least). The app thinks it has some kind of limitation like low power mode or something and it only fetches at 15 minutes intervals while charging and on Wi-Fi....hope this gets fixed...

This is how I fixed my issue. My addy was ...@gmail.com

Go to Settings … scroll all the way down to Apps …

 - Go specifically to: Settings>Apps>Mail>Mail Accounts>Select your mail account>Account Settings>Advanced

 - In the group “INCOMING SETTINGS,” the second line should read: "IMAP Path Prefix /“

 - You may notice the forward slash “/“ is grayed out and not the same contrast as the three words prior.

 - Type a forward backslash “/“ next to the grayed out /

 - Now delete the grayed out forward backslash “/." Just tap to the left of the new backslash you typed and backspace to delete the grayed out backslash.

 - Finally, perform a hard reboot of your phone in the following order: 1. Press and release the left outside volume up button. 2. Press and release the left outside volume down button. 3. Press and HOLD the right outside power button UNTIL the phone shuts down, restarts AND you see the Apple. 

This fixed it for me.

Initially, I replaced the "grayed" out / with one I typed over it. That made it bold/normal in color. But, it did not solve my issue. So I went back, and typed an additional / next to the / I had previously replaced the grayed out / with. So at Settings>Apps>Mail>Mail Accounts>"My Account">Account Settings>Advanced> Under "INCOMING SETTINGS" I had: IMAP Path Prefix // with the second / to the right being the one I added. I then clicked in between the two // and backspaced out the one to the left or the one that I replaced the original gray one with. After that I did a hard reboot of my phone and the mail worked.

I did contact my non-Apple mail provider. This is also something Apple asks you to do. As I have already written, I have two e-mail accounts with the same provider. But the second one (which has the same configuration, apart of course the name and the password) has no problem! This is the most weird part of the issue.

It is for sure a problem of the app. In the « advanced settings » of the incoming server: at the top you have the possibility to set the folders of the mails. Well, with my problematic account I do not have the possibility to choose the folder of the sent emails. The only possible choice is… my Phone!!!

There is another very strange thing. We can all send e-mails from these problematic accounts; but where are these sent emails stored??? I cannot find them! They are nowhere.

Anyway. Now I have both Outlook and Spark installed and of course not the ‘Insecurity Mail’ as I cannot carry my laptop in the forest.

Next update: next Tuesday (Unless I have something to report before)

nikap63 wrote:

I did contact my non-Apple mail provider. This is also something Apple asks you to do. As I have already written, I have two e-mail accounts with the same provider. But the second one (which has the same configuration, apart of course the name and the password) has no problem! This is the most weird part of the issue.

It is for sure a problem of the app. In the « advanced settings » of the incoming server: at the top you have the possibility to set the folders of the mails. Well, with my problematic account I do not have the possibility to choose the folder of the sent emails. The only possible choice is… my Phone!!!

I have a hunch - does the working account have far fewer messages in it?

It has occurred to me that (while it should not make a difference) this may be the reason why some people have this problem and others don't. One thing I have noticed is that I only have this problem in my very full inbox. If I delete a bunch of items from a subfolder (using mail on my mac) that folder updates instantly on my phone, even while it is struggling to receive mail into my inbox.

Thanks! My Inbox is not that full, rather empty. These are my private mail accounts and I clean them systematically and transfer many items to a pst folder. (I am always afraid that even the best server can break down and hoping that one of my backups will survive)

Do you have it installed on your device? I’m asking because I had a previous version and the mail was still not working properly so I downgraded to the official one back. If so, which version do you have?

popa_liviu87 wrote:

Do you have it installed on your device? I’m asking because I had a previous version and the mail was still not working properly so I downgraded to the official one back. If so, which version do you have?

Maybe it fixes it for some people, but not for everyone. I have tried the current and previous releases.

I did this, but still had the same issue. It turned out to just be my outlook account that was causing the issue. When I deleted that account the email app stopped constantly trying to reconnect. When I re-added my outlook account I started having the same issue again.

edit: this wound up not being true. It only seemed like outlook was causing the issue. It started constantly refreshing again.

FIXED

This problem is with IMAP folders that have special charecter,

I had in mine "á" in one of the folders , I renamed the folder and just used non special chars.

Fixed the problem.

Others here might have SSL Cert problems, but that is a different problem.

I have checkd this on Server side and Client side , tested back and forward.

IMAPS accounts with no folders sync fine in IOS 18, thouse that have special chars will give you this error.

Also this error is very confusing since it points users in the wrong direction.

Same! I absolutely did not want to update this soon. I typically wait until they have worked out the kinks, but given that I was in the hurricane path, I wanted to download it so that I could have the satellite. Siiggghhh

Same with my email. No longer can download mails on cellular network but can on wifi. It turned out that after updating to ios 18 several apps that were switced on cellular were off after the upgrade. So check to see if cellular switch is on

I'm not using an iPad, but, restarting my iPhone after deleting my Mail settings and then renewing it worked , as it did for others. Did you try that on your iPad? Just curious because the Mail problem wasn't the only issue I had with my phone.

Yes, I actually downloaded 18.0.1 first. It screwed everything up, including Mail. I was also locked out of my phone and took it into a Tech. I got Mail working as I mentioned above in this thread.