I just updated to IOS 18 and my phone's mail app just says 'connecting' indefinitely on any account that uses IMAP. Anyone else experiencing this? Know of workarounds?
iPhone 13 mini, iOS 18
I think there are/were multiple issues, which confuses diagnosis. As a workaround I had disabled imap-IDLE on my (Dovecot) mail server and my iOS 18.2 iPhone was able to get mail, but was still hanging at times.
After updating to iOS 18.2.1, I re-enabled imap-IDLE and mail seems to be working normally. It uses imap-IDLE (near-realtime delivery) when the mail app is open and fetches every 15 minutes otherwise. It gets the mail messages and alerts correctly.
Well that was short lived. Back to “connecting” in low power mode. My switch to drafts and back again still kicks it back to working. It’s all just janky. Sigh.
DrCuff wrote:
My other work around was to switch to /TRASH or another folder before reading /INBOX. That also worked and also suboptimal.
This is an interesting tidbit – when I switch to different folders, the new mail DOES download in those other folders, but no new mail is ever downloaded in /INBOX or /TRASH after the first sync. It's just Apple Mail on iOS for me and the other email users with this server.
Thanks P_Mgr, did have a crack at this, changed 10-mail.conf etc. but sorry nope. If you are on low power mode on iOS there's no mail. Plenty of mail if on non yellow battery high power. I don't think this is a server side issue. It might be, but I'm not sure.
root@imap-new:/etc/dovecot# dovecot --version
2.3.16 (7e2e900c1a)
I am experiencing this issue too when in low power mode where my email just says “connecting” no matter how long I wait for it (and I’ve never had this issue until this update). I’m hoping to find a workaround as well!
Adding a "me too" to this. My Inbox seemed to be fine, but various folders are stuck on "Checking for mail...", which have been fine pre iPadOS 18. I'm running a Dovecot IMAP server on a NAS on my LAN. All other devices (Android phones, PCs/Macs, iPad Mini 1) work fine, as did my iPad Pro on iPadOS 17.
Tried the various suggestions listed so far, none have made any difference. I deleted/re-added an account on the iPad, and now the Inbox (which WAS working) is stuck on the forever "Checking for mail...".
I hope 18.3 fixes this.
Where did you access that on the iPhone or tablet? My laptop has no issues sending or receiving, 4 imap accounts have no problem. Just one imap account fails but it’s identical set up. 🤯 Apple seems useless in providing a resolution to a multi year long known issue.
MS Outlook doesn't have this issue. (embarrassing that a Microsoft product works better on a Mac than an Apple native product)
have the same ‘connecting…’ issue while on low power mode. it’s almost december and it hasn’t been fixed yet :/
Well that was short-lived. It was working there for a bit. Now I am back to "Downloading X messages..." and hanging. So the dovecot solution may have been a red herring.
I was hopeful when I read this. I updated to 18.2.1. But no joy. Same behavior. Launch Mail and stuck at "Downloading X messages...". I'm also using dovecot. I had tried disabling IDLE before and it did nothing in my case. I'll keep using Outlook.
ios 18 IMAP support - mail says 'connecting' forever on IMAP accounts