Mail not working after update iOS 18.1.1

Although not ideal and only a temporary measure, but are you able to access your emails through webmail? Call your email provider and ask that question. I discovered that we can although they don’t show up on our iPhones, we can access all of them through webmail and all of our emails are there on the server.

Since applying the newest software update 18.1.1 my emails no longer come through every 15 minutes like before.

I checked my email settings, and they’re in the correct mode, they’re set to fetch every 15 minutes.

I’ve done a reboot several times and nothing changes, very frustrating and disappointed.

if I don’t tap the email icon for over 2 or 3 hours I have a ton of work emails that I’m not getting.

It is NOT the same issue on Mail and Messenger. The messenger problem is because META (not Apple) has not fixed bugs in Messenger, the app that they created.

For your Mail problem, start be reading the thread you posted to, and if the advice already posted doesn’t solve your issue, post back with more information.

Or go to Android; no one in this user-to-user forum cares. Then your email problem will be Google’s rather than Apple’s to solve.

Solution: Go to Settings. Click your name at the top to access your Apple Account. Look for a notice at the top of your Apple Account page that asks you to accept the new terms and conditions for Mail. Accept the new terms.

Context: Apple has introduced new AI features with Mail that requires the terms be accepted and it is causing all sorts of issues with the Mail app until you accept the new terms. I was having issues with Search, Sending mail, and indexing had also halted. Once I accepted these terms, everything worked perfectly again.

One more thing: Go to Settings > iCloud. Check the iCloud backup status. Mine had been halted, so it wasn't backing up. You may need to click Back Up Now after you've accepted the terms.

My usage situation: iPhone, Mac Mail user, iCloud account, Mac email account only. The only issue I had was on the iPhone Mail app (Mail was working fine on my Mac desktop and laptops). If this isn't your situation, then your mail issue may be different to mine.

Hope this helps someone!

One of my gmail accounts is not receiving emails on the iphone since update Thursday night. The second is. Has anyone found a solution? I have switched on and off many times, gone into settings and checked everything I was asked to check by Apple support and it still doesn't receive or send visibly - I received test email on my mac which receives all email as ever. Just not iphone since update. Any solutions?

Spent two hours on the phone with Apple support (both tier one and tier two) discussing this. And their suggestion after that very lengthy call was to do a complete restore and set up as new phone (but this needs to be done through a computer and not via the phone itself). They made no reference to this being a known issue even though I had asked and mentioned that many others have been experiencing this same thing. Will 18.2 resolve this issue, @Apple?Please help and happy holidays!

An hour with regular tech and all they went through was everything I had already done. Why not just admit there is an issue and we will make sure it is fixed rapidly. I have set up outlook temporarily as main email account is gmail. I my iCloud emails don't get notified correctly either. I am optimistic that 18.2 will fix this. A few years ago we had a similar problem with Apple Mail which was fixed at the next update

Due to this bug/defect by Apple, my battery usage for the Mail app has been between 50% - 55% on a regular basis, forcing me to to have to recharge my phone now ever few hours even though my battery health is at 92%.

Anyone else experiencing that same thing due to this issue?

Apple, please help us!

I have been having the same issue of not receiving inbound emails from my third-party service provider after IOS 18 update. Today I did the 18.2 update hoping it would solve the problem and it did not change a thing. Called my third-party provider again and they now say IOS 18 is having trouble with IMAP Inbound email and their workaround was for me to delete my email account and reinstall it as POP account instead of IMAP, turn off SSL, and use the same inbound and outbound ports as IOS 17 (I had these written down). It worked for me!

The issue with using POP is that if you delete the email off your iOS device it removes it from the server of your 3rd party webmail and you will not be able to download it onto your laptop/desktop for archiving purposes. If you’re using this email for work this can be an issue.

Also if you turn off SSL in POP your messages are no longer secure.

According to what I’ve read online Apple has stepped up the security on IMAP and rolled it out under iOS 18.0. They have no intention of changing or ‘fixing’ it. It’s up to each 3rd party provider to update their IMAP protocols to match what they’ve done. Who knows how many will actually do this and if Apple is sharing the necessary information to complete this process.

Has anyone tried the just-released 8.2 update (asking for a friend)?

Only consistent thing that has worked for my customers is to completely delete the account, reboot the phone, then recreate the account again.

It appears to happen with accounts that have several gigs of email. Try removing a significant amount of your mail or at least create a new folder and move most of your mail out of the inbox.

This has not solved all cases! I'm waiting to hear back if anyone has tried with the bleeding edge latest 8.2.

I forgot to add - my laptop, where I archive my work emails is set to POP in Outlook. Somehow this combination of IMAP on the stock iOS mail app for iPhone/iPad and POP on my laptop allows me to do what I need to do. It's been so many years since I set it up this way I'm not sure of the logic ;)

One thing - when I get a new laptop/desktop and have to reconfigure it for POP in a fresh install of Outlook I often get a message forcing me to accept an expired certificate because POP is basically an outdated protocol. This could be related to my third party ISP though. They still provide the instructions for a POP configuration but I think it's strongly discouraged from using it.

Same. All I do is pick it up, turn it on and it drops 1% for every minute or so the screen is on.

I’ve just turned off everything that works in the background (e.g., fetch in email, which wasn’t working anyway) and almost all notifications. Hopefully this will slow it down.

I found this online but Apple won’t let me paste the link.

I think the only solution is to contact your third party email provider with this information below and demand they fix the issue at their end. I’m not sure why some users are having a problem with iCloud.com accounts since that’s an Apple product.

A lot of users have pointed out that the problem seems to stem from how Apple Mail handles connections with IMAP servers after the iOS 18 update. 

The heart of the issue? It looks like iOS 18 has become a bit pickier with security certificates — especially if you’re using a self-signed certificate.

Essentially, the system may no longer trust these certificates, even though they worked just fine in iOS 17.

The strange part is that it’s not only the self-signed certificates causing trouble. Even users with legitimate SSL certificates (the kind you expect to work without issues) are facing the same syncing errors. 

The Mail app seems to have difficulty “talking” to the IMAP servers, and in some cases, it’s flat-out refusing to fetch new messages.

Possible Culprits

While Apple hasn’t officially commented on the situation, there are a few things that could be contributing to this glitch:

Stricter Security Requirements: iOS 18 may have tightened its policies on how it handles email server connections, particularly with certificates. 

This could explain why previously accepted certificates are now getting rejected.

TLS Version Issues: Some users have speculated that the issue might relate to TLS (Transport Layer Security) protocols. If your email server is using an older TLS version, it might be incompatible with iOS 18’s updated standards.

That probably isn’t specifically an email problem. See→AirPrint Troubleshooting - Apple Community