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IMAP support broken in iOS 7?

I am having issues with my IMAP accounts after upgrading to iOS 7. Changes to my Inbox done on other IMAP clients are not properly reflected on the iPhone anymore, e.g. deleted mails or moved mails are still visible on the iPhone. I could not find a way to force a refresh of the Inbox, but the only way to get in sync again with the IMAP server is to delete the account and then add it again.


Anybody else experiencing a similar issue? Is there a workaround for this problem?

iPhone 4S, iOS 7

Posted on Sep 19, 2013 2:40 PM

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145 replies

Feb 27, 2014 8:20 PM in response to mgmead

Yes our server is using the mbox file format. The other common format is maildir, where each email is stored in its own file. Changing formats will generally cause all email clients to resync/see all messages as new.


Agreed, it's an Apple issue. Very few people reading this will be able to edit the file system of their mail server or change mail server settings. Regarding them participating, generally manufacturer forums are user to user and there are other avenues for tech support.

Mar 9, 2014 1:08 PM in response to SteveYates

Unfortunately, after several days of thinking my and my wife's iPhone was fixed, the issue, or something similar, started happening again. Currently, if I delete a message from another email client, it still shows on my phone. However, I can delete those messages from my phone successfully and they do not "reappear" as before.


On the plus side a client of ours with this issue opened a case with Apple and I got in contact with the tech, and they seem interested in pursuing it.

Mar 9, 2014 4:19 PM in response to goligo

Someone very early in this thread suggested the issue may be environmental rather than a software problem. I saw the same issue on my iPhone 4s as others have described here.


I run the WU imap server (with no recent changes) working with other imap clients (again with no recent changes) just fine, but not my iPhone after upgrading to iOS 7. I held off upgrading our other phones until this got resolved.


Well, with no resolution on my device II eventually upgraded my family's phones (identical make, model, memory, etc.) and they did not experience the issue! Same device type, same imap server, etc. I noticed my device storage was much closer to being full than their devices. I cleaned things up on my phone to make more storage available. I may have also reconfigured the e-mail client but it has been a while so I do not recall when in the sequence this was done.


So, I'm now in agreement with that early poster suggesting it is an environmental issue - something with the current state of the device - that is causing this behavior. This would explain why it has not been seen in testing and may be difficult (if not impossible) to reproduce by the support team.

Mar 20, 2014 10:48 AM in response to goligo

Ok - it eventually crapped out for me too.


THIS time, I think I have the workaround (and ultimately culprit, but not fix).


I went into my TRASH folder (which is set to being on the server) and deleted the internal message AGAIN - this time from Trash ... I admit, it's been all of five minutes - but I think it is working.


If that's all I have to do once a week, I'm done until these knuckleheads realize they have broken tech. Apple has jumped the shark.

Apr 3, 2014 12:19 PM in response to SteveYates

SteveYates wrote:


On the plus side a client of ours with this issue opened a case with Apple and I got in contact with the tech, and they seem interested in pursuing it.

Well, they were interested but ultimately Enterprise support cases cost $695 to start, and our client declined. What we ended up doing was move my personal domain to a server that wasn't being used for mail. We quickly duplicated the problem, and changed to Dovecot for POP and IMAP while still using the mbox mail format. After that (a few weeks ago) I have been unable to duplicate the problem. We have since changed our other servers to use Dovecot. So ultimately the solution was as others have suggested, to change/upgrade the mail server software...which is more of a workaround, or even an ideal, since obviously most people can't do that on their own.

IMAP support broken in iOS 7?

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