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Level 1

5 points

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

145 replies

goligo Author

Level 1

5 points

Sep 22, 2013 12:02 PM in response to IceWolf08

Sounds like the usual first phase of issue handling at Apple: denial. There is no issue. As long as their is no issue, no is no need to take any action or to fix anything. So please, everyone having an issue with their IMAP mail, please report it at

http://www.apple.com/feedback

Sep 26, 2013 7:47 AM in response to goligo

I encountered this after restoring my iPhone 3GS backup to a new iPhone 5S with iOS 7.0, then upgrading it to iOS 7.0.1. Deleting and recreating the account, turning off/on SSL, changing/reseletcing the trash folder on the IMAP server, etc. makes no difference.

Sep 26, 2013 8:41 AM in response to SteveYates

Explaining my symptom a bit further, what I have found is that if I delete an email on the phone, it does move the message into the correct trash folder on the server, however, it reappears in the inbox on the phone a few seconds later once the inbox refreshes.

Sep 26, 2013 8:43 AM in response to SteveYates

Yes, that is exactly the problem I've been having. It's as if the Mail client in iOS can't file away the message in the trash on the phone, though the server seems to be responding appropriately.

markwmsn

Level 6

14,999 points

Sep 26, 2013 8:52 AM in response to SteveYates

SteveYates, this suggests to me that the phone is sending a deletion request to the server, making the initial assumption that it will succeed, then later getting an indication of failure (or perhaps just no indication of eventual success). I gather forcing a refresh does not help, even though the message is moved on the server??

Steven Jones3, how do we know the server is responding appropriately to the phone? Seems to me we would need a protocol trace of the command/response exchange to be sure.

Sep 26, 2013 8:56 AM in response to markwmsn

Well, that's a good point. I'm going by my observation that the message is deleted in Mail.app on an iMac and Air when I delete it on the phone, that's all.

And yes, in my case forcing a refresh does not help.

goligo Author

Level 1

5 points

Sep 26, 2013 8:58 AM in response to Steven Jones3

I can confirm the same issue, although I noticed it does not happen for all mails or all the time. In addition to that, as mentioned in my initial post, the same thing happens for mail I receive on my phone and then delete on my notebook: After refreshing it keeps staying the Inbox.

Maybe this is specific to certain providers or IMAP servers. I am running UW-IMAP on my own server.

Duckulaj

Level 1

10 points

Sep 26, 2013 9:07 AM in response to goligo

This is exactly the behaviour that I am seeing, almost as if the messages are cached on the iPhone/iPad. Also it is not every message. If I delete the message from my inbox using a Windows 8 laptop the message still reappears on the iOS device.

Sep 26, 2013 9:17 AM in response to goligo

Markwmsn, I believe the phone succeeds in moving the email to the trash, but then for whatever reason rereads a local, out of date copy of its inbox contents. Refreshing does not help. If the deletion was failing it should return an error message...there is a large history of such if you search for "iphone imap cannot move message to trash" or similar, where the user doesn't have the trash folder configured properly.

Goligo, our server also has UW-IMAP. If I get some time around our newborn (ha) I may be able to test on a Dovecot server. One thing I should mention is that in my case the mail server uses OpenWebmail, which actually uses POP to display and delete messages. However iOS mail has worked fine for me since I started using IMAP on this account almost four years and several iOS versions ago.

Steven Jones3, "It's as if the Mail client in iOS can't file away the message in the trash on the phone" ...if I understand iOS correctly it actually should not be able to do that; that's the reason for the error message in my first paragraph. IMAP should be configured to delete to a folder on the mail server. Since in my case the deletion appears to succeed that implies to me the mail app is not rereading the inbox contents correctly and ends up showing a phantom message.

Sep 26, 2013 9:23 AM in response to SteveYates

We've got UW-IMAP here too.

SteveYates - off topic, I know, but congratulations on the newborn!

luke357

Level 1

0 points

Sep 26, 2013 10:58 AM in response to SteveYates

I agree, it is just like iOS on iPhone/iPad is not able to rebuild messages index from

imap server, and update mail folder.

Maybe a authorisation problem on the mail folder in iOs.

Sep 26, 2013 11:09 AM in response to SteveYates

It should be noted that this behavior started exactly when I upgraded to iOS7. No other variables changed. The mailserver is the same. The account is the same. It is not a problem with the IMAP servers in question. I am seeing the same behavior as SteveYates.

Sep 26, 2013 12:13 PM in response to goligo

I just updated to 7.0.2 (which of course reboots the phone) and after several quick tests have been unable to reproduce the problem. Can anyone else confirm?