Email slow to load in mail app with iOS 11

This may not help with Gmail, but we’ve noticed that trusting the certificate for the certificate authority (if not already a trusted public CA — internal CA for example) that issued the Exchange server certificate seems to help with this issue. To do this, install the certificate (send it via email and open or put on a website for download) then set it as trusted under Settings\General\About\Certificate Trust Settings). With IOS11 it seems you can no longer add an Exchange account on a server that has a certificate that is not trusted.

I took the Advice of an earlier writer and stopped using the Apple Mail app, after taking my phone in and had it tested by an Apple certified dealer that it was not my phine, I then went into my email provider and they did their own And they assured me it was not their servers, I then spoke with my work IT people and they came to the same conclusion as everyone else it was the Apple Mail app they feel that the 11 updates and later are no longer working with my Microsoft exchange server 2007 I abandoned the Microsoft mail app and went to outlook for Apple and my mail is 100% fine coming in faster than ever my home mail still works on the Apple Mail app but my exchange is now on the Outlook app

Apple’s Mail app became slowwww on my iPhone 6s ever since I upgraded its iOS from 10 to 11 a few months ago. The other day I foolishly upgraded my iPad from 10 to 11 too and guess what? Mail became so slow it was futile! So, like I did with my iPhone, I switched to Microsoft’s Outlook for iOS app and all my emails were immediately accessible! I have an Exchange account. Apple continues to have their head buried in the sand on this longstanding bug 🤔

OK, so this appears to have WORKED !!! I can‘t believe it. 🙂 It was a process to go through for sure so give yourself the time to do it and wouldn’t hurt to have apple on the phone to assist (there is one step in the process that if you make the wrong choice you will not be able to recover). Back up your phone, factory reset, restore your back up. Again, would be wise to do with Apple on the phone, between stages you can request a call back (ex. the factory reset takes time, have them assist you with the back up and reset, while it is resetting schedule a call back to assist with restoring from back up then while it is restoring the backup schedule another call back to ensure that once it has reinstalled your mail is working correctly with no lag time with mail Opening). So glad to have this fixed! Happy Saturday 🙂

Your experience and short lived joy at a problem seemingly solved, only to be frustrated yet again, is typical of the experience suffered by many Apple Mail app users on this forum since the intro of iOS 11. It has nothing to do with your hardware.

Ditch the Apple Mail App and switch to one of the many better performing alternatives. As I have mentioned many times before, Edison Mail App is terrific.

Out of desperation, I simply factory reset my iPhone, and did NOT restore it. I manually went in, and set up all my accounts, added my Apple ID, re-installed apps, and treated the device as a new one entirely. It took me well over an two hours just to get emails, contacts and calendars back.

But after close to two weeks, email is back to normal, and iTunes even stopped duplicating playlists. My wife, who got a brand new phone and migrated her data, has the problem. My antique phone is fine.

I think the core problem is perhaps somewhere in the update/upgrade process, and starting from scratch is the only thing that helped me. I've been running lean, too - just email, some news and travel apps, and one single game. But hey - I can email again without my blood pressure spiking and without it being faster to get in the car, drive to my office, check my email, and return home.

I do not believe that the "slowing down "issue has anything to do with the atrocious performance of the Apple Mail App. I had an older iPad running iOS 10 but had to replace it in December because of damage. The Mail app was working fine - quick and snappy on the old iPad. The new replacement had iOS 11 pre - installed so there was no turning back the clock. From the day I took delivery, the Mail problems began ( not appearing, slow to appear, retrieving them manually etc ) and there has still been no fix from Apple forthcoming.

In frustration, I switched the Edison Mail App. It is everything the Apple Mail App should be and more. Try it.

What I don't get, is why a 3rd part app works just fine, yet Apple, with all the vast resources at their disposal, cannot get it right.

Correct. The pre installed Apple App called “Mail” where you setup your email accounts. That’s what I am talking about.

From my experience the problem lays between this App and the intro of iOS 11. Never had any issues with the Mail App until iOS 11 and, as demonstrated by the endless correspondence in this forum, Apple appears to be in denial that such a problem exists.

Since I was unable to return to iOS 10, removing the other part of the equation, Mail, and replacing it with a 3rd party substitute, Edison Mail, worked for me.

Maybe there's a common security, or other patch/update that started around the time of iOS 11 first being released. And your MacPro finally got that common update?

As an IT professional for over 30 years, I have 100% conviction in believing that iOS 11.x is the root cause of this problem. The day that I upgraded my iPhone 6s from 10.x to 11.x, the problem with Apple's Mail being slow to load content (often just displaying "LOADING" for minutes) reared its ugly head. I purposely held off updating my iPad for several months after updating my iPhone. Once I found a good alternative email program (Microsoft's Outlook for iOS) that worked reliably on my iPhone, I then finally let my iPad update to 11.x. And guess what - immediately the Apple Mail program became unusable because of the long "LOADING" times... One doesn't need any more proof than that, right?

Again, it may not specifically be iOS 11.x that's the cause - it could be a security or other update - but it would have to be an update that is only pushed out to iOS 11.x devices...

Latest iOS update 11.2.2 seems to work better.

Apple deleted my first attempt to reply with my thoughts, guess they do not like constructive criticism... Here goes attempt #2:

I’m in the IT business for 30+ years, programming and supporting primarily Microsoft products. I’ve had iPhone for last 4-5 years, so recently decided to give Apple some of my money and bought an IMac 27”. My thought was that Apple was touted as having a better OS and cutting edge hardware. While I still believe the latter, this software issue with Apple’s own Mail app (starting with iOS 11) slowing down to snail like speed makes me realize they aren’t any better than Microsoft on the software front. It’s inexcusable for Apple to not have fixed it by now. And they have their heads buried in the sand if you call Apple Care. They’ll say a problem did exist, but was “fixed” since 11.0.1. That simply isn’t true, as this thread proves! And Apple doesn’t have the professionalism or courtesy to post ANYTHING in this thread! I mean, this is their forum - get involved for gosh sake! Over 1000 affected users according to just this one thread/topic. If you do IT, you know that for every one person that took the time to post here, there are scores more that haven’t found this post or limp along without complaining...

What really boggles me, as a programmer, is that Apple allows their Mail app software to display a ridiculous “LOADING” message for unusually long times (MINUTES sometimes for me)! Can’t they set some sort of timeout feature, and if a timeout occurs, analyze the situation, try other communication protocols etc? At a minimum, send analytic data back to Apple and figure out where the software roadblock is... You’d expect that from a company that touts itself so highly...

BTW I switched to MS Outlook for iOS, which works as expected...

Hi Kane,

Try adjusting the Sync Period 1 Month, 2 weeks or days.

Cheers.

YJ

Bit late to this party, but I got tired of waiting for the apple mail app to load my emails so I downloaded the Yahoo app (as I have a yahoo email account) and just use that instead. It's super quick.

I have been on the phone with Apple support the last couple of nights trying to get this sorted because I’m so sick and tired of it. Was dealing with a very nice young girl last night we have factory reset my phone and my mail seems to be coming in fine now, next step is to restore from my last back up last night and see if the glitch comes back, she did go online and read this entire thread while I was on hold and also checked to see if there was any info posted from their development team ( which I don’t think there was anything surprise ) the most promising tech-support yet,

Don’t waste your time with certificates. That only helped a very tiny portion of affected users. The Apple Mail app is unfortunately become bug ridden🙁. And Apple doesn’t have the decency or professionalism to respond in their OWN forums here! Instead, look for an alternative app like Microsoft’s Outlook for iOS...