Mail notification WatchOS 5

just need to keep flipping switches until it works for you, then don't touch anything.

How true. Mine now works in custom mode, actually mirroring iPhone settings... I would really like to switch notifications off for one account, but I will definitely not change a single bit until the bug is solved 😕

If I try to do the custom workaround on the watch, I get the notification and the red dot but no haptic feedback. If I set it to mirror I get the haptic feedback and I see the mail but it will not stay in the background with the red dot, I can just see the mail initially.

I’ve tried setting up as a new watch and even done a restore on my 8+ to no avail. Very frustrating since I get a ton of important emails every day.

On my iPhone 7 running iOS 12, I have three email accounts, but only one that I ever use, so I turned them all on to get notifications, previews, dings and vibrations. It doesn't matter that the other two accounts are on, since I never, or rarely, get mail there. Then on my AW4 running watch OS 5.0.1, I switched it to custom, but still have all the same notification settings as on my phone. Craziness, but it works, so I'm leaving it alone.

MikeG_NY -- did you also go into your phone's settings, then "Sounds & Haptics", then under "New Mail", change vibration to an actual vibration (I picked "Accent"). If you have "None" then that might be your issue. I had the same issue and making all of the changes, including picking an actual vibration, led me to getting haptic taps on my wrist for incoming mail. I also had to use the mirror setting on watch notification settings, not custom. It was so frustrating but this worked for me.

Thanks for your post! I had the same problem and found the same thing you did. Unfortunately, I didn’t research this until after Apple support had me also unpair and re-pair my watch and they even set up a Genius Bar Appointment when that didn’t work. Apparently “none” is the new vibration default for mail with WatchOS 5 and this new setting must be mirrored by the watch. Thanks again!

Oh, in case the original post I referenced was missed, for those who are having this issue (apparently after upgrading to WatchOS 5), go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics > New Mail > Vibration (at top of screen - I had to scroll up) > change from “None (Default)” to your preferred option. This worked for me and my watch started vibrating again with mail notifications.

After reading some of the replies below, I fixed the issue by ensuring notifications mirror iPhone and in iPhone notifications settings to change default vibration setting from None to a setting that will cause the iPhone to vibrate e.g. Ding

Works perfectly for me now on iPhone X on iOS 12 and Apple Watch Series 4 on watchOS5

I was wondering what am I doing wrong, I tried almost everything but couldn't get that haptic work for emails though I never faced this issue till Watch OS5.

Finally reached to Apple Support & got a confirmation that it's a bug and they'll probably fix in next release!

Case # 100659636734

With some digging, I see that

If you set it to mirror, it just works fine.

Things get ugly only when you setup custom, it's like all or none!

Me too! I have an Apple Watch Series 4 and iphone XS, ios 12 and WatchOS 5. I cannot get notifications on the watch for emails-- I think I have tried everything (restart phone/watch, unpair phone, varied every setting I can think of or have found suggested on the web).

I have the same problem on Xs and Series 4.

Something funny this morning, I had the watch on my wrist (connected to the home wifi) and the phone was stil on airplane mode from the night and I Felt my wrist vibrate, I look up to see who send me an iMessage, but it was not, it was a mail ! 2 minutes later, it was another mail !

So the problem is when the Watch is connected to the phone. When she's indépendant (WiFi or Cellular) it works ...

I have exactly the same problem! I did have the series 1 Iwatch up until last week and with my iphone x max it was working fine on ios 12.1 now I have upgraded to the iwatch 4 guess what ...no emails.!!! People keep telling me its not that big of a deal! But you dont pay all that money for something to be wrong with it do you! So fed up. I have called apple, been on the phone with their engineer and been told that "its just the way they are doing things now and I need to get used to it"

So if the phone is asleep and my watch is asleep I want, and should, get mail to my iwatch like they used to, but he said that " apple are doing thing a new way" well I am going to apple at the weekend to find out from the horses mouth! If its true, then I am downgrading back to my iwatch 1. 😟

Sounds like bad advice from the Tech. I’m getting emails and messages now but the red notification Indicator doesn’t work for them but does for other non ApplenotifIcations. It seems from all the “solutions“ posted that it’s random. (XS, 12.1, Series 4).

I'm using the iPhone Xs running the iOS 12 beta and both an AppleWatch Series 0 and an AppleWatch 3 with LTE. The issues with mail notification are that, first, I am forced to mirror the behavior on the phone if I want them to appear at all (rather than custom notifications) and second, that I can't swipe down on them to dismiss them. Both of these are incredibly irritating after having the watch function a certain way for three years. One thing I have noticed though. I can still swipe down to dismiss Mail notification on the Series 0 but it doesn't work on the Series 3. Also, my Series 0 unlocks before I've even finished entering the passcode. To me this doesn't feel like intended behavior no matter what Apple is telling some people. Hopefully it will be fixed in the next version of WatchOS/iOS.

Hey,

I think I found solution for this issue and here is how. Go to

1. Settings in your iPhone
2. Mail

3. Notifications
4. Favourite Mailboxes ( think they added this setting recently or I just didn't see it before)

5. By default there was no alert type selected. So make sure You allow notifications and select alerts.

6. Sounds

7. Select Alert tone you want and select vibration (default is none for some reason...)

8. After all this go to Watch app in your iPhone and choose mail

9. Mirror iPhone

After I did this I got notifications from email and red dot was persistent and I could read the email again if I had miss the notification. I don't remember seeing favourite mailbox setting before but it actually says in setting: "Favourite Mailboxes Settings will override all other mail notification settings". So I think Apple Watch was mirroring this setting and because by default there was no alert type selected thus no notifications in Apple Watch.

Hello,

I think I am seeing option for favourite mailboxes because I have multiple email accounts and multiple folders... So my fix does not probably apply to everyone 😕. But you can probably get the option If you add mailboxes through mail app.

However, it is possible we had different issues totally. I just deducted my watch problems were originated from my iPhone settings cause I didn't get any vibration alert when I was testing mail notifications using my iPhone only. After fixing favourite mailbox setting my email notifications were working on my iPhone also. And for the record I had only problems with my email notifications with my watch and they started after iOS 12 update. Hopefully you will found solution for your problems santafeNM 😐