Having used my iPhone 6+ continually I was shocked on Monday morning when I opened the Mail app and saw “Updated last Wednesday”, 4 days ago! While there were no messages in my Inbox when it DID check, it’s this behavior that keeps me from including myname@myname.com (IMAP) in my phone’s Mail app.
I use “Push” for the myname@icloud.com account (the only account I trust to put on my phone (b/c it’s a ‘secondary’ account.)
I don’t feel I can rely on my phone’s current Mail protocols. It’s VERY confusing and I see on the ‘net I’m not alone by any means; there’s STILL no definitive answer.
How do I ensure my Mail app is always current, message or no message?
(This is consistent behavior through several iOS versions & updates, currently 10 Public Beta 5.) THANK YOU.
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John Stires
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How Do I Ensure My iPhone’s Mail Is Always Current?
Comments: 5 Responses to “How Do I Ensure My iPhone’s Mail Is Always Current?”
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I'm not sure what you mean by you don't trust the account to be on your iPhone. Since you can check your IMAP email account on many devices, there's no harm to doing it. If it is on your primary account, then have it on your Mac, iPhone, iPad, whatever else. Why would you NOT have it on your iPhone? Even if your iPhone isn't checking as often as you like, it doesn't change how mail is received on your other devices.
As for how often it checks, that's a setting in the Settings app. Settings, Mail, then look for "Fetch New Data" and go into there are make sure everything is on Push or however you want it.
Of course it is possible that your IMAP server is misbehaving or badly configured and the problem is on the server side. Still, when you launch Mail and drag the inbox list down to update it, then your Mail app will call out to the server right then. That's actually how I do it. I don't have it set to push because I'd rather check my email when I want, rather than have my iPhone interrupt me when a new message is sent to me.
I shouldn't have mentioned my primary account, it has nothing to do with the question.
Checking every 'n' DAYS is nobody's measure of appropriate Mail "push" behavior. Why would my phone (only) check my icloud.com messages every 4 days, IF THEN? It makes NO SENSE.
"Why is my icloud account not checked contemporaneously instead of 'whenever it wants'?"
There's no reliability / repeatability--1 day, 4 days, whenever?? "Push" means nothing if the phone only serendipitously looks at the server.
It should't check every n days. With Push it should check every minute or so. With Fetch settings you can set it to 15, 30 or 60 minutes. Only if you have set it to Manually will it take longer than 60 minutes to check.
So something must be wrong. My first thought is that it is your email server. It is simply denying the push/fetch request from your device. But you'll need to have an expert take a firsthand look to get to the bottom of it.
My 'server' is Apple's iCloud. 'Push' had been selected.
I guess I'll have to ask at the Genius bar. Thanks for your thoughts.
But in your original question, you said the problem was with a "myname@myname.com (IMAP)" account. So your server is NOT iCloud. Your server is whatever is hosting myname.com. ICloud is not being used at all for this account. Only @icloud.com (and old @mac.com and @me.com) email addresses use Apple's iCloud servers. The problem could be with the IMAP server hosting @myname.com.