Mail not working on iPhone after iOS 18 Update

Remove you email address from Mail and re-enter using the appropriate option from the email address.

Email is only one of the softwares that is not working. This is distressing.

polkamatic wrote:

True, but why is the macOS mail app working fine?

I’d think that a mail server not minimally offering TLSv1.2 and forward security would be a more interesting question to investigate and potentially address, but add a scan of the client connection offers here too, and you’ll know whether there are differences in that.

Wouldn’t be the first time (as mentioned by one of the folks in this thread) Zimbra (example) or some other mail server had issues, too. Check for updates there.

Mail servers are ongoing maintenance headaches generally, and not keeping them current just makes for a bigger mess.

And for completeness, this may be a bug in the iPhone mail client, too.

I managed to fix mine. Mail with virginmedia stopped working after i upgraded to 17.7, but worked on my other Ios devices (on 17.6.1 or below). Mail worked on outlook and other IMAP devices. Tried everything, resetting passwords, deleting accounts etc. Finally wondered if the VPN (from Norton) was interfering with TLS or account verification and hey presto account set up worked fine. Hope this helps...

That appears to be central to this issue - previously iOS mail would notice when this email server’s certain rotated and its ask me to trust. 18 appears to be not asking but macOS is.

it makes me wonder what will happen to you when your server’s certificate renews - will you need to delete the account again and do it all over?

KiltedTim wrote:

polkamatic wrote:

True, but why is the macOS mail app working fine?

Because macOS and iOS are NOT the same thing.

Exactly. Bug regressions like this recurring imap fetch failure get fixed in macOS releases.

Same problem here. Mail does not download emails even though the credentials are correct and are accepted by the system. It is a professional Imap account. Problem only on ipad and iphone. On MacOs 15.0 it works perfectly. I tried any solution but it does not work. The same account with the same credentials on the same device works perfectly on Outlook...What a shame.

Stomped wrote:

Given the scale of mail usage, there seems to be something wonky about some specific IMAP servers. IMAP is rather less standard than we might prefer, too.

Same problem. After upgrade to iOS 18, both iPad and iPhone cannot download e-mails from one of my business e-mail accounts. When I delete the account and re-add it, everything seems fine. In the last step of adding it, all input is acknowledged with a green check bar. Yet, the download of mail messages is not possible. Sending is no problem. Sometimes I am asked for a password; entering it makes no difference. I am hundred percent sure, that the password is correct. All other mail accounts (including other imap accounts) work just fine.

It is a business account that requires a domain name as part of the user name. Is it possible that this is the problem?

Using an email address as an account name is common.

By the way, with my Macs on Sequoia all e-mail accounts work like a charm as well.

As has been stated, macOS mail client and macOS itself are not identical to iOS mail and iOS.

A fix is urgently needed. Otherwise, both iPhone and iPad are pretty much useless for me.

Apple is undoubtedly aware that they will need to look at the issues being reported.

Thanks.

Though this is looking like an IMAP issue of some sort, also remove any add-on security apps, remove any VPN client apps, and test again. Also check for and remove any “odd” characters in mail folder names using the webmail interface, per another report around here.

Deploying brand-new versions into production without having tested and without having a fallback is unwise, if you absolutely need your gear to work. Major new Apple versions unfortunately aren’t always absolutely stable at first release, which is why various users will wait for problem reports from other users, and some will wait for the x.0.1, x.0.2, x.1 version. Apple made available iOS 17.7 newly available too, and devices can select either that version or can select 18.0, for instance.

Update a spare (older) device to the new version, and test it, for instance.

Apple has previously announced that work on iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS 15.1 are all underway, but has not provided a release schedule AFAIK, so updates are coming.

iOS18 Mail has gone from being not very good under iOS17... to completely useless. I use it for a few mail accounts [Yahoo! and Gmail] for the convenience of having everything in one place. My Yahoo mail has a good number of subfolders in the Inbox, which synced most of the time before the update. Now they are all empty on iPhone and iPad. Fortunately I have the Yahoo and Gmail apps. Apple sort this out!

As I use Microsoft Outlook on my desktop Mac, I tried it out on my iPhone and iPad. It connected instantly and showed all Inbox folders, and their contents, INSTANTLY! So it's now my default mail app on both.

Hi All,

UPDATE: unfortunately the fix didn't last... I can't work out what has changed except I left the LAN which also has the IMAP server on it, changing to mobile network. On return to the same network it now doesn't work again and the / doesn't help.

I dont know... back to pulling what's left of my hair out - this is SO frustrating!

Cheers!

I am experiencing the same issue. I couldn't resolve the problem even after stopping smaip or recreating the account.

So, I have a question for everyone. This issue is only occurring with my company's mail server, and it does not happen with Gmail. Is it the same for you? Does this issue only occur with specific mail servers and iOS 18, but not with general mail services like Gmail?

I do not see the successfully sent mails in the Sent folder. I see them going in the Outbox, they stay there 30 sec and then they are really sent but not showing anywhere. My Sent folder does not disappear: it is just empty, as all the other folders

This is not a valid answer as my point was why from two similar accounts one works fine and the other not. If I take two securefile accounts, this could also be the case. It is Apple that must solve the problem and not us having to adopt a cumbersome solution, change email account with all the problems that this entails. At the very end, changing app (passing to Outlook) is easier than changing email account. 

I discovered a solution to this: Spark Mail

After upgrading to iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 on my respective devices, and wasting hours trying to make changes to my Mail app configurations and debugging via my mail server as per the guidance from various contributors to this thread, I began a search in earnest for a replacement to Apple Mail.

Spark Mail is $59/year (USD) for an individual user like me and after trying it out, I’m kind of grateful that I encountered this issue with the Apple Mail app, because without this issue I never would have discovered Spark, an email app for my iOS, iPadOS and MacOS devices that provides a significant productivity boost (even though I’m already subscribing to SaneBox) and it solves the blocking issue described in this discussion thread.

hth some of you who are held hostage by this situation. I’m not affiliated with the makers of Spark in any way. I just wanted to share the solution I landed on.

Today I am seeing not perfect but substantially improved iOS Mail functionality. Consequently I suspect that part of the problem might have been at the back end, along with perhaps some issues with some relevant Apple servers and/or issues pertaining to relevant network(s). Who knows. Lets pray that when they start pushing out new, automated (“AI”) email categorization it doesn’t drive us all nuts - I am NOT looking forward to that.