Since upgrading to iOS13 I’ve found the Mail app syncs pretty slowly. After processing mail on my Mac, messages will sync on my phone eventually but it takes a while. The normal pull to refresh doesn’t do anything. I’ve checked my settings and it should be working. Anyone else had this issue?
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I’m having this issue as well. Sometimes message sync within seconds and other times it can take an hour or more for the everything to be in sync. I’m currently using three IMAP (Rackspace) email accounts and don’t remember seeing this issue with previous versions of iOS.
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I thought it might be Gmail. Hearing that you’re on Rackspace makes me feel like it’s an iOS issue. I wonder if upgrading to Catalina will help when the public release is available.
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Things have been syncing much better since upgrading to iOS 13.1.2. It remains to be seen if this update completely solves the problem.
I just removed the account from my phone and then set it up again and this seems to have helped. Will see if it works long-term.
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Same here - I have opened Mail a few times and in a my SaneLater and SaneNews folders there are no messages. If I open that folder, eventually things will sync.
I’ve also noticed I will get a badge notification, and a notification in the app that there is ‘1’ message in my Inbox, when in fact there isn’t.
I can now confirm that after deleting the account and re-adding it via my settings, while this helped to resync the inbox once, it hasn’t solved the overall problem.
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I’ve since had a recurrence of this issue. It looks like it wasn’t fixed with iOS 13.1.2 and that Apple still has some work to do (hopefully sooner rather than later). I restarted my iPhone and everything did sync up correctly after the restart.
I find the issue tends to be with my google account rather than icloud
Interesting. In my case I’m not using any Google or iCloud email accounts. I have three IMAP accounts, (all hosted by Rackspace) that were working without issue under iOS 12.
As far as I can, it’s only one of these three email addresses/accounts that’s not always syncing correctly (my main work email). In this case, the email is hosted under Rackspace and I’m using Google for Calendar functionality (I made this change years ago after having issues using Gmail on Mail for Mac). I’m not sure if this is a coincidence or if there’s something in iOS 13 that’s impacted by having the same email address used with two different service providers.
The investigation continues. 
♂
As of this morning, mail is syncing a lot faster. Last night I was doing some more playing and I deleted my Google Mail account from my iPhone and iPad (and then re-added). Not sure if this was the fix but the situation has improved.
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I’m using gmail via Gsuite and having similar issues. I’ll delete the account and re add when I have some time.
My mailbox is syncing much better now since deleting the email account from all iOS devices.
My mailbox is syncing much better now since deleting the email account from all iOS devices.
Good to hear, @paulminors. Deleting and re-adding the account that had the syncing issues has done wonders for me as well.
Glad to hear I am not the only one with sync issues. Exchange account is working fine for me but GSuite account is really slow.
I keep getting stuck with work emails that won’t leave my inbox, no matter if I delete them, move them to a new folder, etc. They literally reappear in front of my eyes 
Ah, sync issues are back. Thought I’d solved the issue but no luck.
I was having all sorts of issues with Mail on iOS 13. I had messages appearing in my inbox from my work exchange account, messages which I couldn’t delete - even though I had deleted the account. I had sync issues as well - and some calendar issues that affected my Apple watch as well.
The solution to the mail problems was to delete the mail app in iOS. (Had forgotten that was an option.) If this was Mac OS I would have rebuilt the envelope index, but seeing no way to do that, the best option appeared to be deleting the app on both my iPad and iPhone and reinstalling it. That seems to have done the trick. The phantom emails are gone, and sync is working as expected.
I subsequently deleted my work exchange account (Office 365 hosted) and re-added it. I was using 2FA and the settings had carried over from the upgrade to iOS 13. But it was slower than it had been. When I deleted it and re-added the account I discovered that I can log in directly with the MS Authenticator app given access, which means I have the 2FA security and no need to manage an app password (and the syncing issues that was causing between devices.) My calendar is working much better now. Hooray. (I use Outlook on iOS for email as I’m not sure I can trust the iOS app right now, but need access to the contacts and calendar data for iMessage, etc.)
Finally, and this seemed to really help the battery life on my watch (ver 5), I reset the sync data in the watch app between my phone and the watch. That got rid of phantom events and appears to have gotten my battery drain to a much more reasonable 50% in 15-16 hours.
For what it’s worth, I migrated the phone (to the new 11 from the 8) using the new direct connection utility. I wonder if some of the account data was corrupted in someway when I did that. I’d probably have had better luck if I had just set it up as a new phone.
Just to add to the litany of problems with Apple Mail, I’m posting some mail issues I’ve been having, as well as some from a friend. We share some of the same problems. These were happening before upgrading to Catalina.
I’m using both an Apple email account and a G-Suite email address.
Nothing is syncing properly across devices, a MBP, iPad, & iPhone.
My most concerning issue is having some good mails being sent directly to the Trash or to the Archive without ever appearing in my Inbox. I am now paranoid and check there frequently. I don’t have any Rules on in Mail or Filters in G-Suite to make this happen.
Items marked as Read in the Inbox and archived often still show as Read in the Archive.
I’ve deleted all email accounts and added them back, to no avail.
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Here are some of the issues a friend is having:
Issues appear to be surrounding the syncing of messages across the two Apple systems tailored for the MacBook, and the iPad, etc.
There are obvious mail sync issues across all devices…. they are simply not keeping up with each other, handling mail in different ways.
Messages are appearing on the iPad and the MacBook, then disappearing completely. Messages relating to a ‘server problem’ and ’this message has no content’ are common, on the iPhone and iPad.
For every message I compose and send, a copy is being sent to the Drafts folder. This usually happens when a save is initiated when additional time is taken to compose a message… Auto Save, perhaps?
Junk mail is going into Junk but does not always change colour, as it used to, to signify it is Junk. Deleting from Junk sometimes sends the mail to my ‘Bin’ rather than deleting from Junk, not to be seen again (Messages I have marked as Junk used to go directly to the Junk folder and change colour… but they no longer do that, on all occasions).
The Junk and Bin folders do not display an empty folder, as one would expect, when the folder is in fact ‘Empty’ on the iPad. The iPad Junk folder is showing a message from the Inbox; the last one I had opened. This is particularly confusing as messages from the Inbox could be deleted, in error.
Opened mail messages on the MacBook Pro are not showing as read mail on the iPad… which refers to the main issue, and failure to sync across all devices.
Mail notification is not consistent across all devices…. MacBook Pro, iPad, Watch, Mac Mini or iPhone. I hear ‘pings’ and there is nothing there.
I am running 'Apple Mail’ only, on all my 8 Apple devices. I have removed the gmail account from my iPhone, which was the only device it was installed.
I have renewed my Apple password and logged in on all devices, though I have powered down as many of those as possible, while these problems persist.
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Again, this is just to add to the list of problems everyone is having. We are just hoping for a quick fix from Apple.
I have two accounts. One is Exchange. Incoming mail works fine, but syncing read status is a tad slower on iOS13/MacOS. My Fastmail account is instant.
I have not noticed any other issues, but will keep eye open for little things I might be missing.