Why Isn’t My iPhone Receiving Emails Even Though the Settings Are Correct? Surprising Causes of iPhone Mail Issues
Have you ever been frustrated that your PC can send and receive emails perfectly, but your iPhone’s default Mail app won’t work?
Recently, I finally solved a problem that had persisted for a long time, so I’m summarizing it here as a reference.
I had tried everything for over six months without success…
- Using multiple email accounts on Xserver.
- On the iPhone’s default Mail app, only one account could not receive emails—even though no error appeared.
- The problematic account previously used Google Workspace with Gmail servers.
- Sending and receiving worked fine on Outlook or on a PC.
- I consulted advanced AI tools (ChatGPT and Gemini) multiple times, but all I got were the usual responses: “Check your settings again.”
“Settings are correct, but it doesn’t work.” I wrestled with this contradiction for a long time.
By the way, I also contacted both Xserver and Apple for advice. Xserver replied to contact the app developer, while Apple didn’t respond at all.
At that point, the only thing left to hope for was that a future iOS update would fix the issue. Every time iOS updated, I had to delete the mail account, restart the iPhone, and set it up again.
What puzzled me was that I could only receive emails if Wi-Fi was turned off. Even though the same Wi-Fi worked fine on a PC, the iPhone seemed to reject it. This appears to be caused by iOS features interfering:
- Mail Privacy Protection: Since it routes through Apple’s proxy server, Xserver may flag it as a “suspicious connection.”
- IP Address Tracking Limitation: Attempting to anonymize communication over Wi-Fi can interfere with synchronization.
If you’re despairing that “the settings should be correct but it still doesn’t work,” try the following:
- Log in to webmail and delete unnecessary (or suspicious) folders. In my case, I deleted the “[gmail]” folder.
- On the iPhone, go to Settings > Mail > Privacy Protection and turn off “Protect Mail Activity.”
Sometimes, “technically correct settings” aren’t enough. Device-specific quirks and compatibility issues can prevent things from working. I hope this article can help someone facing the same problem I did.
