You may have noticed that the built-in Apple Mail app on iPhone and iPad doesn’t always notify you of new emails as they arrive. In this guide, we have listed all the solutions to fix this problem and help you receive new email notifications on time and without any delay.
Email Delay Problem and How to Fix it
As a longtime Apple user, I noticed that:
- The default mail app significantly delays new email notifications and sends them after a while. Sometimes new mail notifications may arrive in the following days!
- You may not receive new email notifications until you connect your iPhone to a charger.
- The Mail app doesn’t receive new emails until you open it and swipe down to refresh it.
- New email notifications in the Apple Mail app don’t beep or display a notification banner. They can come invisibly and accumulate in the Notification Center.
The solutions below will fix all these issues and similar ones.
1. Disable low power mode.
When your iPhone is in power saving mode, many features are temporarily disabled or limited to conserve battery life. One of the affected actions is receiving mail.
So new email notifications will be delayed when your iPhone is in low power mode (yellow battery icon).
To fix this problem, turn off the power saving mode on your iPhone by going to Settings > Battery. If getting new email notifications is paramount, you can even force your iPhone to never go into low power mode.
2. Set email push notifications
The iOS Mail app has three options for receiving new emails from the mail server:
- Push: It instantly “sends”or shows you new email notifications (assuming power saving mode is disabled and other notification settings are set).
- Receive: It will receive new emails automatically when your iPhone is charging and connected to Wi-Fi, or you can set it to receive new emails every 15, 30, or 60 minutes.
- Manual: You will only see new emails when you open the Mail app.
Obviously you want your mail app to instantly send new email notifications, but this causes two problems:
- The Apple Mail app cannot send new notifications from an added Gmail account or most other email services. Push is only supported by iCloud, Outlook, and some other services.
- Push consumes the most battery compared to Fetch and Manual.
But, since our goal here is to receive new emails instantly, follow these steps to set up the iPhone Mail app to send new email notifications:
- Open the Settings app.
- Scroll down and select Mail.
- Click “Accounts”.
- Click Get New Data.
- Enable Push.
- Lastly, make sure it says “Push”next to your iCloud or other supported secondary email services. If not, tap it and select “Submit”under the “Select Schedule”heading.
About delayed Gmail notifications in the iPhone Mail app
As mentioned, if you’re using Gmail or another email service (such as your office or website email) in the Mail app, it’s best to select “Sampling”and set the schedule to “Sampling every 15 minutes.”But that too, even at best, will delay your new email notifications by about 15 minutes. So, if Gmail is your primary email service, check out our final tip.
3. Correct your mail application notification settings.
Here’s how to adjust the Mail app settings if you’re not seeing email notification banners or new emails aren’t showing up on your iPhone’s lock screen:
- Open the Settings app and tap Notifications.
- Select Mail from the application list.
- Make sure Allow Notifications is green.
- After that check the boxes for Lock Screen, Notification Center and Banners.
4. Turn on notifications for other email accounts.
- Tap Customize Notifications on the notifications settings screen of the mail app.
- Select the email account you added and turn on the Notifications toggle to be notified when an email is sent to that account.
5. Customize the notification sound for new emails
Apple knows that people get a lot of new emails every day (most of them are spam, promotions, and newsletters). Therefore, by default, all new email alerts (except VIPs) do not sound. But you can easily change this:
- Follow the steps above to get to your Mail notification settings.
- Tap Sounds.
- Select an alert tone other than “None”(default).
6. Use the mail app’s VIP feature
The Mail app lets you add important people as VIPs, and emails from VIPs override other Mail notification settings. As a general rule, VIP notifications should arrive on time and alert you with a sound (Settings > Notifications > Mail > Customize Notifications > VIP).
7. Enable email thread
If you received a lot of email replies in a thread, you might have turned it off, which stops all notifications of new messages in that email thread. Here’s how to turn it on:
- Open the Mail app and be on the Inbox screen.
- Look for an email with a tiny silent bell icon.
- Tap and hold this email, then tap Unmute. You can also swipe left and tap More > Unmute.
8. Enable background app refresh for the mail app.
When background app refresh is enabled, apps can receive new content in the background and thus stay up-to-date, which helps you get notified of new apps in a timely manner.
To enable Background App Refresh, go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh. Make sure it’s enabled. If not, tap it and select Wi-Fi & Cellular Data.
9. Exclude the Mail app from the notification summary.
- Go to “iPhone Settings”and click “Notifications”.
- Tap Scheduled Summary.
- On the next screen, you can turn off the scheduled summary.
- Or, if you like this feature, turn off the toggle next to Mail to exclude it from your scheduled summary. After that, while notifications from other apps are deferred and included in the scheduled summary, notifications from the Mail app should reach you instantly.
10. Disable Low Data Mode
When your iPhone is in low data mode, it uses cellular data or Wi-Fi sparingly. This may result in apps receiving new content and notifications in a limited way. Therefore, consider disabling this data saving mode if you use it.
11. Turn off Do Not Disturb or Focus.
It goes without saying that you won’t receive new app notifications and email notifications if your iPhone is in Do Not Disturb mode or a certain focus is active. Here’s how to turn them off:
- Open the iPhone Control Center.
- If the Focus icon is colored, tap the icon to turn it off. You can also click on the name of the Focus and click it again on the next screen to turn it off.
12. Restart your iPhone regularly
Delayed app notifications can also be caused by glitches your iPhone detects during normal use. The best way to fix this problem is to turn your iPhone off and on periodically. I personally do this every two or three days.
13. Make sure your iPhone stays connected to the internet
Let’s imagine a situation where you turn off your iPhone’s cellular data. Now, if your home or office Wi-Fi stops working or you leave your home, your iPhone goes offline, which obviously means no new email notifications.
One way to fix this problem is to leave mobile data on. Your iPhone will automatically use it when disconnected from Wi-Fi.
14. Update your iPhone or iPad
If your iPhone has an older version of iOS, update it in Settings > General > Software Update.
15. Set the right Apple Watch Mail notifications
- Open the Watch app on your iPhone and tap Notifications > Mail.
- If “Custom”is selected, make sure “Allow Notifications”is also checked.
- After that, tap on an email account such as iCloud or Gmail and turn on the switch for “Show alerts from iCloud or Gmail”.
Note. Apart from custom settings, you can also just select Mirror My iPhone. And if you don’t want to receive email alerts on your Apple Watch, choose Custom and then Notifications Off.
16. Remove and re-add your email account.
Sometimes new notifications may not arrive or be delayed for unknown reasons. You can fix this by removing this account from the Mail app and adding it again.
17. Reset the Mail app on iPhone.
However, there are problems? Go ahead and restart the Mail app, which involves deleting all email accounts and doing a fresh install of the app once it’s uninstalled.
18. Reset iPhone network settings
If you are still unable to receive new email notifications in time, reset all network settings and this should help.
19. Switch to a different email app
Finally, no matter what you do, new email notifications from Gmail and most other services will be delayed if you use them in the Apple Mail app. So I suggest getting a third party email app if emails are important to you and you need to read and reply to new emails instantly.
On my iPhone, I use the official Gmail and Edison Mail app. These apps send new email notifications instantly and I have had no complaints. You can also try Microsoft Outlook, Spark, Zoho Mail, Newton Mail, or one of the other apps.
Important! If you are receiving too many email notifications from Gmail, you can control this by doing the following:
- Open the Gmail app and select your email account by tapping your profile picture.
- Tap the menu icon (three short lines) at the top left and select Settings.
- Click “Email Notifications”and select “Basic Only”or “High Priority Only”. This will notify you of important new emails and will mute the rest.
