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Am I stupid or is Mail just not really good?
- Thread starter Motawa
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It's not normal, why would you need to open the app in different devices with the same iCloud account logged, for it to detect it was read?
The so touted "ecosystem" at its finest.
That's a lot of responses without anyone asking about the fetch settings on the iPhone.
Settings>Mail>Accounts>Fetch>iCloud>Push with the Push switch under Fetch New Data "ON".
Is that the way it's set?
Settings>Mail>Accounts>Fetch>iCloud>Push with the Push switch under Fetch New Data "ON".
Is that the way it's set?
It sounds like his main gripe was actually not this but the notifications not going away. I'm just telling you what I've experienced. Also, "normal" and "ideal" are not necessarily the same thing 😉
Yup and the ecosystem feels more and more like herding a bunch of cats with some old bugs/quirks cropping up again or problems that were solved thoughtfully and beautifully years ago being replace with the obvious solution that's problematic and solved around in the first place.
Also it seems OP is referring to the phone not acknowledging/syncing read status unless the mail app is opened.
Personally I've solved this by turning off all notifications and only responding to emails when I can sit down and actually operate on them.
I didn't think to ask about this as OP doesn't sound like someone who'd go changing it and personally I've also experienced "Push" just reverting to the Fetch settings anyway.
Yes, that is exactly what I mean, the notification number badge. This has to be a bug, otherwise its crappy design all over from Apple, there is nothing normal just getting used to it after so long sadly.
I think you're doing pretty well. At work I'm dealing with people who have English as a second language frequently and it can be a barrier sometimes especially when it's the English language itself being a jerk about some things.
It could be a bug but it could also just be the mail subsystem not bothering to wake up.
Guess we haven't asked @Motawa what model of iPhone do you have? And when's the last time it was rebooted? Some older models like my iPhone 8 have only 2GB of RAM and apps are regularly booted from memory.
iCloud sync? Otherwise your email will update based on your mail server timing. A simple walkthrough. You read an email on 1 device, eventually the email server will catch up with the "hey I read this one", then it will be seen as read on another device after the mail is refreshed. Pretty simple stuff, no conspiracy here, sorry
Good point, though the so called "RAM optimization" seems more like apps put to sleep at the loss of background functionality then? Innovative... and profitable.
I gave up on the stock mail app years ago. I use Spark on my iPhone and Mac and have no syncing issues across multiple types of accounts, iCloud, Gmail and Outlook.
They’re a small company but have great support and quick responses from the developers.
They’re a small company but have great support and quick responses from the developers.
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Alright cool, so no performance concerns there. Is this a recent problem or been happening for some time?
Also, by "the notification not going away" are you referring to the badge on the mail icon or the larger notification preview or both? If it's the big preview is it on the home screen or in Notification Center or both?
It’s both. The badge would not be a problem, because I could just turn their off, but swiping away the notifications every time is kinda annoying.
Notifications not clearing on other icloud devices is an OS issue not specific to just mail
Oh, I thought he was talking about the notification in Notification Center this whole time! But, still, I have that happen too with the number badge. It's really no big deal to tap on the Mail app though.
It is possible that Mail is terrible and you are stupid, but the probability is that you are not stupid.
Mail, for years, has been this weird “meh” app. Safari has had periods of stagnation then leaps, then stagnation… iTunes had booming improvements until it was bloated… but mail has always been functional, yet varying from clunky to terrible.
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This.
Op is covering concerns that span multiple systems. IMAP flagging messages as read on the mail server then opening another device that then needs time to read that status from the server. Then a whole plethora of notification and push settings in MacOS and iOS that can affect things- notifications themselves and push so mail can get that ‘read’ status when it’s not open. Then asking if the Mail app is the culprit and others weighing in that it’s clunky. Lol, umm.
OP needs to have everything set up right and then live with the occasional issue and general Frankenstein legacy behavior or instead use an integrated system like gmail or multi platform mail client with its own syncing engine. There are a few 3rd party options though the cost money and there are privacy concerns.
The mail app is quite adequate. I’ve been using it for years with iCloud, IMAP, and Exchange accounts. Historically, there have been some issues with proper support for new Exchange versions but those eventually got resolved.
Once upon a time (until 2015, iirc), reading an iCloud email on one device marked it as read almost immediately on all devices (via push notification).
But then a change was quietly made that caused emails read on other devices to NOT be marked as read on iPhone until mail app on iPhone performed some other user initiated operation (e.g., sending an email or refreshing inbox). This will also occur automatically via periodic fetch if configured for that instead of push notifications. I think this was done to help preserve battery life. I personally liked it better the way it was.
So, if you read a new email on iPhone it will be marked as read on Mac mail almost immediately… but not vice versa.
I submitted a bug report to Apple’s bug reporting system and I eventually received a response saying that this is operating as expected.