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Apple Says iCloud Mail is Currently Down for Some Users [Resolved]
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All that work gone! That's too bad that you have to redo it. Anytime an Apple service seems to be behaving oddly, you can check https://www.apple.com/support/systemstatus/.
I can't send email, but am able to view all my info and receive mail.
Let's not ask for people to be cancelled, for what is essentially a free service.
Ever since apple introduced iCloud email to be apple device only, I stopped using it seriously, only for half burner email and a news website I signed up years ago. This downtime essentially don’t affect me in any meaningful way, but it still sucks to see apple struggle to get cloud service right. Maybe they are not hiring the right engineer?
I know I'd personally prefer to find there's a widespread issue in something that's not working -- versus it being some local problem that I have to spend time troubleshooting. If it's down for everyone, I can just come back later and it'll be fixedWhy are you glad to see that iCloud is having issues?
You can use it on any device.
I use it on my Windows system using Thunderbird but you can really use any email client.
You can even use it on your web browser.
Every vendor has issues from time to time.
I did not. Thankfully, as a new issued work phone I didn't have a ton of contacts, but I did have to re-enter them. Thankfully I hadn't lost the messages.
AFAIK there’s an app specific password or so, but apple’s transition killed off my desire entirely.
Still, what am I suppose to do if I really want to use it outside of macOS and iOS?
Yes, you have to go on the iCloud device management page and get an App-specific password to use it on non-Apple devices.
I'm using it on my Windows system and I used to use it on Android. So you can use it without Apple devices - but you have to have an Apple device to create the account in the first place.
I was a little confused about how you described the professional email hosting as a free service (bundled with a paid package doesn’t make it free, per se), but you were looking at replacing professional email hosting with iCloud Email, which IS a free service. And that’s really what I was referring to, plus I couldn’t resist the reference to Looking for Love that I made.
It’s not “Apple device only”. I’m logged into my iCloud email via IMAP on an Android eInk tablet I own. You need to set up 2FA and set up an app-specific password. It’s the exact same process as if you want to set up Spark with iCloud Mail, or if you want to set up GMail on an app or device that doesn’t support GMail’s proprietary (or proprietary-ish) authentication scheme.
Also, as I said upthread, a service with 97%
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Back when I was not using 2FA fearing losing account access cause Apple screwing up recovery process, I couldn’t use iCloud mail on other devices because I couldn’t setup app specific password. I gave up iCloud mail since, until recently when my organisation mandate 2FA across the board I was forced to jump in.
As for uptime, honestly i can’t ask too much about it for consumer products because, consumers. The iCloud email Service I’m using is not for enterprise so there is naturally no guaranteed uptime. Microsoft 365 I’m also using contractually require a standard uptime so I shouldn’t encounter service disruption that much.
Its down in Fort Lauderdale at the moment. Anyone who depends on email "a whole lot" should not be using iCloud. I'm involved in legal closings, use a gmail account for that. iCloud is far too unreliable for quick electronic signing.
That’s due to the Akamai outage, though. Fundamentally, though, you shouldn’t use Gmail for legal closings, either. I consider it highly unprofessional to conduct professional work from a Gmail account, a Yahoo account, or an iCloud account. You should really have your own domain name, and an email address under it if you’re a business doing business online. You using a Gmail account for business tells me that I can’t necessarily find information about you online, that you definitely don’t have your own website that you advertise your services through. Having your own domain name and doing email business through it gives me more of an assurance of your identity, vs doing business through a Gmail account. I can at least verify far easier that this email address on this domain is associated with your business than some random Gmail account. I also think that job searchers, particularly in professional fields, should use an email account under their name. At the very least via Gmail or iCloud, but better under their own domain name.
I'm a homeowner, with multiple transactions going on. Do you normally give advice with little to no knowledge of the situation?
It sounded like you were using an email account for professional work. If it’s not professional work, then my recommendation isn’t really relevant. Still, what do you expect on the Internet?
Edit: But the Akamai outage impacted more than iCloud Mail. That sort of impact is kinda hard to quantify in terms of downtime ratings, especially since it’s a third party cause of downtime, and my larger point about free email providers and having no guarantee of uptime still stands. Anything where email reliability is a concern should be used with a provider that has an uptime guarantee in writing. iCloud, (consumer) Gmail, Yahoo Mail, (consumer) Outlook do not (but the hosted-for-your-business versions of Gmail and Outlook likely do). Otherwise, it’s like using a free phone provider that has no guarantee you’ll be able to use the service at any given moment for an important work conference call.
But it’s also a real pet peeve of mine to see law firms or government offices doing work from an @gmail.com account or even from an ISP email account (I’d expect something more official, especially where data retention rules might come into play, or where I want more of a guarantee you are who you say you are), and I might have gotten a little worked up over that.
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iCloud mail was down for me this morning so I just switched to GMail but I sent email to contacts that iCloud mail was down.
Yep, lots of issues this morning, although they all appear to be resolved:
Apple - Support - System Status
Status for all planned and unplanned events for Apple Services.