Gmail (using exchange active sync) no longer syncing read status

[profets]

I get that sometimes, too, where iOS Mail app is quick to get new emails but doesn't really change its status to show an email was moved or deleted. I will get alerts at the exact same time on my phone as Outlook 2016 so its certainly getting pushed to very fast. Mail app on Yosemite is slow to show new emails. I can have both Mail app on Yosemite and Outlook 2016 both open, and Mail app will take minutes to show a new email that Outlook 2016 (and my phone) already alerted to.


I am not sure if this is a client issue or Office 365 but I suspect a client issue due to the inconsistency between clients. If I mark an email as read on my phone Outlook 2016 drops the alert bubble on the dock icon within seconds while OS X Mail app will still have the alert bubble for minutes. If I mark an email as read in Outlook 2016 both OS X and iOS Mail app will still show an alert bubble.

Thanks for that feedback, much appreciated!

With different private Microsoft Exchange server at work, as well as connecting to Gmail using Exchange Activesync (paid through google apps with a private domain), I get full instant syncing of everything - not just the mail being pushed to the devices, but also read status / deletes. For example, if I receive a new mail item, I see it on my Mac, and the lock screens on both iPhone and iPad. As soon as I delete it or mark it as read, it disappears from the lock screen of my iOS devices quite instantly. I should note though that in the Mail app on Mac, I use IMAP to connect to Gmail, and it pushes new items and changes quite fast (using IMAP IDLE, which iOS doesn't support).

Office365 is doing a great job of pushing items instantly to iOS devices. And as soon as I mark as read, delete, move to a folder, or flag it, I see that change show up instantly in OWA (I've been keeping OWA open for reference). I do notice, as you said that it does take a few minutes for new items and changes to get pushed to the Mac Mail app. Though I'm quite happy I can flag items on the go that I need to follow up on and see them in the Mail app on Mac. But the one thing that I find hard to live without is read/delete/move/flag statuses not being pushed to iOS devices after being used to that for 6-7 years now. When I'm at my desk going through several emails on the Mac, and then grab my iPhone and see the lock screen filled with them, it drives me nuts. The only way to get the iOS device to update those changes is to unlock it, open the Mail app and let it refresh, which is unfortunate. I'm going to keep using it with this one domain for a while and hope that the behaviour changes.

 

[Belmont31R]

Out of curiosity have you ever tried using Google Apps with Exchange on iOS?

I did notice that since iOS 8 came out there will be periods of time where the Mail app won't even update and seemingly goes into some sort of idle or sleep mode. I will open up the Mail app and it will show last updated as the day before or several hours before. I don't recall ever seeing such long periods of time between the app updating on its own.

On both OS X and iOS I have my O365 Exchange account, an outlook.com email, and a Google Apps (college/student) account through my school. All are set to push and I setup the Google Apps account as an Exchange account using m.google.com on iOS. For some reason the OS X Mail app won't connect to my GA account under Exchange but will under Gmail. I just tried marking an email as read with my GA account on OS X Mail and the alert bubble on my phone went away within 2 seconds. I then flagged that email and even after refreshing the iOS Mail app a few times the flag would not show up.

I then flagged an O365 in OS X Mail app and the flag showed up in around 30 seconds on iOS Mail app. I flagged an email in the iOS Mail app and the flag showed up in OS X Mail app within a few minutes. Outlook 2016 shows both flags. OWA shows both flags. After 10 minutes now the GA flag I set in OS X Mail app is not on the iOS Mail app. Even clearing the flag in OS X Mail app, and reflagging the email in iOS Mail app I cannot get the flag to show in OS X Mail app.

 

[profets]

Out of curiosity have you ever tried using Google Apps with Exchange on iOS?

I did notice that since iOS 8 came out there will be periods of time where the Mail app won't even update and seemingly goes into some sort of idle or sleep mode. I will open up the Mail app and it will show last updated as the day before or several hours before. I don't recall ever seeing such long periods of time between the app updating on its own.

On both OS X and iOS I have my O365 Exchange account, an outlook.com email, and a Google Apps (college/student) account through my school. All are set to push and I setup the Google Apps account as an Exchange account using m.google.com on iOS. For some reason the OS X Mail app won't connect to my GA account under Exchange but will under Gmail. I just tried marking an email as read with my GA account on OS X Mail and the alert bubble on my phone went away within 2 seconds. I then flagged that email and even after refreshing the iOS Mail app a few times the flag would not show up.

I then flagged an O365 in OS X Mail app and the flag showed up in around 30 seconds on iOS Mail app. I flagged an email in the iOS Mail app and the flag showed up in OS X Mail app within a few minutes. Outlook 2016 shows both flags. OWA shows both flags. After 10 minutes now the GA flag I set in OS X Mail app is not on the iOS Mail app. Even clearing the flag in OS X Mail app, and reflagging the email in iOS Mail app I cannot get the flag to show in OS X Mail app.

Yes, I've been using a custom domain with Google Apps, configured on iOS devices using Exchange. It's been excellent for years, but iOS 8 had some weird issues. It's seemed to be resolved with 8.2. One thing it's never had though, is the ability to see flags on an iOS device (or flag items on iOS and then see them on Gmail or desktop Mail). It's one of the reasons I was interested in trying Office365 out.

Also, Gmail doesn't allow desktop access using Exchange Activesync. Only option is Gmail (which uses IMAP), which is ok, as it does push new items using IMAP_IDLE (supported by Gmail and Mac Mail).

 

[Belmont31R]

Yes, I've been using a custom domain with Google Apps, configured on iOS devices using Exchange. It's been excellent for years, but iOS 8 had some weird issues. It's seemed to be resolved with 8.2. One thing it's never had though, is the ability to see flags on an iOS device (or flag items on iOS and then see them on Gmail or desktop Mail). It's one of the reasons I was interested in trying Office365 out.

Also, Gmail doesn't allow desktop access using Exchange Activesync. Only option is Gmail (which uses IMAP), which is ok, as it does push new items using IMAP_IDLE (supported by Gmail and Mac Mail).

I wonder what type of response you would get if you opened a support ticket through O365. I've only had to once, and they respond fairly quickly. Seems if they could fix it on their backend somehow you'd have the best of both worlds with flag support and clients being updated for deleting/moving email.

 

[profets]

I wonder what type of response you would get if you opened a support ticket through O365. I've only had to once, and they respond fairly quickly. Seems if they could fix it on their backend somehow you'd have the best of both worlds with flag support and clients being updated for deleting/moving email.

Interesting, maybe I'll try that out. I'd love for that to all work!

 

[lah]

I've been having problems with my Google Apps account (set up as ActiveSync) since Sat. It no longer consistently pushes to my iPhone running 8.2.
Pretty annoying, anyone else having issues since the weekend?