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Mac Mail has stopped downloading emails from Exchange server

Cave Man

Cave Man

macrumors 604
Original poster
Yesterday, it was working fine, today it won't download emails from the Exchange server. Using current Tahoe 26.2 on Mac Studio M4. If I log onto the mail server using Safari/Outlook I see the new emails fine. If I click on the "Get Mail" icon in the menu bar, the new emails do not download and the activity message at the bottom of the left pane is "No new messages," even though there are. If I quit and relaunch Mail, it will download once, but not thereafter. I have restarted the computer and that did not solve the problem. Any suggestions as to how to get this fixed? I don't know if it's a Mail problem or an Exchange problem.

TIA!
 
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A follow-up; our IT people say they have "noticed issues with Apple's Exchange server". I will try to completely rebuild my mail overnight to see if that resolves the problem.
 
Microsoft Exchange right? This started yesterday.

At our work and my wife's college - Microsoft is not sending/receiving emails - and if they are, it's severely delayed.

1769116365535.jpeg


Microsoft seems to be aware:

1769116316710.png
 
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Well, that probably explains it. I'll just hang on for a day or two to see if it gets resolved. Thanks much for that info!
 
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Well, this was weird. This morning when I arrived at my office, a bunch of new emails had arrived. But then they stopped downloading between 7:30 AM (which arrived) and 8:30 AM (the next email, which did not arrive). It seems like 7:30 AM was about the time I check emails at home using Brave/Outlook Web on my MacBook at home. I wonder if that's what's causing the problem?
 
Cave Man said:
Well, this was weird. This morning when I arrived at my office, a bunch of new emails had arrived. But then they stopped downloading between 7:30 AM (which arrived) and 8:30 AM (the next email, which did not arrive). It seems like 7:30 AM was about the time I check emails at home using Brave/Outlook Web on my MacBook at home. I wonder if that's what's causing the problem?
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They're telling us that Microsoft is back up and working but I'm still seeing delays now and then with our company email so I'm not so sure... but was curious if you were up and running or not. :/
 
Maybe related to my issue...

I get this all the time and reported it to my ISP (they host my email too). They were pretty stumped and just told me to keep reentering my mailbox password whenever it happens. Which works but is not exactly fixing anything as it will often go tits up again. I usually get no mail throughout the day and then get a glut at midnight and wake up to a load but also get the 'password is incorrect message' and so again reenter to password.

The only thing I can think of is my VPN breaks authentication every now and then. Do you use a VPN?
 
So, I'm sitting here working on a Word document when suddenly a bunch of new emails just downloaded and showed up in the Mail app. I didn't do anything! This is nuts.
 
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Four newer emails just arrived in Safari/Outlook Web but they have not downloaded to Mail. Really, I have no clue what might be going on.
 
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I just happened to come across this -- think it is related?

learn.microsoft.com

Outlook Issue since 1/14/26 Update - Microsoft Q&A

After the 1/14/26 security update with Windows my Outlook Classic will pull in new emails to my IMAP email, but then at some point while working it freezes and I have to close and reopen, again download all emails since that update, and see how long it…
learn.microsoft.com

 
Cave Man said:
I just did so at Mail > Settings > Accounts > Exchange > Server Settings but it doesn't seem to have resolved it. Is there another location where I can enter the password?
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No that's it really. I only asked as you have stuff waiting on the server but the client is not seeing them (like my issue) so I was wondering if its an authentication problem like mine.

Hoped it would at least give you a workaround.

I read a lengthy post a long time ago on Apples community forums that this issue (messages on server but not fetched) can be caused by an IDLE command not being released. i.e. your client checks for mail, downloads it, then goes to IDLE, until the timer comes up to check again for mail. This IDLE command never receives a prompt to finish and so the fetch command is never called after the first fetch. It's all to do with how the data packet is read. Apparently Apple doesn't seem to read the commands properly.

Im no programmer and probably explained that incorrectly but it kind of made sense at the time and this was way back when iOS18 and MacOS were released. I've never really had a fix for it other than just either quiting the app and reopening it or re input my password. It is possible its my VPN but it comes and goes and I only rarely use the VPN so can't pin it down.

To be fair your problem sounds a bit different to mine we just have the same symptoms for which I don't have an answer, sorry. Hope you can figure it out.
 
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Well, I shut off my iPhone thinking maybe its Mail app was the culprit, but that didn't change anything. Really perplexed about this.
 
Cave Man said:
Really perplexed about this.
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Did you see post #3? I have a few clients on M365 and my own license for work - I have had multiple people text me today instead of email due to issues. I don't think it is just your device.

That said, if it is working in Outlook and on the web, seems like you have a way to still access your stuff while MS fixes things?

Compared to every other service I use, MS Exchange (M365) has a lot of outages like this. It's down at least once a month for me. So if this is upsetting or causing major issues, another provider is probably the best if you can.
 
Yes, I saw it but it doesn't seem to be the problem I'm having because I can send emails just fine, and if I open Outlook in Safari the emails are arriving.

I had a similar issue several years ago but that was easy to isolate - any email that had an attachment prevented subsequent emails from downloading. That was enough info for our IT people to diagnose a problem with our malware screening software (SafeLinks) that was causing the problem. Once fixed, emails downloaded just fine. But this is a different problem.
 
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So, sitting at my desk working away when suddenly half a dozen emails download. Then nothing. The problem resumes. This is really weird.
 
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Ugh, it's doing it again. An email arrived at 3:40 AM but not thereafter. Had to restart the app and the new ones downloaded. This is really frustrating.
 
This problem is persisting but I just realized something. I get emailed calendar events popping up in Notifications in the upper right corner of my display, even though the emails do not download. This seems to suggest that the Mail app is seeing the emails as they arrive, but simply cannot download them. Any thoughts on this?
 
Mine has gone again like I mentioned above. This is since 26.3 for me. Im sick of them breaking this every other update!

What email clients are there that will allow me to add an IMAP prefix. Free. No ads. No gimmicks?
 
Well, I hope I don't jinx myself, but when I arrived at my office this morning Mail was behaving properly and has been all morning/early afternoon. I did nothing to change things (that I'm aware of).
 
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