I can’t receive emails on my phone. How do I fix it?

Email that works on the computer but not the phone is one of the most common things people bring in, and it’s nearly always one of a handful of causes.

First: is it just the phone?

Check the same account in a web browser — on the phone or a computer, doesn’t matter.

If email is arriving there, the account is fine and the problem is the phone’s settings. Good news; that’s the easier case.

If nothing is arriving there either, the problem is the account or the mail provider, and fiddling with the phone won’t help.

The usual causes, in order

1. The password changed. By far the most common. If you changed it on the computer — or were made to change it — the phone is still trying the old one. Some phones show a clear warning, others just quietly stop fetching. Re-enter it in the account settings.
2. Two-factor was turned on. Some older mail apps need a separate “app password” rather than your normal one. Your ordinary password will simply be refused, with no useful explanation.
3. Background refresh is off. Then mail only arrives when you open the app. If it “works when I look at it but I never get notifications”, this is almost certainly it.
4. The mailbox is full. A full mailbox stops accepting new messages. Everything looks fine; nothing arrives.
5. Storage on the phone is full. A phone with no free space can’t download anything, and mail is often the first casualty.
6. The provider changed its settings. Less common, but it happens, and an old manually-configured account can be left behind.

Quick things worth trying

Close the mail app fully and reopen it. Restart the phone. Check you’re not in aeroplane mode or on a restricted network. Look in the junk folder — missing mail is sometimes just filed somewhere unexpected.

If you only have the problem on mobile data but not WiFi, or vice versa, say so when you ring — it narrows things considerably.

The one to be careful with

If you’re on an older account set up manually years ago, and you delete it from the phone to “start fresh”, check first whether it’s POP rather than IMAP.

With POP, mail is downloaded to the device and may not exist anywhere else. Delete the account and you can lose everything stored on that phone.

If you’re not sure which you have, don’t delete it — ask us first. It takes a moment to check and it’s not recoverable afterwards.

Bring it in

Phone and, if you have it, the computer too — having both makes it much quicker to see what differs. We’ll get mail working again and make sure it’s set up properly, so it doesn’t quietly stop again after the next password change.

Workshop on Station Road, or ring 01753 884700.