iOS 17 Mail App, worth using it?

[Populus]

I’ve been using third party mail apps most of my life, instead of using the native Apple Mail App on iOS, iPadOS and macOS.

Basically, I have the Outlook app for my Hotmail account, the Protonmail app for my Proton account, and I would have the Gmail app installed if I had a Gmail account.

I’ve been reading, over the years, that Mail App was giving problems to many people since iOS 13 or 14… so I always disregarded it.

But we’re already on iOS 17.5.1, and I think it’s about time the Mail app on iOS works properly… and it would really make my life simpler having all my e-mail in my iOS Mail App. However…

1) Unfortunately, on my hotmail account, many “good” mails that I should read get trapped on the SPAM folder, and I’m not sure if Mail also syncs the spam folder.

2) Some privacy benefits of Protonmail only work when using the official Proton App, such as the E2EE correspondence. But honestly, this is only available if you communicate with another Protonmail user, so I’m not sure if I’m losing too much here…

3) Some years ago, I remember there was a security hole in the Mail App, I really hope all of that is fixed, because as far as I know, the Mail App downloads and stores ask your mails…

By the way, is there a way to 1) prevent Mail from downloading all your previous data, and 2) avoiding the app marking “as read” all the previous mails?

This thread is to see what’s your opinion about Apple’s Mail App, on iOS, iPadOS and macOS, and solve the above questions. Please don’t recommend third party mail managers such as Spark, because just for privacy, I’m not going to use them.

Thank you.

 

[colodane]

The Apple Mail app has worked flawlessly for me for at least 8 years now from whatever IOS version I had back then up to 17.4.1 now. It easily centralizes access to my Gmail account, my iCloud mail account and several email addresses for my FastMail account. Once you get it set up, I'm sure you will like the user experience.

By the way, it works equally well on my MacOS desktop and laptop systems.

 

[Populus]

The Apple Mail app has worked flawlessly for me for at least 8 years now from whatever IOS version I had back then up to 17.4.1 now. It easily centralizes access to my Gmail account, my iCloud mail account and several email addresses for my FastMail account. Once you get it set up, I'm sure you will like the user experience.

By the way, it works equally well on my MacOS desktop and laptop systems.

Can I ask you a couple of questions, if you have an Outlook account attached to it? Does it allow to split between the priority inbox and the rest inbox? Or it just goes all to the same inbox?

What about spam folder for third party providers like Outlook or Gmail? Does the spam go to the spam folder on Mail app as well?

And finally, when you set up an Outlook or Gmail account, does the app download ALL your inbox, or just the recently received? Does it mark them as read on the source server when you read them on Mail?

Thank you!

 

[ghostface147]

I’ve used the built in app since day 1 in 2007. Won’t use anything else. As for mail on a Mac. Sucks. Won’t touch it.

 

[colodane]

I have not tried it with Outlook, so cannot comment on that.

It is set up so that you can look at all the email accounts in one group or you can also select exactly which one you want to look at.

Occasionally you will get a situation where Mail disagrees with one of individual accounts as to what is "Spam". If that happens, you can manually move an email to the folder of your choice so that they are consistent.

 

[ManuCH]

I have restarted using the native Apple Mail app sometimes last year, after Spark (the app I've been using for years) introduced a new annoying bug with wrong background battery usage reporting which they never solved.

It's been working really well for me. I have no Outlook email accounts, just Fastmail and Gmail, and it doesn't download all past emails, just the most recent ones. Also it for sure doesn't mark past emails as read or anything like that (if that happened to you in the past, it's because you configured your account as POP3, which is outdated and shouldn't be done anymore).

I can recommend it. Nothing bad can happen, give it a spin! If you don't like it, you just stop using it.

 

[Populus]

I have restarted using the native Apple Mail app sometimes last year, after Spark (the app I've been using for years) introduced a new annoying bug with wrong background battery usage reporting which they never solved.

It's been working really well for me. I have no Outlook email accounts, just Fastmail and Gmail, and it doesn't download all past emails, just the most recent ones. Also it for sure doesn't mark past emails as read or anything like that (if that happened to you in the past, it's because you configured your account as POP3, which is outdated and shouldn't be done anymore).

I can recommend it. Nothing bad can happen, give it a spin! If you don't like it, you just stop using it.

Good! Thank you both!

Starting from iOS 17 onwards, I’ll try to have my Protonmail, Outlook and other accounts on Mail and see how it goes. If I face any trouble I’ll ask here.

I’ll make sure the Outlook account isn’t set as POP3, as it’s a very old account (+20 years).

And given that all of you are using FastMail, l’ll take a look at their service. Also, hopefully it will also work correctly with Tutanota.

 

[Populus]

I have one more question.

Should I leave it with Push notifications? Or change it to 15/30minutes fetching?

According to some YouTube videos, Push is more battery draining but others say that because Push only sends you the email when it arrives, then the iPhone doesn’t need to be fetching every x minutes. So I really don’t know how to set it up, and wether it can be set up for all my mail accounts or just for Apple’s ones.

 

[martint235]

I keep trying 3rd party apps but when it comes to syncing across devices the native app seems to work quicker so I always end up going back.

 

[Populus]

I keep trying 3rd party apps but when it comes to syncing across devices the native app seems to work quicker so I always end up going back.

Thank you! I’m a bit tired of the Outlook app, the Protonmail one is nice but having everything on just one native app sounds pretty cool

 

[NoBoMac]

Should I leave it with Push notifications? Or change it to 15/30minutes fetching?

Both.

Problem is: some services do not do push. Tons of threads here regarding complaints about Gmail not doing push through native app. But iCloud and Outlook does support push.

So, I've got push on for the two and default to 15 minutes on everything else. And don't sweat the supposed battery "issues", got bigger battery hogs out there (Insta, Facebook, Twitter, the games people play, the streaming video apps, etc).

 

[Populus]

Both.

Problem is: some services do not do push. Tons of threads here regarding complaints about Gmail not doing push through native app. But iCloud and Outlook does support push.

So, I've got push on for the two and default to 15 minutes on everything else. And don't sweat the supposed battery "issues", got bigger battery hogs out there (Insta, Facebook, Twitter, the games people play, the streaming video apps, etc).

Many thanks for this reply!

Yes, battery drain is usually mentioned when people talk about Mail’s fetching method, but I suspect that it’s not a big deal compared to apps that really make the SoC run at full power or for longer time.

Sadly, I’m reading that Protonmail only supports their own app and it’s not possible to use it through iOS Mail app, due to the encryption, but Protonmail app is decent enough. Works well.

Seems like Tutanota isn’t supported by the stock iOS Mail app either, for the same reason.

 

[gwhizkids]

@Populus Regarding your question about Outlook Priority vs. Everything else mailboxes, the Apple Mail app will not distinguish between them. The contents of both will appear in your Inbox. The same is true for GMail's categorization of emails (Inbox, Social, Forums, etc.). Everything shows up in the Inbox.

I've been away from using the Mail app for about a year (using Spark at @Pearsey's recommendation). As I am in the process of starting a consulting practice, I may reconsider going back to Mail for at least some of my accounts (personal and residual mail from my former business affiliation) and staying on Spark for the new business (or vice versa). Some of that decision will depend on what gets announced on Monday.

 

[mike.coulter]

Mail has been my go to email client since I had my iPhone 6S. I've never had a problem with it, though sometimes if I'm searching for a really old email I find it easier to use the outlook web app.

 

[Surrix]

My understanding is that, even now, the native Mail app still can't do push Gmail.

 

[NoBoMac]

The same is true for GMail's categorization of emails (Inbox, Social, Forums, etc.). Everything shows up in the Inbox.

Works for me. These type of things show in Archive for me. Only occasionally see one of these in primary mailbox/Inbox.

 

[Populus]

@Populus Regarding your question about Outlook Priority vs. Everything else mailboxes, the Apple Mail app will not distinguish between them. The contents of both will appear in your Inbox. The same is true for GMail's categorization of emails (Inbox, Social, Forums, etc.). Everything shows up in the Inbox.

I've been away from using the Mail app for about a year (using Spark at @Pearsey's recommendation). As I am in the process of starting a consulting practice, I may reconsider going back to Mail for at least some of my accounts (personal and residual mail from my former business affiliation) and staying on Spark for the new business (or vice versa). Some of that decision will depend on what gets announced on Monday.

Thank you. I imagined that would be the case. So I began unsubscribing from a lot of junk newsletters that populate my “others” inbox on Outlook. I usually only check the priority inbox so I usually forget about the irrelevant stuff that regularly makes it to my inbox.

Hopefully unsubscribing will be enough (they are mostly newsletters from stores where I’ve purchased something)

 

[gwhizkids]

Works for me. These type of things show in Archive for me. Only occasionally see one of these in primary mailbox/Inbox.

Hmmm…you may be right about that. Occasionally I do see stuff that is from the other boxes so that’s probably what made me think that.

 

[NoBoMac]

Re Gmail categories: Just checked my Gmail settings, it's an option.



EDIT: Or not. Also just noticed I have a filter setup for "Matches: (Category: Promotions OR Category:Social)" to "Skip Inbox, Never mark it as important"

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I used Spark for a year or two, but that has to be close to a decade ago. Since then just using the Apple app. It's just.... simpler; having iPhone, iPad, and multiple Macs I just don't want to have to deal with installing & configuring a new app on each device. Mail works fine for me, though I don't use Outlook so can't speak to how the priority thing works. I do use Gmail and it's fine - however, keep in mind Gmail doesn't support Push Notifications so Mail will "Poll" periodically; the fastest poll you can set is 15 minutes. That's not a problem for me, but could be for some people.

 

[macfacts]

Please don’t recommend third party mail managers such as Spark, because just for privacy, I’m not going to use them.

You're a "nobody", companies aren't going to read your email.

 

[ManuCH]

I have one more question.

Should I leave it with Push notifications? Or change it to 15/30minutes fetching?

According to some YouTube videos, Push is more battery draining but others say that because Push only sends you the email when it arrives, then the iPhone doesn’t need to be fetching every x minutes. So I really don’t know how to set it up, and wether it can be set up for all my mail accounts or just for Apple’s ones.

As others said: it depends on the mail service. If you're using a mail service that supports push notifications on Apple Mail, use it. Fastmail does. Not sure about which others do.

15/30 minutes fetching, well, I find that annoying. I need my emails to arrive right away, and I don't like the idea of fetch going on in the background. Also no, push is definitely not battery draining at all.

 

[Populus]

As others said: it depends on the mail service. If you're using a mail service that supports push notifications on Apple Mail, use it. Fastmail does. Not sure about which others do.

15/30 minutes fetching, well, I find that annoying. I need my emails to arrive right away, and I don't like the idea of fetch going on in the background. Also no, push is definitely not battery draining at all.

Many thanks, you all have convinced me to use push, so I’ll leave it enabled.

As for my email services, I’m going to have to install Protonmail app, because it isn’t supported by Mail, but my Outlook accounts, which apparently support push, are going to be included in Mail App. And I don’t use any Gmail account regularly, but I have one that I open every once in a while, and I don’t mind setting that one to manually.

 

[Populus]

Seems like Mail is gaining categories on iOS 18…

Hopefully this will be compatible with third party providers.

 

[Populus]

One more question: for those using iOS 17 Mail with an Outlook/Hotmail or Gmail account: can you see the SPAM inbox? Or will I have to go through the website to check if there’s some important email among the junk? Lately, Outlook filter is failing a lot, and even Amazon legitimate emails end up in SPAM.