Mail not updating across devices

[spencecb]

Has anyone had this problem?

I have to e-mail accounts setup on my iPad (3rd generation) and iPhone 4S. One is iCloud and another is a work e-mail that is Microsoft Exchange.

E-mail pushes to both devices perfectly fine, but when I read any of the messages on my, for example, iPad, the Mail.app on iPhone won't indicate that it has been read until I actually launch Mail, then updates immediately.

This has been going on for quite some time, and I've just now gotten to the point of annoyance and thought I'd try and figure out how to resolve it.

I've tried restoring the devices, including a DFU restore to no avail. And bot devices are running iOS 5.1.1.

Thanks for any tips!

 

[DefBref]

Unfortunately thats how Apple have implemented it. Its annoying isn't it?

Not sure if their are third party apps that update in the background, but apples doesn't mark thing read until you open it.

 

[spencecb]

That's not true. It very much use to work by updating across devices when a message is read on one. I could watch it happen.

 

[DefBref]

Its always worked the way you describe in your first post for me.

When you say you've watched it happen, does that mean you had the mail app open on both devices? In that case I misunderstood what you meant, it doesn't update in the background for me, you need to open the app . I've never had the mail app open at the same time on both my iphone and ipad to see if it updates read messages in real time across devices.

EDIT: Just tried it and with mail open on both devices, there is no updating of read messages in real time for me either. But I have no idea if this used to work or not.

 

[spencecb]

Example: iPad on home screen and shows I have one email. I pick up iPhone and read it there. The notification goes away on iPad. That is how it use to work.

 

[DefBref]

Ok, well its never worked like that for me. I always thought it was like that as previously stated.

All I can do is confirm it doesn't update for me either and never has, so it doesn't look like its a fault on your devices, more like a iOS limitation. Started using mail across idevices with iphone 3g (iOS4), and ipad 1 (iOS4 and iOS5) and now with iphone 4s and ipad 2 and the notification icon has never updated unless I open the mail app on the respective device. I also have a work exchange account and a gmail account (active sync) so similar to you, plus a icloud account and hotmail account (exchange again).

 

[spencecb]

As far as I can recall, it worked this way in iOS 3 and 4 and must have went defunct in iOS 5. Maybe iOS 6 will remedy this once more?

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Ok, well its never worked like that for me. I always thought it was like that as previously stated.

All I can do is confirm it doesn't update for me either and never has, so it doesn't look like its a fault on your devices, more like a iOS limitation. Started using mail across idevices with iphone 3g (iOS4), and ipad 1 (iOS4 and iOS5) and now with iphone 4s and ipad 2 and the notification icon has never updated unless I open the mail app on the respective device. I also have a work exchange account and a gmail account (active sync) so similar to you, plus a icloud account and hotmail account (exchange again).

Interesting. Honestly, I only had MobileMe at the time, so I wonder if it's a legacy account problem? I didn't create a new iCloud account, simply moved MobileMe to iCloud. Did you do the same?

 

[DefBref]

Just did a quick search and found this: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1255819/

Which seems to indicate it should work with gmail, which I just tried and it did!

I had sent a mail from gmail to my icloud account in my previous message and so icloud doesn't work but gmail does.

Will try my work account now.

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Results:

Gmail does update

Work Exchange Doesn't

Icloud Doesn't

Hotmail does



I guess I've never noticed in the past because of the accounts that don't update, all I've noticed is that I had emails (which must have been from my work account, but I didn't notice the commonality) not updating as read across all my devices.

I suggest you try with your gmail to see if that updates.

 

[spencecb]

Cool, thanks for the post. I don't have a gmail account and refuse to make one. Their privacy and security policies are just evil.