Read Mail not Syncing between Mac and iPhone

[zachlegomaniac]

Hi there,

I have a 2013 13” rMBP (10.14.6), 2018 iPad Pro and iPhone 7 (both running 12.4.1). When I read mail on my MBP it does not show up as read on my iOS devices. It is only happening for my G Suites email. My other gmail accounts and apple accounts sync fine.

I’ve tried deleting/removing the account from an iOS device and adding it again with a power down/up in between to no avail.

Does anyone have any recommendations? This was never an issue until a couple of days ago. It may have coincided with my installation of 12.4.1, but I’m really not sure.

Thank you.

 

[satcomer]

If you want that function then you must use a central email server with clients access the sever and messages stay on that server and costs a lot of money! So what email server do you use?

 

[Anonymous Freak]

How are you setting up the Gmail access? Gmail can be accessed via IMAP or POP. If you access via IMAP on all devices, the read should sync. If you access via POP, it won't sync. You can find out by going in to the account and go to "Advanced". If you see "IMAP Path Prefix" as a settting, it's set up for IMAP.

In iOS and macOS, if you set it up specifically as a "Google account" (even though it's technically a GSuites account) it will do IMAP automatically. If you chose "Other" and manually entered, then it's whatever you picked. I just use the "Google account" for both of my GSuites-based accounts.

Also make sure you have "Fetch New Data" set to "Push" and have the GSuites accounts set to "Fetch" (because Gmail doesn't support Push) with a Fetch schedule of Every 15 minutes. (If it's on "Automatically" it will only sync to Gmail when on WiFi *AND* plugged in to power!)

 

[mkelly]

If you want that function then you must use a central email server with clients access the sever and messages stay on that server and costs a lot of money! So what email server do you use?

Satcomer: that was good advice once upon a time, but you're a bit out of date. Google, Outlook and most other "cloud" mail providers provide IMAP servers that do exactly this for little or no cost. The original poster mentions GSuite, meaning they use Google's mail offering, which absolutely supports server-based mail messages with stateful sync across multiple mail clients.

Back in the good old days of the early net, most mail providers used POP3, which downloaded the entire message to your client (and removed it from the server)... in those days, if you wanted IMAP support you often had to run the server software yourself.

Anonymous Freak is asking the right question(s) above - if the OP set their Mac and iOS mail clients up to pull mail from GSuite via POP3, that would explain the issue.

Zachlegomaniac: Can you clarify your original question a bit - when you say:

"When I read mail on my MBP it does not show up as read on my iOS devices."

Do you mean:

1) A message shows up in your inbox on both your MBP and iOS devices. When you read it on your MBP, it still appears as unread on your iOS devices (ie: the "read" state of the message isn't synced across devices)

or

2) Messages show up on one device or the other, but not both.

I'm guessing you mean option 1, but just want to be sure.

 

[rajiv88]

Satcomer: that was good advice once upon a time, but you're a bit out of date. Google, Outlook and most other "cloud" mail providers provide IMAP servers that do exactly this for little or no cost. The original poster mentions GSuite, meaning they use Google's mail offering, which absolutely supports server-based mail messages with stateful sync across multiple mail clients.

Back in the good old days of the early net, most mail providers used POP3, which downloaded the entire message to your client (and removed it from the server)... in those days, if you wanted IMAP support you often had to run the server software yourself.

Anonymous Freak is asking the right question(s) above - if the OP set their Mac and iOS mail clients up to pull mail from GSuite via POP3, that would explain the issue.

Zachlegomaniac: Can you clarify your original question a bit - when you say:

"When I read mail on my MBP it does not show up as read on my iOS devices."

Do you mean:

1) A message shows up in your inbox on both your MBP and iOS devices. When you read it on your MBP, it still appears as unread on your iOS devices (ie: the "read" state of the message isn't synced across devices)

or

2) Messages show up on one device or the other, but not both.

I'm guessing you mean option 1, but just want to be sure.

Hi, this thread is now three years old, not sure it is still open but I have the issue in (1) above. I have a 2018 MacbookAir running MacOS 12.0.1 and iPhone 13 running iOS 15.1. iCloud Mail is enabled on both devices. My Mail account is set to POP whereas ICloud is IMAP. Perhaps that's the problem?

 

[satcomer]

Hi, this thread is now three years old, not sure it is still open but I have the issue in (1) above. I have a 2018 MacbookAir running MacOS 12.0.1 and iPhone 13 running iOS 15.1. iCloud Mail is enabled on both devices. My Mail account is set to POP whereas ICloud is IMAP. Perhaps that's the problem?

Yes your on right track!