How To Troubleshoot The “Cannot Get Mail” Warning Prompt On iPhone

iPhone get Mail error message.

It’s obvious that this iOS warning has the role to inform you that communication between your iPhone or iPad and the mail server needs to be troubleshooted. If you successfully used Mail until this time-point and haven’t tampered your mail account, it’s common sense to assume that there is nothing wrong with the log-in details. It’s instead an Internet connectivity issue. Either your entire web connection or just the mail protocol isn’t able to download fresh data from the mail server.

How To Troubleshoot
1. Internet Connectivity: First of all, make sure that your iPhone’s Internet connection is active and working. Look up in the top status bar, for either the Wi-Fi status or the carrier data connectivity symbol. If one of them is active, open Safari and load a web page to check that traffic between your smartphone and the web is exchanged. If the spinning wheel appears, next to the battery percentage indicator, it could signal a lagging connectivity issue.
Tip: Tap OK on the error prompt and refresh your Inbox. Sometimes there might be just a temporary hiccup with your web connection and the mail is fetched during the 2nd or 3rd attempt.

2. Wi-Fi Restrictions: There might also be the case that your iPhone can load websites but the connection with the Mail server is blocked. These rare situation occur if you’re connected to a Wi-Fi network that comes with certain restrictions. I’ve encountered several office buildings with hotspots set to block any data transfer with external mail servers like imap.gmail.com. The workaround this “Cannot Get Mail” factor is to disable Wi-Fi from your iPhone’s Control Center and allow the carrier’s data connection to take over.
Fact: When both Carrier data and Wi-Fi are active, the wireless connection is prioritized!

3. Mail Yourself: If none of the above works, it means that there’s a communication glitch generated by your iPhone or the issue is server-side and has nothing to do with the Internet connection. The error basically signals that your iPhone can’t fetch new mails. But let’s check if the app can send them.
The best way to “shock” your device is to send a mail from the affected Inbox to itself. You’ll be surprised that this trick is a great fix for the “Cannot Get Mail” flaw!

4. Reboot Mail app: Sometimes your email application might just jam. Double-press the Home Button to open the App Switcher and slide up the Mail card to force-close the app. Return to the Home Screen and tap on Mail to restart it. Try to fetch new mails one more time. If the issue persists move on to step 5.

Tip: You can go one step further and force restart your iPhone to make sure that the Mail app is completely refreshed.

5. Delete & Add Email Account: Last but not least you also have the option to remove the troublesome email account and set it back up again. This last resort attempt to troubleshoot the “Cannot Get Mail” screen should be done if none of the above tips helped you to solve the issue.
1. Tap on Settings, browse for Mail and tap on Accounts.
2. Select the account that causes problems and hit the Delete Account option.
3. Return to the Mail -> Accounts settings menu and this time tap on the Add Account label.
4. Pick the adequate email provider from the list and type your log-in details when prompted.
Fact: Hopefully mails should fetch properly now and you can continue with your daily routine!