Mail ignores setting to check mail manually

Before downloading to Mail I prefer to check what is on the server so I can delete unwanted professional email and have only the ones I want come through to my computer. This has worked very well in the past when I've set Mail to check for new mail "Manually". But in recent years and OS's it fetches mail without waiting for me to click the "Get Mail" icon.
The only work around I've found is to un-click the "Enable this account" button in Mail Preferences. This is a royal pain and takes extra time going back and forth from my email to Account Preferences, and when the account is not "enabled" I cannot see all of it's content in Mail. Sometimes I have to turn off wifi to view my content without having it fetch unwanted email, another nuisance work around.
Why does Apple have a "Check Mail Manually" setting if it does not work??? Why does Apple assume everyone wants to download all of the email that arrives on the server? What happened to giving us a choice? Please bring back the user-friendly Apple that I grew to appreciate and now miss.

Do you mean this happens once when you launch Mail.app, or it continues to happen periodically after you've launched the application and while it continues to run?
If it's the former, this is a known issue that Apple introduced with 10.9 Mail.app; you can try filing a bug at https://bugreport.apple.com - they closed mine as a duplicate of an existing bug (14155759) when i filed 11 months ago and proceeded to do nothing about it through the 10.9.1 - 10.9.5 releases.

Similar Messages

Mail keeps getting stuck checking mail and just sits there

My dad's dual G5 is having weird mail problems. When you open Mail, it initiates the checking the mail procedure. The Activity Viewer says that it is checking X out of 1700 at this point and it gets to 71 and then hangs on one spam message written in Russian. He has his laptop set up to check this same email account (Pop mail on our virtual server) and it is still working fine, so I think its something on his version of Mail on that computer.
Any suggestions?
If we reinstall Mail, will his messages disappear?
Is there a preferences file to throw away like in the old days?
Thanks!
dual G5 desktop Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Are there 1700 messages on the server? What are his Preferences > Accounts > Advanced > Remove copy from server settings for this account?
Sometimes messages left on the server clog up the account there, or Mail chokes on a message it cannot download and that prevents it from downloading the rest as well. Solving this problem will probably require removing one or more messages from the server.
You may tell Mail to remove from the server all the messages that have already been downloaded by means of Preferences > Accounts > Advanced > Remove now. Alternatively, you may use the Account Info window to remove specific messages from the server — choose Get Info (⌘I) from the Action menu (gear icon) located below the mailbox list in the main Mail window. And if the account allows web access, you may also remove messages from the server that way.
Try removing from the server messages that have already been downloaded and/or the first message not downloaded yet (i.e. the message that Mail appears to be choking on).

Mavericks Mail won't auto check

I have Mail preferences set to check Mail every five minutes which it has done correctly forever. Just yesterday, I noticed it is no longer checking mail automatically. I have to check manually in order to retrieve new emails. (I have set and reset the mail-check preference choice to no avail.)
I assume maybe a preferences file has gotten corrupted (?). Is there a pref file I can delete that might allow me to restor auto-check in Mail without it deleting all my other Mail settings?
Thanks for any help,
WK

Hi William,
Thanks for visiting Apple Support Communities.
It sounds like you are encountering this symptom:
For some email providers, new email messages in Mail may only appear to arrive when Mail is first opened. No new email arrives until Mail is quit and reopened.
You may want to verify this by testing the workaround in this article:
OS X: New email messages not received until Mail is quit and reopened
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5367
Best,
Jeremy

Mail Account set to Manual, Checks Automatically

I'm using the iPhone 3g (2.1 FW) with 2 mail accounts. One is a POP account which I have set to manual, the other is a Gmail account that I have set to check every 15 minutes.
The phone seems to be checking both automatically.
I have read in other threads that simply opening the Mail app is considered the trigger to a manual check. I can live with that. (Though it should not be that way.)
But I am occasionally receiving mail in the account that is on manual, even when the Mail app is not running.

I am also having an issue with my iPhone 4 mail client.
Prior to upgrading to the 4 from my 3GS, the Mail app would only download new mail when prompted to manually (ie, on app launch or on manual check).
Currently, all settings indicate that mail is set to fetch only manually, yet is downloaded 100% of the time without prompting when launching any of the following apps:
Yelp
Phone
iPod
It launches intermittently with any of the following apps (between 50% and 75% of the time):
Facebook
Photos
Camera
Tron
Breakspin
Wikipedia
Messages
The mail app also randomly downloads intermittently, without any prompting from myself as a user.
I have checked, rechecked, and triplechecked the settings. Push is off, fetch is set to manual in all applicable locations, and I have rebooted and reset the phone. I've even gone so far as to restore from a backup, to no avail.
My accounts are checking from MobileMe and from a personal (non-Yahoo, non-AT&T) e-mail account.
This is, needless to say, most frustrating.
Apple, any chance of a bit of feedback, here?

Set one mail account set to manual fetch, but now autofetches automatically

I have a iPhone 3GS and upgraded to OS 4 the other day. I have four email accounts on my phone. I have three set to autofetch every 15 minutes and the fourth account (which is email I use for spam and to sign up for stuff) is set to manually retrieve. I just don't want to be notified everytime I get some crap email. Wasn't a problem prior to the OS 4 update. It would check everytime i opened up the email app, but not otherwise.
I have the settings the same as before with other accounts set to fetch every 15 minutes and the account (a Yahoo acct) set to manual fetch only. I also make sure that the email app is closed (i.e. not running in the background as OS 4 allows.) Still, it seems to fetch like all the others and is incredibly annoying.
Any fixes?

I am also having an issue with my iPhone 4 mail client.
Prior to upgrading to the 4 from my 3GS, the Mail app would only download new mail when prompted to manually (ie, on app launch or on manual check).
Currently, all settings indicate that mail is set to fetch only manually, yet is downloaded 100% of the time without prompting when launching any of the following apps:
Yelp
Phone
iPod
It launches intermittently with any of the following apps (between 50% and 75% of the time):
Facebook
Photos
Camera
Tron
Breakspin
Wikipedia
Messages
The mail app also randomly downloads intermittently, without any prompting from myself as a user.
I have checked, rechecked, and triplechecked the settings. Push is off, fetch is set to manual in all applicable locations, and I have rebooted and reset the phone. I've even gone so far as to restore from a backup, to no avail.
My accounts are checking from MobileMe and from a personal (non-Yahoo, non-AT&T) e-mail account.
This is, needless to say, most frustrating.
Apple, any chance of a bit of feedback, here?

TS3988 what is the iCloud incoming mail server setting?

what is the iCloud incoming mail server setting?

imap.mail.me.com - but you shoudn't need to enter this manually. If you are having problems, sign out in System Preferences>iCloud, then sign back in again and enable Mail in the checklist. Your data will disappear from your Mac when you sign out but will return when you sign back in.

I can not connect to my work e-mail using both regular e-mail set-up and mail 2003 (work has Outlook 2003). I get the error message "no internet connection- as soon as a connection is made it will switch back". Does anyone have any suggestions?

Why can't I connect to my work e-mail (Outlook 2003) using either the regular e-mail account set-up or Mail 2003? Does anyone have any suggestions?

I have yet to find an email server that does not work with Mail.app. Your solution will be to configure its ports and send/receive protocol according to the email server's requirements.
Try the Zimbra support forums. I found this excerpt from a relevant post:
http://www.zimbra.com/forums/users/46221-mac-mail-app-dont-work-outside-company. html
in which the following ports were suggested
ports 25, 465, and/or 487 to send mail.
port 143/993 to retrieve mail over IMAP

ICloud incoming mail server setting.

I'm not getting iCloud email and the incoming mail server setting (p99-imap.mail.me.com) is dimmed out and not editable. Ideas?

Chris CA wrote:
CAP2010 wrote:
Unfortunately, no matter what I type into the incoming email server while attempting to recreate my account in Mail, the program always tries to connect to p99-imap.mail.me.com.
You don't have to type any server info for your iCloud account.
System prefs > Mail, Contacts & Calendars - New account and select iCloud.
Unfortunately, that was step 1 in the process of not being able to use my mail in iCloud. Also, I have tried changing my password to 8 numbers/letter, etc. in accordance with the new AppleID rules, but that did not work. I have also tried deleting and recreating my account multiple times. I am definitely willing to try any more suggestions.

Mail thinks I have new mail, but I don't.

Hello,
I'm having an odd issue of mail making my new mail sound whenever it checks mail; regardless of whether I actually have new mail. I tried turning off the "Play mail sounds for other actions" which had no effect. It only stopped making the sound when I changed the new mail sound to none.
Why is it doing this?
Powerbook G4 1.33GHz Mac OS X (10.3.8)

Graham,
It is the bedevilment of the issues with leftover files, that they are not immediately troublesome, but become so later, and I am seeing many who just now confronting them.
In your Sent Messages.mbox folder that you listed files for, those listed that are not needed, and likely problematic are:
content_index 592KB
Incoming_Mail 64KB
IncomingTable_ofContents 4KB
Info.plist 4KB
tableofcontents 92KB
While the mbox of size 149MB may not be problematic, Mail 2.0 does not use it for anything, and it is a space hog, that can be deleted. Notice the similarity in size to the Messages folder, where actual message content is now stored.
In your POP folder, look also at the INBOX.mbox to look for files other than the Messages folder, and the Info.plist file.
In your xxxxx.imapmbox folders, look for files other than these two, but the likely ones to perhaps find will be any named to include cache or caches.
The files that are most likely to become troublesome, are any that were once used for indexing, such as "content_index". In some, but not all cases, the new universal index file, Envelope Index becomes corrupted, and needs to be refreshed. This may be the case for you, and we may need to remove the Envelope Index file (after all other mailbox folder cleanup, and force Mail to reindex, when it next is launched. This new indexing can take several minutes, and if you do this, wait patiently.
Your mailboxes were ready for this cleanup, and I think the new mail issue could originate from having all these unneeded files.
Ask any questions for comfort or information.
Ernie

Mail won't delete e-mail from originating POP account

I have several pop3 e-mail accounts set up in Mail. Messages are retrieved perfectly, but though I delete them in Mail they remain in the original account (ie: optonline). I need to then log into the pop3 account and delete them again in order to empty the originating mailbox.
IMac Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Go to Mail > Preferences > Accounts and under the Advanced tab for the account preferences, is "Remove copy from server after retrieving a message" selected and if so, what is your selection below for removing messages from the server when downloaded by the Mail.app?

Treo keeps checking mail even though set to manual update

I have my email update set to manual. But my 800W keeps checking for email. It's running my battery down. Short of deleting the email account and starting over, what am I doing wrong?
Background: When I first got the phone, I stupidly set it to check mail every few minutes until I realized that ran my battery down in about 5 hours. I set it to 'once per day' and it worked fine. Then a couple of weeks ago, I temporarily set it to 5 minutes or something like that for a specific situation. I then tried to change it back to once per day and/or manual. The value shows 'once per day' on the options page. But it ignores it now. Not sure how often it checks. But i get email notifications almost instantly every time an email arrives. And my battery is dying again. I've tried changing it around several times, rebooting, etc.
Anybody ever seen this? Am I missing something obvious?
Thx
Post relates to: Treo 800w (Sprint)

Thanks for the response. I had long since tried everything you suggested.
I did quite a bit more testing and googling, and I think I've resolved it. But there are definitely some serious problems (My feeling is that these are code defects) in the 800w that caused this.
1) I created a new email account on my 800w, taking all of the default values
2) I set the email scheduler refresh rate on the account settings page to 1 day. But I found later that it made no difference what I set it to. Same results
3) I have my own hosting business and host my own email pop server. So I have easy access to the POP logs. Here is a snippit from the pop logs with "refresh rate = 1 day":
12/12/08 21:07:31 INFO pop3server: Connection for treo.************************.com from 174-149-227-149.pools.spcsdns.net
12/12/08 21:08:40 INFO pop3server: Connection for treo.************************.com from 174-149-227-149.pools.spcsdns.net
12/12/08 21:09:52 INFO pop3server: Connection for treo.************************.com from 174-149-227-149.pools.spcsdns.net
12/12/08 21:11:04 INFO pop3server: Connection for treo.************************.com from 174-149-227-149.pools.spcsdns.net
12/12/08 21:12:16 INFO pop3server: Connection for treo.************************.com from 174-149-227-149.pools.spcsdns.net
12/12/08 21:13:28 INFO pop3server: Connection for treo.************************.com from 174-149-227-149.pools.spcsdns.net
12/12/08 21:14:40 INFO pop3server: Connection for treo.************************.com from 174-149-227-149.pools.spcsdns.net
12/12/08 21:15:53 INFO pop3server: Connection for treo.************************.com from 174-149-227-149.pools.spcsdns.net
4) Note the time between each line. It's basically exactly 1 minute + 10-13 seconds. The 10-13 seconds is the processing of the POP call. When the POP call ends, it waits precisely one minute and checks again. I want to point out that there isn't even an OPTION on the refresh menu on the 800w to refresh once a minute. But it is indisputable from the log on my mail server that this is indeed what is happening. (I set up that pop mailbox specifically for my treo, and no other client mail app is accessing it.)
5) I changed all the values on the refresh time menu, and even turned off 'Send/receive when I send" option. I wasn't sending anyway. But I was just grasping at straws.
6) I then discovered that there are TWO places to set the refresh rate (???? that's a good design????). If you open the inbox and select Delivery Preferences from the menu, there is ANOTHER checkbox to "Connect and check for messages every...." with an entry field to enter the number of minutes.
7) Ok.. this is the defect in the code: That checkbox was OFF, and the entry field was gray. That obvious has to mean that I don't want to autocheck anything. (and that is the default way it comes up on a new account, which makes sense). But it appears the checkbox is being IGNORED in the code. It was indeed checking. And I suspect the empty grayed 'minutes' field was probably returning 0 or something like that to the code. So ignoring the checkbox and having a zero minutes refresh rate, it was probably defaulting to a minimum of 1 minute. But it should NOT be refreshing at all with that checkbox off.
8) I turned the checkbox ON and set the value to 15 minutes:
12/12/08 22:18:34 INFO pop3server: Connection for treo.*******************.com
12/12/08 22:34:09 INFO pop3server: Connection for treo.*******************.com
12/12/08 22:49:46 INFO pop3server: Connection for treo.*******************.com
9) Note that as soon as I checked the checkbox and set the refresh to 15 minutes, that is indeed precisely what I have in my POP log. Oh, yeah... by the way... the much more obvious "Automatic Send/Receive" setting on the account menu is still set to 1 day... (why is that page and option even there???)
10) So in summary, you have one scheduler where the user can set a value that is completely ignored. And you have a buried checkbox that defaults to off and the code apparently doesn't check it and assumes it's always on.
I don't need any additional help. It's working now. But I think someone in development needs to take a serious look at how this is working based on my scenario and analysis above.
Thanks.
Post relates to: Treo 800w (Sprint)
Post relates to: Treo 800w (Sprint)

Iphone automatically checks mail even though it's set to "manual" check

In settings > mail, Auto-check is set to manual, but my phone still vibrates and beeps periodically -- even when it has been asleep and I'm not touching -- announcing that new mail has arrived.
I'm using it to check a yahoo and a gmail account. Why is it still checking mail automatically?

Actually I just figured this out myself. You can turn it off by going to
Settings > Mail
and then clicking on your yahoo account. At the very top of the screen for your yahoo account settings, there's a button that says "Account ON or OFF"
Switching it to OFF means it won't show up at all in your mail program but it also won't push. Switching it back on makes it show up immediately in your mail program again.

Mail Ignores "Manual" Setting

Tried searching for this topic, but can't seem to find the right combo of words to get an accurate hit. Anyway, I have Mail set to check for new mail manually. However, I have my Activity window open at all times and I keep seeing Mail "ping" the server maybe every 15 minutes. Naturally, if there is new email, it goes ahead and retrieves it from the server. I tried checking my MobileMe account to see if anything is set up there, but found no particular setting for "pushing" or "syncing" to my Desktop account. I have my Sync settings in System Preferences to check once a day, but that should not be the culprit since I don't have Mail Accounts checked.
Is anyone else having this "problem?" It's not really giving me any headaches, but I figure Mail should be following the preferences I set rather than "doing its own thing." Suggestions?

Do you mean this happens once when you launch Mail.app, or it continues to happen periodically after you've launched the application and while it continues to run?
If it's the former, this is a known issue that Apple introduced with 10.9 Mail.app; you can try filing a bug at https://bugreport.apple.com - they closed mine as a duplicate of an existing bug (14155759) when i filed 11 months ago and proceeded to do nothing about it through the 10.9.1 - 10.9.5 releases.

ICloud: I can't set a check mark at calendar, contacts and mail. Why?

iCloud: I can't set a check mark at calendar, contacts and mail. Why?

I'm afraid so. The iCloud control panel is only compatible with Outlook 2007 or later.
iCloud system requirements:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4759
However, you should still be able to add your iCloud mail account manually in Outlook using the server information.
iCloud server information:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4864

Must check mail manually on 3G phone - doesn't come through automatically

I only receive e-mails if I touch the mail icon and the iPhone checks for mail. No alerts come through on its own, as it did on my original iPhone.
Any suggestions?

Again, thanks for the replies.
What's strange is that I 'handed down' my original iPhone to my son, and I had installed 2.0 on that phone - which obviously has the same settings options (his is set on manual) - and he still gets e-mails immediately. I think I'm missing something.
Also - is MobileMe the only solution? In order to have near immediate e-mails you must pay for that service?
Thanks for the help. I guess I knew less about the upgrade than I thought.

Mail ignores setting to check mail manually

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