If you’re among the 1.5 billion people using Gmail in 2021, chances are you’ll rely on the app for personal and work-related email. however, if the app doesn’t work as expected, it’s easy to get frustrated. why is gmail not working on your android phone and what can you do to fix it?
The good news is that you can probably fix it in no time. Most of the app related issues are caused by the software and not by the hardware. this means that most of the time you can solve the problem yourself at home with some simple troubleshooting. Let’s go through some troubleshooting steps to see if we can identify the root of the problem and prevent it from happening again.
verify gmail servers
Although it is highly unlikely that the gmail servers are down, it is still possible. As of December 2020, many Google services were temporarily unavailable around the world. if the servers are not available, you will not be able to access any new email. you can check if gmail is available or not using tools like downdetector.
check your internet connection
If you don’t have a good internet connection, gmail won’t be available. If you think your internet is working fine, it might be worth turning the wi-fi on your phone off and back on. You can do this by swiping down from the top of your screen to open the quick panel, then tapping the Wi-Fi icon to turn it off. after a few seconds, turn it back on and see if you can use gmail.
restart gmail
try to restart gmail by closing the app and then reopening it. You can do this by tapping the task view button at the bottom right of your screen (on samsung phones it’s on the left) and then swiping the gmail app from the list. You can also touch close all apps to close all currently open apps, including gmail.
after that, go ahead and try opening gmail again to see if it works.
force close gmail
restarting the app will not restart background processes associated with gmail. if you still have problems, you may need to force quit the app to stop these background processes. then you can start the application again to see if it fixes the problem.
To do this, try opening gmail again. go back to the task view where you removed gmail before and tap on the app icon. then tap app info. from here, tap force stop. after that, open the app again to see if that helped.
clear gmail cache
you may need to clear gmail cache to prevent it from causing problems on your android phone. Sometimes app caches can accumulate bugs that won’t go away until the cache is cleared. clearing an app’s cache will not affect any of your personal data.
From the same screen where you forced the app to close, tap storage and then clear cache.
restart your android phone
If gmail is still not working on your android phone, you may need to restart your device. press and hold the power key until the restart option appears and tap it.
hard reset if your android phone is frozen
If gmail is causing your android phone to freeze, you can do a hard reset to unstick it. press and hold the power key until your phone starts to reboot to unfreeze it.
factory reset
If gmail isn’t the only thing wrong with your android device, you might want to consider a factory reset. this will remove all apps and data from your phone and return it to the state it was in when you first got the device. It’s a good idea to do this every few years to keep your android phone running smoothly as it can accumulate bugs and junk files that are not easily fixed otherwise. this will remove all software problems with your phone. If you are still experiencing issues after a factory reset, there may be something wrong with your device’s hardware.
gmail: working again!
incredible! Now that you have Gmail working again on your Android phone, you can get back to receiving your personal and work-related emails on the go. Thanks for reading, and I hope this has been helpful to you. If you have any other questions about gmail or your android device, please leave us a comment!