why mail keeps crashing on ios 9? why does mail fail when i try to compose a new email? how do I prevent mail from being randomly blocked?
Like many other stock iOS apps, Apple’s official mail client for iOS has had its ups and downs over the years. iOS users have encountered issues with Mail in the past, from account setup to general usage, and while iOS 9 brought with it a host of new features, it also brought with it a handful of bugs in the Mail app. . The bugs seem to affect both iPhones and iPads running various versions of iOS 9 and can cause crashes when trying to compose a new email or during general use. there is also an issue with unread notifications for emails that have been read.
Don’t worry though as the macworld uk team have searched the internet and found solutions for the most common ios mail crashes and errors along with possible solutions for each. We’ll update this article with new issues and fixes as they come up, so be sure to check back regularly if you run into issues. once you’ve fixed the issues with your mail app, why not check out our ios 9 mail tips article to get the most out of the app?
read next: how to fix an iphone or ipad that ‘does not download message from server’
mail for iphone keeps crashing: mail crashes when composing new emails
The introduction of iOS 9 brought several changes to Apple’s mobile operating system, including the News app, password-protected notes, “night shift” mode, and split-screen multitasking for iPad users. However, along with a selection of new features, ios 9 brought with it a rather annoying mail bug that causes a pretty big problem with the mail app for iphone and ipad.
The issue first appeared shortly after Apple released iOS 9 in September 2015, with users’ Mail app crashing whenever they tried to compose a new email. While subsequent updates to iOS 9 seem to have fixed the issue, that doesn’t help users running iOS 9.0 for whatever reason. We haven’t experienced the problem ourselves and as such can’t attempt to fix it, but based on user accounts on various internet forums we can suggest trying the following:
- force close the mail app and restart your iphone/ipad
- disable and re-enable each mail account within the mail, contacts and calendars menu in settings
- reinstall ios 9 on your iphone/ipad (this is the most extreme option, but should fix problems if nothing else works)
read next: 36 brilliant tips for ios 9
mail for iphone keeps crashing: mail notifications not working on ios 9
In addition to failing when trying to compose a new email, ios 9 brought with it another mail bug, but this one seems to be targeted at users running ios 9.2. as pointed out by user garrettra on the apple support forum in late February 2016, the mail app shows unread notifications even when cleared from the mail app and notification center, and frequently crashes without loading messages . It seems that others are having the same/similar problems with ios 9.2, although there is hope, at least for the unread notification bug.
Of course, the first step is to restart your iPhone or iPad by holding down the Home and Lock buttons until the screen turns off. A hard reset is like unplugging your imac – it will have to be turned back on and hard reset, which should fix most software related issues. if not, there’s one more thing you can try (besides restarting your device and restoring from a backup):
- go to settings > mail, contacts, calendars and select the mail account that shows unread messages. go back to settings > mail, contacts, calendars, and turn mail back on
hopefully this should fix any issues regarding unread notification errors on ios 9.2. while the above helped many users who were experiencing the glitch, it did not work for everyone. those who followed the instructions to no avail noted that hard resetting their devices and restoring from a previous backup seemed to fix the problem.
read next: how to update to ios 9 on an iphone or ipad
mail for iphone keeps crashing: mail crashes randomly when used
Sadly, ios mail notification failures and mail composition are not the only problems plaguing Apple’s official ios 9 mail client, according to internet forums anyway. Along with fake mail notifications and the inability to compose an email without the entire app crashing, users are reporting random crashes when using mail that cannot be attributed to a single action (although this is not unique to ios 9 and up). has been a problem for years). this makes it harder to reproduce and as such harder to fix, although there is a possible solution floating around the internet that users claim works for them.
Apparently, unlike the notification and composition issues, the random crash error is not triggered by accessing a specific menu or performing a specific action, and instead is caused by “problematic” email messages that are usually are stored on imap servers. That makes the error extremely difficult for Apple to fix, as it is caused by the messages in your personal account and not the app itself. however, with that said, the problem should be fairly easy to fix (if you know how!):
- access your email account via a desktop mail client or web interface (i.e. mail.google.com for gmail accounts)
- delete any messages larger than 6mb in size along with any “mail delivery failure messages”
- remove your email account from your ios device and add it back
If all goes well, your mail app should no longer crash. Are there any other mail bugs we forgot to mention here? let us know in the comments section below and we’ll update this article with new fixes as soon as we find them.
here’s how to set up email on your mac, ipad and iphone: how to set up mail.