For those who keep getting the “Cannot Get Mail The connection to the server failed” on their iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, there are several ways to fix this issue. This error happens when iOS devices try to retrieve new emails, especially from Microsoft Exchange server, returning the error message “Cannot Get Mail, The connection to the server failed.”
It’s normal on iOS 9, iOS 8, iOS 7 and iOS 6 for Apple devices like the iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5 and iPhone 4s and a majority of iPads running iOS 6 and above. The following are several different methods that should help you fix this connection problem for your Apple device.
First, backup your iPhone
Whether you use iCloud or some other system, back up your iPhone, which is a good idea before making any changes on an iPhone, iPad, or any other device.
Possible Solution 1: Reenter Account Logins (usernames) and Passwords
Sometimes, this issue can happen to your iPhone or iPad after you’ve changed your email password.
In your iOS device, follow these steps to re-enter your mail account username and password:
- Go to Settings
- Tap Passwords & Accounts
- Scroll down to Accounts then tap the account in question
- Reenter your username and password
- Tap done to save
Then go to your mail client and try to view your mail. It should refresh your mailbox, including showing your newest messages. Give this process a few minutes to work. Close and then re-open your email clienthttps://www.novodasoftware.com/ is a good way to refresh.
Possible Solution 2: Change Microsoft Exchange Security Settings
If you are the administrator on the Microsoft Exchange server, you can adjust the settings or ask the administrator to do this for you.
- Open Active Directory Users and computer
- On the top menu choose View > Advanced Features
- Find and right click the mail account and choose Properties
- Choose Security tab. Then choose Advanced
- Select the checkbox ““Include inheritable permissions from this object’s parent”
Possible Solution 3: Change Password Settings
Change the password for Microsoft Exchange email account or Yahoo account and retest to make sure the connection is now working.
Other Methods
- Turn off iCloud. Go back all your mail accounts and reset password
- Enable “Airplane” mode in settings. Then disable it
- Delete that account. After that create it as a new account as sometimes just re-creating the account fixes the issue.
- Just change the “Mail Days to Sync” field to “No Limit”
- Reset Network settings via Settings -> General -> Reset -> Reset Network Settings. Note that resetting your network settings will reset ALL of your network settings so probably isn’t your first choice as a method of solving this email issue.
I hope this article helped you solve the “Cannot get email. Connection to the server failed” error on your device. If you found this article useful, you might also like this article on how to clear the cache on the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus.
Have you solved an email problem like this on an iPhone or iPad? If so, tell us how you did it in the comments below.
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