Yahoo Mail Not Updating on iPhone X/XS/XR, Tips to Consider

Having problems connecting or logging into to your Yahoo email account? Seeing pop-up messages on your iPhone or iPad that iOS “Cannot Get Mail” or “Connection to the server failed?” Unable to receive or read emails, delete accounts, or add accounts using the Mail App or the Yahoo App?  

We have seen many email related issues over the years on the iPhone.

Most are easily fixed by deleting the account and re-installing it. But some of the recent Yahoo mail issues are somewhat entirely out of the left field.

What is even weirder is that some of these problems appear only to impact a handful of iPhone X Series phone users.

If you are seeing your Yahoo mail not update on your iPhone X Series, you are not alone; there’s plenty of folks reporting similar issues on the yahoo technical support forum.

After speaking to Yahoo support at length, we have finally found a few tips that work, including uninstalling and installing the Yahoo mail app on your iPhone X/XS/XR.

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Check for an iOS update

• Go to Settings > General > Software Update
• If an update is available, backup first and then update

Are Yahoo Mail Servers Down?

Before you start a potentially lengthy troubleshooting process, it’s a good idea to take a look and see if Yahoo is currently experiencing any service issues.

Deleted Yahoo Mail Account from Your iPhone or iPad and Now Can’t Add It Back?

Yup, you guessed it–that’s usually a Server problem.

Can’t Sign In To Your Yahoo Email and It Says Your Password is Incorrect?

This is a common error when the servers go down. So double check your password and if you’re confident it’s correct, make sure you check the status of the servers.

If you check and don’t see any reported problems or outages in your area, move on to the troubleshooting steps listed below.

Can’t Get Passed the Yahoo Mail Welcome Screen?

That’s another sign that there is a problem with Yahoo’s Servers or the communications between Apple’s Mail servers and Yahoo. 

We recommend looking at sites like Down Detector and typing in Yahoo Mail (for some sites, you need to enter mail.yahoo.com) into the search bar or tapping on the Yahoo! Mail logo, if available.

In sites like Down Detector, you can see user reported problems within the last 24 hours. 

There’s also a Live Outage Map to give you a quick snapshot of the problems around the globe.

Try the Yahoo Mail App for iOS or the Web Version

Oftentimes, the problem is with the communication between Yahoo’s Servers and Apple’s Mail Servers.

So try logging in through the Yahoo Mail App or an internet browser of your choice (such as Safari, Chrome, or Firefox) on your Mac, PC, iPhone, or iPad.

Verify your Yahoo account works outside of the Mail app

• Open a web browser using a computer
• Log into Yahoo
• Compose a new email and type in your Yahoo email address in the To field
• Send the email
• Check if that email to yourself arrived (you may need to wait 5 minutes or so)
• If you receive the email to yourself, then your Yahoo account is working (and consequently, we narrowed down the problem to your iPhone)

Change Your Yahoo Mail Security Settings

• The next thing to do when faced with this issue is to change a setting on your yahoo mail profile by logging into yahoo.com via a web browser (not an app)
• Once you have logged onto Yahoo mail using your browser, tap on the account security settings
• Here turn on the option Allow Apps that use less secure Sign in

Now that you updated the setting on the Yahoo side of things, you need to make the following changes on your iPhone to get things working.

Delete and Add Your Account Back

If nothing else worked, the best remedy is to delete your Yahoo account from the Mail app and the iPhone and then add it back in.

If you’re worried about losing any email, there’s good news! Your Yahoo email is always stored on Yahoo’s servers, so when you delete the account from your iPhone, you are NOT deleting any email.

It’s easy to delete and then add your Yahoo account back using Settings > Passwords & Accounts

• Tap on your Yahoo account’s name
• Choose Delete Account
• Confirm the removal
• Restart your device
• Go back to Settings > Passwords & Accounts
• Choose Add Account
• Select Yahoo from the list
• Follow the on-screen instructions to add your account back to your iPhone

Yahoo Mail Still Not Updating on iPhone?

1. Close the Apple Mail on your iPhone if you have it open

• On an iPhone or an iPad with no home button from the Home screen, swipe up from the bottom of the screen and pause slightly in the middle of the screen
• On an iDevice with a home button, double-click the Home button and swipe right or left to find the app that you want to close
• Swipe right or left to locate the Mail app you want to close
• Swipe up on the Mail app’s preview to close it

2. Delete the account

1. On your iPhone, tap on Settings > Passwords & Accounts
2. Tap on your Yahoo mail account
3. Choose Delete Account in Red font and confirm
4. This removes the existing yahoo account from your iPhone, but you still have access to all your emails on the yahoo server

3. Restart your iPhone

• On an iPad with no Home Button and iPhones X or later: Press and hold the Side/Top/Power button and either volume button until the slider appears
• On an iPad or iPhone with a Home Button and iPod Touch: press and hold the Side/Top/Power button until the slider appears
• Drag the slider to turn the device off and after the device turns off, press and hold that Side/Top/Power button again until you see the Apple Logo.
• With iOS 11 and above, restart using Settings > General > Shut Down

4. Re-add the email account

• Go back to Settings > Passwords & Accounts and choose Add Account 
• Select the Yahoo option
• Sign in with your Yahoo user name and password

If you cannot add your Yahoo account, try adding it in manually

1. Go to Settings > Passwords & Accounts, then tap Add Account
2. Choose the Other option
3. Tap Add Mail Account
4. Enter your name, email, password, and a short description
5. Tap Next
6. iOS looks up your account info to confirm information

If iOS cannot confirm your Yahoo account, choose IMAP

At this stage, you need to manually enter the information for your Yahoo account’s Incoming Mail Server and Outgoing Mail Server.

You can use the information below or use Apple’s email account settings lookup tool to get the settings. Apple’s tool verifies your email settings when after you enter email address in the search bar.

Type in all information manually, even if it’s listed as optional!

Yahoo’s Incoming Mail (IMAP) Server Settings

1. HostName – imap.mail.yahoo.com
2. The user name is your full email address
3. Enter your account’s password

Depending on your iOS version, you may also need to enter the following:

• Port – 993
• Requires SSL – Yes

Yahoo’s Outgoing Mail (SMTP) Server Settings

1. HostName – smtp.mail.yahoo.com
2. The user name is your full email address–type this in, even if it says it’s optional
3. Enter your account’s password

Depending on your iOS version, you may also need to enter the following:

• Port – 465 or 587
• Requires SSL – Yes
• Requires authentication – Yes

Once you enter all your Yahoo account details and server information:

• Choose Next
• iOS verifies the account information
• If confirmed, tap Save to complete the set-up
• If not confirmed, iOS asks you to edit and correct your entries

Lastly, go back to the Mail App and check if your Yahoo emails come through or are updating.

Switch Your Email Account’s Fetch Settings

Some users report that the updates work for some time and then pause all of a sudden. If you are facing that issue, you can try to switch the fetch settings to manual.

• On the Accounts and Passwords screen
• Tap on Fetch New Data and under FETCH set it to Manually

Once you have done this, when you are in the mail account, scroll down the screen from the top of the iPhone, and it should update your mailbox with the latest emails.

Wrap Up

This is by far not the best solution but is a workaround. We hope that Yahoo and Apple work together to get this issue fixed as many of us use Yahoo mail on our iPhones. The other resort is to use the Yahoo mail app on your iPhone until this issue is sorted out.

If you have found a better way to deal with this issue, please let us know in the comments below. Hope the step-by-step solution here was helpful to you.

Reader tips

• Check that you are not always Bcc yourself on your email automatically. Go to Settings > Mail and scroll down to the Composing section. Toggle off Always Bcc Myself