How to sync Mail server settings across Apple devices

6x6 wrote:

The other email account settings (IMAP server, port…) should be automatically set for you when you add the account, so you don’t need to tinker with them.

Two of my three mail servers do not automatically add any email details at all - not account names, passwords, server addresses, port settings or security settings - they all have to be entered individually for each account. Even if you've got 4 accounts with the same server settings there's no fast way to copy them across. This is a function of the mail provider and in my experience it's not common. I've got 4 iDevices and 8 email accounts. I changed passwords on all my accounts last week and it took over two hours to get all my idevices up to date - and that's just changing passwords. If I'd had to add the accounts from scratch it would easily have been twice that.

For the OP - there's never been a way to synchronize email accounts across Apple devices (maybe iCloud accounts, but I don't use them). I gave up giving Apple feedback on this a long time ago because they are clearly never going to fix it. If you've got a lot of accounts then you need to save the details in Passwords (or another app which synchs across devices) and copy and paste across. On the iPhone, particularly, Apple seem to have gone to a lot of trouble to make this as difficult as possible, so if you've got a lot of mail accounts and/or a lot of devices then make yourself a pot of tea and settle down for a long night.

On your iPhone, go to Settings > Apps > Mail > Account, and choose the email account that is not syncing. If it shows POP Account Information on the top Header, then that account will not sync with other devices. Only an IMAP account is able to sync with other devices.

You would need to delete the account and add it again. Whether an account defaults to POP or IMAP depends on the server address, so if yours is defaulting to POP, then when you enter your email address, intentionally use an incorrect password to go to manual entry. On the top of the screen, you will see the choice of POP or IMAP and you would want to select IMAP. You would then need to enter the correct Password for that account in the Password field of the Incoming Mail Server and also the Outgoing Mail Server listed as SMTP, along with the correct server address, Port Number, etc that the mail provider uses. If you don't know what those are, we can help to determine the settings to use if you let us know the same of the email provider.

With iCloud accounts you don't have to do that, but certainly with many third party mail accounts you would need to do that. There are just a few third party email providers that will default to POP that you have to manually set them up where it is not done with simply the email address/password.

For me when I set up my new phone, I used the Quick Start method where data is transferred with the old device sitting next to the new phone and did not have to make any changes to my Mail Account. Everything transferred over without any problems. Not sure if there is a difference when setting up from an iCloud Backup alone.

Hi Jim,

One cannot synchronize email account settings between Apple devices. You have to add each email account individually on each device.

On your iPhone, to add an email account: Add an email account to your iPhone. Your email account passwords may be in the Passwords app if you have saved them there. The other email account settings (IMAP server, port…) should be automatically set for you when you add the account, so you don’t need to tinker with them.