Why is my email not syncing on my phone? This is one of the most common questions users ask when having synchronization issues on their email app. Here’s the step-by-step guide to fixing it.
When your email isn’t syncing, this may cause a lag or interruption to your incoming emails. You could be waiting for hours or even days expecting your device to ring and notify you of incoming emails, but nothing will happen.
A significant disadvantage of email synchronization is that it can make you miss out on important emails, which may be costly if you don’t resolve them quickly.
Fortunately, there are easy ways to fix it, and we’ll show you how in this guide.
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In This Article
How to fix your email not syncing on your Android device
Ensure Automatic Email Sync Is Enabled
Most email clients usually have sync enabled so that your incoming emails won’t be delayed.
However, if you’ve turned off sync in the email app, you won’t be getting emails on your Android device.
You can see if this is the reason your emails aren’t syncing by turning on the auto-sync option in your email app.
After this, the app will automatically look for new emails and notify you when a new message arrives.
To enable auto-sync, you have to visit the settings menu of your email app. Here we’ll show you how to do it in Gmail, but the steps are quite similar to other email clients:
- Open your email app, such as Gmail.
- Click on the hamburger icon (three horizontal lines) in the top-left corner and tap Settings.
- Select an email account, if you have more than one account on your phone.
- Scroll down and make sure the Sync Gmail or a similar option is enabled.
If you’ve enabled Sync, check if your device’s Battery saver mode is on and turn it off.
Battery saver mode will disable background syncing if it’s enabled. Otherwise, you can open Gmail and tap Auto-sync is off to enable it, instead of disabling battery saver mode.
Manually sync your email
If automatic sync doesn’t work, another option is to perform a manual sync on your phone.
This process will force your email app to sync, find, and download new emails to your android phone.
This method works just like the regular sync, only that you must manually go into the settings and click on an option. Remember, these steps may vary from device to device.
Here’s how to manually sync your emails on Android:
- Click on the Settings app to open it on your phone, then select Accounts.
- Select the email account that has the sync issue.
- Click on the Account sync option to view all features that you can sync.
- Click on the three dots in the top-right corner of your screen and choose Sync now.
- Your phone will start syncing your data, and your emails.
- If there are any new emails, you will see them in your email client.
Clear Your Android Device’s Storage
Whenever your phone downloads an email, it uses up some space on your device’s memory.
And if you’re running out of storage on your phone, that may cause your emails not to sync (especially when it’s trying to download an email with a large attachment).
Fortunately, you can resolve this by deleting files you don’t need from your phone as follows (these steps may vary from one device to another):
- Launch the Settings app and click on Storage.
- You’ll see the available and total memory space on your phone.
- Click on Free Up Space to find files that you can remove to free up some space on your device.
Not all Android devices have this option to find and remove files that are hogging your storage.
If this is your case, you can use Files by Google to delete files instead. Simply go to the play store app, search for Files by Google, and install it.
Make sure You Enter the Correct Password in Your Email
Whenever you change the password for your email account (make sure your password is safe and memorable), you must also update it in the email app on your phone.
If not, your phone won’t sync new emails, because it doesn’t have the authorization to do so.
You can easily fix this issue by launching your email app and inputting your new password. Then the app will connect to the email servers and download new messages for you.
Ensure you update the password whenever you change the password on every device you’re using the account.
Clear your email cache and data
Like other apps on your device, the email app stores data and caches files on your Android phone.
While these files don’t always cause any issue, we recommend you clear them to see if that resolves the email sync issue on your device.
Don’t worry, clearing data and cache files won’t delete your emails; your emails are saved on your email provider’s server. Here’s how to clear the cache:
- Go to the Settings app on your phone, and click on Apps & notifications.
- Find your email app, like Gmail, and click on it.
- Click on the Storage option.
- You’ll see how much space your email app has taken on your device. Click on Clear Cache to remove cached data. Also, you can choose Clear Storage if you want, but remember that this option will remove all the app’s data from your phone as if you’re installing it for the first time. You’ll sign in again and perform an initial sync of your messages.
- Launch your email app and reconfigure it if needed.
Update the Email app
To improve the app performance, you must keep your apps up to date. If you’ve not updated your email app for some time now, we recommend that you check the Google Play Store if an update is available.
New updates are meant to help you fix many existing bugs in the app. And if your email isn’t syncing because of such a bug, this will fix the issue for you:
- Open the Play Store app on your phone.
- Then search for your email app using the search feature, or click on your account icon in the upper right and tap Manage apps and device and click on Updates available to check for apps with pending updates.
- If an update is available, click on Update to download and install the update.
Re-Add the Email Account to Your Email App
After trying all the methods we’ve outlined above and your email is still not syncing yet, it’s most likely an issue with your account configuration.
In this case, removing and re-adding your account to the app could fix it. With this, you can confirm the settings to ensure everything is properly configured.
First, you’ll have to remove your email account from the app. To use the options in the app to do that; just go to Settings > Accounts, click on an account, and select Remove account to take it off your phone. Then, re-add the email account using the option in your email client.
Enable Email Notifications
As for the last resort, emails may be syncing just fine, but your android phone isn’t notifying you of incoming emails.
The only way to fix this issue is by enabling notifications for your email client (these steps may vary from one device to another):
- Go to Settings > Apps & notifications and click on your email app (use See all X apps if needed).
- Click on the Notifications option.
- Toggle on the Show notifications options to the On position. You can tweak the other categories if you like.
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The bottom line on fixing email synchronization issue on android
If you’ve been missing out on important emails because your phone wasn’t syncing them as it should, then you must fix the issue using the methods outlined above.
After fixing it and your emails are back up and running, you need to make sure you’re taking advantage of your email app.
Many email clients offer lots of great features to improve your productivity, so don’t be afraid to explore the settings and make a few changes.