Top 7 Fixes for Gmail Not Receiving Emails on iPhone

Did your boss send you a business email, but it can’t be found in the Gmail app on your iPhone? Or maybe an account activation email or password reset email has been sent to your address, but can’t find it in your inbox or spam folder? If you can receive and view these emails on other devices, then, for some reason, Gmail doesn’t receive emails on your iPhone. In this guide, we highlight seven (7) ways to solve the problem.

This problem is usually caused by a poor or inactive Internet connection. Other times, your iPhone’s Gmail app (or your Google account) is having problems and you need to refresh it to get things back in order.

1. Check the Internet connection

When your iPhone’s Gmail app isn’t receiving email, the first thing to check is an active Internet connection on your iPhone. If you’re using a Wi-Fi connection, check if your iPhone is set up correctly and can work with your router. Use other applications that require an Internet connection to check if the connection is working properly. If not, you can restart the router or increase the router signal (using these methods).

If your iPhone connects to the Internet via mobile data, check that you still have an active data / internet plan. If you do, but your phone’s internet still doesn’t work, you can turn on airplane mode, turn it off for half a minute, and then turn it off. When your Internet is activated again, refresh your Gmail app and check for new messages.

When your iPhone’s Gmail app remains static and new emails still fail to arrive, contact your Internet service provider. However, if your internet works with other apps, but Gmail still doesn’t receive emails on your iPhone, go to the next solution.

2. Change active account

Do you have multiple Google accounts connected to your Gmail app? If this is the case, you must ensure that the correct account is selected. Suppose you have two accounts (account X and account Y) connected to your Gmail app, you may not be able to receive or view emails from account Y if account X is the active account running in the foreground.

To change accounts on the Gmail app on your iPhone, tap the profile photo in the upper right corner and select the desired account as the active / foreground email address. You will now be able to receive all email accounts as soon as they are entered.

3. Reactivate access to the account

Google allows you to remotely update your accounts on your devices from your browser. This allows you to resolve any technical issues that are preventing your Gmail app from receiving email on iPhone and one of your devices. So, log into your Google account on your iPhone browser and follow these steps:

Step 1: Visit the Google Unlock Captcha page by clicking the button below.

Visit the Google Unlock Captcha page

2nd step: On the “Allow access to your Google Account” page, touch the Continue button.

This refreshes your Google account (and your Gmail account, by extension) so that you can access it on your (old and new) devices or applications.

Step 3: When Google (re) activates access to your account, go to your Gmail app and refresh your mailbox, and you should start to see new emails coming. Better yet, close and reopen the Gmail app.

4. Activate the application refresh in the background

If the “Background app refresh” option is disabled for Gmail on your iPhone, you may not receive emails immediately after they arrive. You want to make sure that the background refresh for the Gmail app is turned on. Here’s how.

Step 1: Launch the Settings menu on your iPhone.

2nd step: Scroll down and select Gmail.

Step 3: Make sure that “Refresh background application” is enabled. If not, press to activate it.

Note: When your iPhone is in low power mode, updating the application in the background (for all applications) is temporarily disabled until you turn off low power mode.

5. Check the storage space of the Google account

For each Google account, a user has 15 GB of free storage space, which is shared between Gmail, Google Drive and Google Photos. If you’ve run out of free storage, you may not be able to receive new emails in your Gmail on all devices. To check your remaining account storage, visit the Storage section of your Google Account on a web browser.

Check Google Storage Space

If you run out of storage space, you can purchase additional space or delete certain files from your Google, Google Drive, and Gmail photos to create space for new emails.

6. Log out of the Gmail app

Yes, logging out of your Gmail app and reconnecting may also help resolve this issue.

Step 1: Launch the Gmail app on your iPhone and tap the account profile photo in the upper right corner.

2nd step: Tap “Manage accounts on this device”.

Step 3: If you have multiple accounts connected to your Gmail app, tap “Remove from this device” for the account that doesn’t receive emails.

If all connected accounts don’t receive emails, delete them and add them all again.

Step 4: To add or reconnect an account to the Gmail application, tap the account profile photo in the upper right corner of the application, select “Add another account” and follow the prompts.

Alternatively, if you do not wish to delete your account, you can activate and deactivate it temporarily.

Step 1: In the Gmail Manage accounts section, deactivate the account or accounts that do not receive e-mail and press Done.

2nd step: Return to the Manage Accounts page, re-activate the account (s) and press Done.

Now refresh your Gmail to see if the account can now receive emails.

7. For non-Gmail addresses

If you’re using a non-Gmail email address on your Gmail iPhone app and don’t receive new emails, you’ll need to sign into your account on another device or computer. If you can view or receive new emails, try one of the corrections above (points # 1, # 2, # 4 and # 6) that apply to non-Gmail accounts. You also need to update your Gmail app from the App Store.

Update Gmail (on the App Store)

If you still cannot receive emails, check your account synchronization settings or visit the support page of your email provider for possible solutions.