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How to add and set up email on your iPhone Mail app

iPhone covers all the standard services with an easy setup
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Published onSeptember 6, 2022

When you get a new phone, the first thing you likely do is set up your email. There are two ways to go about it on the iPhone. You can either install the official app for your email service, or you can have the iOS Mail app handle your emails for you. If you would prefer to use the built-in Mail app, here is how to add an email account to your iPhone.

Read more: How to change your iCloud email and password

QUICK ANSWER

To add an email address to your iPhone's Mail app, go to Settings-->Mail-->Accounts-->Add Accounts. Select the email service you want to use and log in. Also, make sure IMAP is enabled in your email service settings. The Mail app will then populate itself with your emails.

How to add an email account to your iPhone

Here are the steps to get email up and running on your iPhone.

Enable email IMAP

To add an email account to your iPhone Mail app, first, go to your email service’s settings and enable IMAP. In Gmail, you can get there directly by clicking this link (desktop Gmail only.)

gmail IMAP

In the Forwarding and POP/IMAP section, choose Enable IMAP in the IMAP access section. IMAP enables emails to be sent to an external third-party email client — in this case, Apple Mail — and for any changes made in Apple Mail to be synced back to the Gmail website. So it’s essential you don’t forget this step.

Go to Apple Mail settings on the iPhone

Once IMAP has been enabled, go to Apple Mail’s settings on your iPhone. This can be found at Settings–>Mail.

ios settings Mail app

Scroll down and tap Accounts.

ios mail app accounts

Tap Add Account.

ios mail app add account

You will now see a selection of major email platforms. Choose the one you want to use. If you use another email service, select Other. In that case, you would need to have the IMAP settings from your email provider. On the other hand, if you use one of the major services listed here, Apple Mail more easily streamlines the process.

ios mail app select account type

Most people use Gmail, so let’s use that as our example. Tapping Google will bring up a secure Gmail login page. Log in with your email account details.

ios mail app login

Once you have successfully logged in, toggle on the Mail tab. This will begin the process of syncing your emails with Apple Mail, and the inbox and folders will begin to fill up. If you want to sync your calendar, contacts, and notes, toggle those on too.

ios mail app toggle on email

FAQs

First, check the login details, which you can get from your email service. Second, make sure IMAP is enabled in your email service settings. Third, make sure Background Refresh is enabled in your iPhone settings. To do this, go to Settings–>General–>Background App Refresh, and enable it.

You need to enable notifications. Go to Settings–>Notifications, and enable notifications for the Mail app.

As many as you like. There is no limit. However, if the Mail app is downloading emails from lots of email addresses at once, you will have a speed issue on your phone. So, it’s best to have one or two email addresses on your iPhone and put a forwarding rule on the other ones to your iPhone email addresses.

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