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Mac Mail - Outlook Exchange issues
I'm having a weird issue with my Outlook, 365, Exchange account in Mac Mail. This only started being a problem in the last two day. My inbox won't refresh. New messages don't come in. Messages filed or deleted on another Mac or iPhone do not move/remove. The only way I can get the Inbox to fresh to match my other devices, including the browser window version is to go Rebuild under the Messages menu in Mac Mail. I can send just fine. Clicking in to folders seems just fine as far as showing and matching what is inside. Its JUST a problem with the Inbox never updating without support.
The Mac Pro having the problem is on 10.15.7. My MacBook Pro Late 2019 running the same OS was having the problem all day yesterday but it has since be updated to Big Sur and now is working correctly. So seems to only be a Catalina issue but I'm nearly 100% sure it was a problem before I updated the Mac Pro to 10.15.7 yesterday.
I need to hold off on updating the Pro to Big Sur just yet so hoping to get a fix until then.
Well, for whatever its worth it just went back to working again. Not sure if it was a Microsoft issue or an Apple issue but Exchange account/Mac Mail - Catalina is working just fine again.
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commanderclif The way to solve this is to remove your apple ID and Re-login, it fixed mine.
This has been driving me crazy for years. Tried ALL solutions I could find online, nothing worked. Yet… I found a workaround that seems to work!
The trick was to create 2 different accounts in macOS Settings:
• IMAP account for handling just mail
• Exchange account for everything else (contacts, calendar, reminders, notes)+ You need to go to Outlook online > Settings > Mail > Sync email, and enable "Send event invitations in iCalendar format" to keep macOS Calendar working.
All is working flawlessly now... So relieved.
NicolasRucine Interesting. Never thought to input the same account two different ways. I only have my one Exchange account set to sync Mail and Calendars. I've been lucky I guess that I've not had the mail issue in some time now, for me keeping the size the account grew to seemed to help. So I'm currently in "if ain't broken don't fix it" mode but your suggestion is going to be the first thing I try when the problem shows up again! THANKS!
The same thing has happened with all of our office computers. We picked the most reliable product (Apple) and the most reliable office apps (MS Office) for our business so it eludes me that in 2021 these issues occur and they are not being addressed. Apple and MS - Hello out there.... there are tens of thousands of businesses that have bought into your products. Let's get on this!
We're having this problem too... all Mail app users on Office 365. If you launch Console on any of the Macs having this problem, search for "subscription" and you might see "EWSStreamingSubscription" logs with error "EWSErrorMessage=You have exceeded the available subscriptions for your account. Remove unnecessary subscriptions and try your request again". What we've seen so far might be related to EWS throttling mentioned here. Microsoft modified/removed the limit for us temporarily last year but it re-enabled in the new year. When our server team reached out to them again, Microsoft said they no longer had the ability to set it, and despite escalating it to their enterprise support, we reached a dead end. Pretty much we were advised to use Outlook or reach out to Apple support. Here's the last/closing email from Microsoft:
"As a quick recap and conclusion mentioned by my TL, Microsoft is not controlling this, we cannot make changes regarding this and in order to move forward with this issue you would need to engage Apple support and see if they can change the EWS subscription limit on their native mail client or reduce the TTL of subscription request."
"Microsoft cannot change the EWS subscription limit or reduce the TTL of those subscription request for Apple. Apple has to change those since it is using their native mail client app. It is not configurable for EXO, please reach out to Apple regarding this specific query."
Right on! Thats pretty interesting. I'm more of a front end guy than back end server stuff but I think I'm following along. If MS isn't going to control/limit the EWS pings/connections then on the Apple side, an over abundance of those coming in could get blocked until everything is cleared/reset. Is that the gist? If I have the issue again in the future (over three months with no issues now) then I'll certainly pop open console to look for this message. Question would be, is there a user based fix, maybe through Activity Monitor or Terminal to clear out the subscriptions to get a fresh set up? THANKS!
commanderclif Just for additional information - I'm still running Mojave, and this is now the second time I've been bitten by this. The first time was 2 days of trying things and googling for solutions - and then overnight it suddenly worked again. This time not even restarting the Mail app can be counted on for restoring functionality. My gmail account still works as well as ever, so it is definitely an Apple<->Microsoft issue, and not just Apple or just Microsoft. And since it's a joint issue both companies are telling you it's the other, and we, the users, appear to be SOL.
Having exactly the same problem, comes and goes intermittently without warning. Its only occurring for my Office 365 mail, all my other mail accounts work fine. Am being forced to use Outlook to be sure of getting Office Mail, which is not good!
commanderclif I am having the same issue on MacBook Air running Big Sur. Two problems: new messages do not load unless I use Rebuild, and often the message headers load but the content is empty until I quit and restart Mail. This only happens in Exchange; my gmail accounts work properly. Effectively Mail is useless/highly effortful to use right now and I've very reluctantly moved to Outlook, where I am not having either of these problems. I hope that Microsoft will very quickly address the sync issue with Exchange.
Hi, I have the same problem as you have after upgrading to Big Sur. On Catalina the exchange account worked fine.
Someone suggested to open mail holding the option key. Tried that, but that didn't resolve the issue.
Macbook Pro 2020, Big Sur 11.1
I am now having the same issues. Was working fine since upgrading to Big Sur but only in last 24 hours all incoming email stopped and I have to quit and restart Mail to get new mail to come in and even then it's a one time thing. I've deleted the Exchange account and have re-added but it's not synching past 1,072 emails....and there's 70K emails in the inbox. Though large number, never been an issue before. I hate Outlook but am now trying to see if that works. Mail has been the best mail client I feel I've used and discouraged to keep having issues come back as this is not the first time. Will monitor here to see if any solutions come up. But for now, going to see if synching over the weekend helps while I use the crappy Outlook.
Thanks. I updated for Big Sur 11.1 to Big Sur 11.2 and for the time being Mail seem to work fine with the Exchange account. Mail keep coming in without me having to restart Mail to receive new mails.
Guess Mail had an issue they fixed. Keeping my fingers crossed that it stays this way.
commanderclif hello have you found a solution to this issue? I run into this once a year or every 6 months depending on email volumes when the mailbox size or mail count goes over a "certain" size. On Catalina, I did my usual archiving and clean build and all 80,000 emails downloaded and it was working smoothly then it just stopped again.
2. Tried Big Sur it does the same thing,
3. Got a brand new MacBook Pro out of a box top end, 32 GB that's all we use ( not M1 yet) and rebuilt it and 4 days later same thing. As an aside: If you have a 30 Gig mailbox with a lot of items AppleMail takes days to get caught up and yes I don't downlead ANY attachments or store items on the server. Not sure why Outlook can download a 60Gb MB in less than a day and useable immediately where AppeMail is pretty useless until ALL of the old emails downloads. I think Outlook does pointers and only the new emails first.
Of course:
1. Rebuild mailbox gets all new mail
2. Open and closing the client does them same sometimes.
3. Deletion and sending new email still work normally.
Same issue everyone else sees "checking mail. No new mail" when in fact there are many I see on webmail and Outlook. Or it does nothing no activty in activty montor or in mail client WIndows Activity
They have a strong dislike for Outlook but of course Outlook and EAS ALWAYS works. So they have to use Outlook while Apple addresses the issue.
Apple can you please see what's going on because something has changed. It is not end user error here for all of us.
Thanks,
Thanks for your post and good information here! Your 3 bullet points of work arounds are spot on to what I noticed when I was having the issue. I've not had issues since November but now we seem to be seeing some connection to account size and the problem. I initially brushed that off as being a possible cause of the issue since mine seemed to fix itself as mysteriously as it started. BUT now that I think about HOW this might have played out is my settings are to erase deleted messages and junk messages "after one month". So there is a possibility that my trash had gotten overloaded with huge attachments that tipped that scale. IF/WHEN it occurs to me again I will certainly pull my account size to see if that helps determine a starting point account size capping. Best estimate at this point seems to be 9GB.
I too prefer Mac Mail to Outlook as an app. I'd be curious if in your case you are saving more than a month, like never empty. In which case, does dumping a bunch of trash does that immediately fix the problem? Obviously this can only be tested by someone who is currently having the issue occur.
commanderclif Hi, no we empty trash immediately, draft and archive sent-items to 6 months. I do think MSFT changed something and Apple is unaware since it's on a Catalina and Big Sur laptop; I don't think Apple change their client. I tried to open a case with MSFT and they started telling me that "you know AppleMail is an Apple product..." basically call Apple. Oh and show me the error message ...we'll "No new mail" when there is a bunch that's the error message. Sigh. I will call Apple today and they will tell me to call MSFT since it's a MSFT server. The classic IT Catch-22 or finger-pointing.
I have a user experiencing the same exact issues. OS 11.1
- Inbox will not refresh on command. Requires a rebuild to get new messages.
-Send & delete work fine
-No errors on connection doctor
Please let me know if you find a solution for this.
Hi, I know it's not necessarily the answer you will be looking for, but as a fellow mac user, I find M365 mail accounts work much better with Outlook.
If it turns out that the upgrade to the latest Mac OS does indeed solve this for you, then trying Outlook until you update the Mac could be a workaround for you perhaps?
Well, for whatever its worth it just went back to working again. Not sure if it was a Microsoft issue or an Apple issue but Exchange account/Mac Mail - Catalina is working just fine again.
I have seen this behaviour both on Catalina and Big Sur multiple times: My incoming email from my Office 365 account is not shown in Apple Mail. Sometimes a Mailbox->Rebuild make them show themselves, but sometimes this doesn't work. It fixes itself after some time (once it took several days, yesterday it took around 24 hours). I saw even consistent behaviour and same timing on both my iMac and my MacBook (running Big Sur 11.1 for two weeks now). Outlook for Mac on both boxes however showed all incoming email from the same account just in time when they arrived.
So my guess it is interworking issue between Apple Mail and the Exchange part of Office 365, but only intermittently, but still repeating. No idea here to further track this down.
