What to do when you cannot set up email on your Apple iPhone X (easy steps)

Setting up an email account on your iPhone X is supposed to be a simple and easy process. But there are just times when even simple things like this won’t work. This happens because something isn’t right with any of your email account settings and therefore you need to determine what’s wrong and make necessary corrections for your email to work as intended on your device. Read on to find out what to do when you will have trouble setting up your email account on the iPhone X.

Before we move on, if you have other issues with your iPhone, visit our iPhone X troubleshooting page for we have already addressed some of the most commonly reported issues with the device. Browse through the page to find issues similar with yours. If you still need our assistance after that, then fill up our Android issues questionnaire to contact us.

Potential solutions to email setup issues on iPhone X

Below are a few helpful workarounds you can use when troubleshooting problems with email setup on your iPhone X. Should you wish to try any of these workarounds, don’t forget to test the Mail app and see if you’re able to send and receive emails as intended.

Before you proceed with the following procedures, try to quit the Mail app then reboot your iPhone X. Open the Mail app again and see if the previous reboot yields some positive outcomes. If not, then you should now continue with these workarounds.

First solution: Log into your webmail account.

Check to see if you can log into your webmail account using the same email credentials you’ve used when you set up your email account on your iPhone X. Doing so will help ensure that your username and password are correct and working. If you are able to log into your webmail account, then it’s possible that you’ve entered some incorrect account details during the setup. Review your email account details and make sure you enter the correct information this time. Typographical errors are inevitable and can be tricky so it’s possible that you’ve mistyped a letter or two when you manually set up your email account. That said, double-check and make sure that you’ve entered the correct incoming and outgoing servers (hostnames), email address, and password to connect to your email account. Verify and ensure that your settings are correct and that your email address (username) and password are saved into their respective fields.

Second solution: Reset your email password.

If you are able to log in to your email account using the same credentials (username and password) through webmail, but still can’t set up the email on your iPhone X, then try to reset your email password. You can use the same password again if you want. After you reset the password, try to set up the email account on your iPhone X again.

Here’s how you do it:

  1. Tap Settings from the Home screen.
  2. Tap Accounts & Passwords.
  3. Navigate to Accounts section then tap the name of your email account to edit.
  4. Tap Account.
  5. Scroll to the Incoming Mail Server section then tap Password.
  6. Erase the current password and enter a new one. Again you can enter the same password.
  7. Navigate to the Outgoing Mail Server section then tap SMTP.
  8. Tap on the Primary Server field.
  9. Navigate to Outgoing Mail Server then tap Password.
  10. Delete the current password and enter a new one. Be sure to take note of your new password.
  11. Tap Done to save the changes.
  12. Tap Account on the upper-left corner of the screen.
  13. Tap Done.
  14. Tap Accounts again then slide your finger upwards from the bottom of the screen to go back to the Home screen.

Restart your iPhone X then try to open the Mail app to test and see if your email is already working this time.

Third solution: Try to change or use a different SMTP ports.

The default port number for SMTP may vary depending on the email service provider. To make sure you are using the correct port number, contact you carrier for this information or you can use the Mail Settings Lookup to verify your email settings. Once you have the necessary information, you may try to alter the SMTP port numbers on your iPhone X. Here’s how it’s done:

  1. Go to Settings-> Accounts and Passwords.
  2. Then tap the email account you want to change.
  3. Next, tap the SMTP and the SMTP server that you want to edit.  
  4. If you’ve enabled the option to Use SSL, use the port number given by your carrier. Otherwise, disable the option to Use SSL and try other SMTP ports like 80, 3535, or 25. Test to see which of these ports works for your email account.

After making all these changes, open the Mail app on your iPhone X then try to see if you are now able to access your mailbox and send  or receive email through the iPhone Mail app.

Fourth solution: Delete and set up your email account again.

If you still couldn’t get your email to set up successfully or work on your iPhone X, then you can just remove your email account then start from scratch.

To delete your email account on your iPhone X, follow these steps:

  1. Tap Settings.
  2. Tap Accounts and Passwords.
  3. Navigate to Accounts section.
  4. Then tap on the email account that you want to delete.
  5. Tap Delete Account.
  6. Tap Delete from My iPhone to confirm.
  7. Restart your iPhone X then set up your email account again with these steps:
  8. Tap Settings.
  9. Tap Accounts and Passwords.
  10. Tap Add Account.
  11. Tap to select the desired option (email service provider).
  12. Enter your email address, password, and other required information.
  13. Tap Next.
  14. If you prefer, select the option to sync Contacts and Calendars.
  15. Then tap Save when you’re done.

Reboot your iPhone X again then open the Mail app to see if your email account is working already.

Seek more help

Contact your email service provider or carrier customer support for further assistance  if you’ve gone through all these steps but still couldn’t get your email account to work on your iPhone X. They have access to some additional tools for email account management and if necessary, you can request them to reset your email account settings on their end.

Connect with us

If you need more help with the use of certain functions and features of the new Apple iPhone X smartphone, feel free to visit our Tutorial Page. There you can find a list of how-to contents, step-by-step tutorials, as well as answers to FAQs regarding iPhone X. If you have other concerns or encountered some troubles while using the phone, you can reach us through this form. Just be sure to tell us more details of the problem or device issue(s) you may have and we will be more than happy to assist you further.

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