Sending and receiving emails are now made easier and more convenient with modern smartphones. All that’s needed to get started is to set up your email account on your device. Email accounts can be set up manually or automatically. In iOS devices, email accounts from Google, iCloud, Yahoo or Mail are automatically set up by simply entering the email address and password.
During the setup process, iOS automatically uses the correct account settings. But there are just times when things won’t work smoothly as expected and thus you’d end up being unable to set up your email account. Tackled in this context is a similar issue on the new Apple iPhone XR. Read on to find out what to do if you cannot set up or add your email account to your iPhone XR Mail app.
Before anything else, if you have other issues with your device, try to browse through our troubleshooting page as we’ve already addressed several issues with this device. Odds are that we’ve already published a post that tackles similar problems. Try finding issues that have similar symptoms with what you currently have and feel free to use the solutions we’ve suggested. If they don’t work for you or if you still need our help, then fill up our questionnaire and hit submit to contact us.
How to fix email setup errors on iPhone XR
Before troubleshooting, check and make sure that your device can connect to the Internet. Open Safari, Chrome or your preferred browser app on your iPhone XR then go to some websites and see if they’re loading. And to make sure that your email server is up and running, sign in to your email account through your email provider’s website. If you can’t connect, then that’s the problem that you need to deal with first. Once your Internet is fixed, you should be able to set up your email on your phone as intended. Otherwise, try the following solutions.
First solution: Reboot your iPhone XR (soft reset).
If this is your first try and the email setup has failed, reboot or soft reset your iPhone XR to clear out errant cached files and to refresh the phone memory. Minor software errors should also be rid of in the process. Here’s how a soft reset is done on your iPhone XR:
- Press and hold the Side/Power button and either Volume buttons simultaneously for a few seconds.
- Release the buttons when the Slide to Power Off command appears.
- Drag the power off slider to the right.
- After 30 seconds, press and hold the Power button or Side button again until the phone boots up.
After restarting your phone, log into your email account through webmail. To do this, simply open a browser then go to your email provider’s site. Sign in using the same email account and password as the one you’re trying to set up on your iPhone XR. If you can login to your email account through webmail, then try setting up your email account on your iPhone again and be sure to enter the same email address (username) and password.
If you’ve any other email accounts set up on your phone, delete them all and then retry setting up your new email account to Mail app automatically and see if everything goes through this time. If the setup still failed, then try other given solutions.
Second solution: Reset or re-type your email account password.
Many people who have had trouble setting up email accounts on their iPhones found out that the problem was due to incorrect password as the problem was fixed after they reset the password for their email account. Otherwise have found remedy by manually changing email account password on the Mail app.
To reset your email account password, login to the same email account through webmail and select the option to reset password. After the password reset, set up your email account on to your iPhone XR Mail app then enter the new password. To access and modify email account password on your iPhone XR, simply follow these steps:
- Tap Settings from your Home screen.
- Scroll to and tap Accounts & Passwords.
- Select your email account.
- Tap Account to continue.
- Go to the PASSWORD section below the INCOMING MAIL SERVER.
- Delete the old password and type in the new password.
- Tap DONE to save the recent changes.
Aside from the email account password information, also make sure that your email account server settings are correct. You can compare the settings shown in the Mail to the actual settings for your email account through Mail Settings Lookup tool. Or you can also contact your email provider or system administrator. Once you have the correct server information, you can manually configure your email account server settings through these steps:
- Navigate to Settings-> Passwords & Accounts menu.
- Tap on your email account.
- Tap your email address next to Account then review the account details including incoming and outgoing mail servers.
Make sure that the server settings on the Mail app matched with your provider’s email server settings. Otherwise, you need to re-configure them.
Third solution: Refresh your Internet connection.
Network connectivity issues are also among the possible causes. To rule this out, you can toggle the Wi-Fi switch on your iPhone XR, turn it off for a few seconds and then turn on again. This will refresh your iPhone’s Wi-Fi internet connection. Here’s what you should do then:
- Tap on Settings from your Home screen.
- Select Wi-Fi.
- Tap the Wi-Fi switch to turn the feature OFF.
- Restart/soft reset your iPhone XR.
- Then go back to Settings-> Wi-Fi menu.
- Toggle the switch to turn Wi-Fi on again.
Alternatively, you can simply toggle the Airplane Mode switch on and off shortly from your iPhone Settings-> Airplane Mode menu.
Enabling Airplane mode disables all wireless radios on the phone including Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections and disabling it turns them on again. So it’s like a quick Wi-Fi restart. Minor Wi-Fi internet problems from random glitches are usually resolved by this trick.
Fourth solution: Update phone software to the latest version.
Email setup errors that are attributed to Mail app bugs and glitches can also be remedied by installing the latest update to iOS. Software updates usually contain fix patches to address existing iOS issues including those affecting the iPhone’s email functions. If your iPhone is connected to Wi-Fi network and has at least 50 percent battery life, follow these steps to check for new over-the-air (OTA) updates:
- Navigate to your iPhone Settings-> General-> Software update menu.
If an update is available, read and review the update information then select the option to Download and Install. Follow the rest of the onscreen commands to complete the new update installation. Reboot your iPhone when the update is completely installed to apply the recent system changes and then retry setting up your email account to your iPhone XR Mail app.
Fifth solution: Reset all settings on your iPhone XR.
Customized settings on your iPhone XR are also among the possible culprits. There may be some options that are enabled or disable when they’re not supposed to. As a result, conflicts arise and system errors are triggered. To rule this out, reset all settings on your iPhone XR with these steps:
- Go to Settings-> General-> Reset menu.
- Select the option to Reset all settings.
- Enter your device passcode if prompted to continue.
- Then tap the option to confirm settings reset.
After the reset, your iPhone restarts and then loads the default options or original values. Reconnect to your Wi-Fi and once connected try to set up your email account and see if the problem is gone.
Other options
To further troubleshoot complex system errors that might have prevented you from setting up email on your iPhone XR Mail app, you may resort to a factory reset. This wipes everything from your phone system and then restores the factory default settings. Be sure to back up your files beforehand so you can just recover them later. After the reset, connect your iPhone to the Internet and then set up your email account through the initial setup wizard. Be sure to enter the correct email account information this time. You can also try setting up a different email account from other email provider. This will help you determine if the problem is isolated to your email service provider or not. Contact your email service provider for further assistance if you are able to set up other email accounts. You can also ask your email service provider to remotely set up your email account instead.
Connect with us
If you need more help with the use of certain functions and features of the Apple iPhone XR 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 XR. 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.