Mail app does not sync messages automatically

I've upgraded my HP Envy Ultrabook with preinstalled Windows 8 to Windows 10 about a month ago. All works enough smoothly - except the intrinsic Windows Mail & Calendar apps. They don't sync their contents automatically, even with my main Microsoft account linked to my Outlook.com email!

I tried different mailbox sync settings ("as items arrive", "every 15 minutes", etc.) - nothing helps. I tried to disconnect my local account from Microsoft account, and even created a new user from scratch - no result again.

The auto-sync also does not work for other mail accounts, not only for Outlook.com. Sometimes I even get the following error when trying to sync manually:



What it could be and how to fix it?

Maybe one or some of the pages listed here will have help:
sync windows 10 mail and calendar at DuckDuckGo

Flood! Do you think I'm so stupid so I can't find the answer in the Internet myself first? I'm a developer with 20-year experience, developing mainly for the Microsoft platform, and I have been already searching for a solution for a whole month...

I decided to ask on this forum as I see many Win10 problems are solved here. If somebody knows a concrete recipe that may help, write it in this thread, please.

It seems, the problem is in a system service that should sync all personal data from my Microsoft account automatically. When I open the Mail app, I see the informational message like "Last updated 8 days ago" at the bottom of the message list. When I click the Sync this view toolbox button, the app downloads the fresh contents without problems in the vast majority of cases.

wisekat said:

Flood! Do you think I'm so stupid so I can't find the answer in the Internet myself first? I'm a developer with 20-year experience, developing mainly for the Microsoft platform, and I have been already searching for a solution for a whole month...

Since you didn't say and there was no clue as to your experience in computing there is no apology due for providing a source for information that may have helped. Don't have a clue to what Flood! means but it must not be nice. I've been building computers commercially for more than 20 years.

Did you ever get to the bottom of this? Mine is exactly the same. A manual sync/refresh works but the app refuses to do an auto sync regardless of the sync settings. Makes the live tiles redundant to and obviously calendar as only a manual refresh by opening the app up will update it

Cheers, Wayne

Scottyboy99 said:

Did you ever get to the bottom of this?

No. Still the same behavior. Even after the last update KB3106932.

Have you upgraded your pc from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10? I did so, and I think that's the rub.

Hi wisekat, thanks for the reply. No, mine was a new desktop computer that came last week with Windows 10 clean installed. I managed to get some spare time to look at this more last night, I was reading the Windows store reviews. It seems loads of people are having problems with the apps. Variety of issues but the auto sync was mentioned quite a few times. Pretty lame really that MS has written such buggy software for their own OS. Seems those apps prob work better and are designed more with Windows Phones in mind rather than the desktops/laptops.

It's not the end of the world as I prefer Outlook 365 as my main email client and use my iPhone for daily push. But it would've been nice for the apps to work properly and bring some life into those live tiles!

Yeah I to have this issue it seems. On the laptop I recently sold to my niece that feature worked perfectly. I was notified of new mail as soon as it became available. On my desktop however, this not the case. The only thing I can think of is my desktop uses a local account and the laptop used an online account. I didn't mind setting it up on that because the laptop was easy to sign into with the finger print reader. On the desktop I don't like the hassle of having to sign into the device every time I log on so I chose to use the local account instead. No password that way and all. Perhaps the mail app only syncs correctly when the entire operating system is signed in globally?

The one thing I've just tried this morning was to go into the mail app and edit the account sync settings for each email profile. I've set them to update every 15 minutes and to download emails from any time. I'll find out if that works if anyone replies to any of my post this morning due to my outlook account receiving notifications from Windows 10 Forum's automated system.

When I manually checked the mail app just a while ago (before making the recent sync setting changes) there was new messages in there but I was never informed that they had been delivered. Either by the notification center or the live tile. Which is disappointing. If I ever figure out a resolution for this I'll be sure to post what I did to fix it here for everyone else to try.

Mine seemed to eventually fix itself. I don't actually ever open the app as I use Outlook as my mail client but I liked the idea of the live tile and notification centre prompting me. It seemed to work on other user accounts but not mine. But at some point it seemed to fix itself, maybe an update to the app itself, possibly after a cumulative update or more likely when the major 10586 November update happened (as I think that gave windows a big refresh)