My gmail is having problems emailing icloud/me/mac.com - what gives?
March 14, 2015 12:09 AM Subscribe
Over the past few days, I am finding that some of my emails to people with icloud.com, me.com, or mac.com addresses (all Apple) are being delivered really late. On most or all occasions I will get an error message sent to me, hours after my email was sent. How do I diagnose this?
It's surprisingly (or unsurprisingly) difficult to get customer service on gmail - as far as I can tell, at least. And I don't even know if the problem is on my end, although the owners of the email addresses in question aren't having this problem with anyone else. One additional factor that may be worth mentioning: my emailing frequency has picked up dramatically at about the same time that this has been happening. Is it possible that my emails are being held up because I'm viewed as spam or something? Is there anything I, or the people I'm emailing, can do to ensure my emails arrive immediately? Do I need to talk to someone? If so, who, and how?
It's surprisingly (or unsurprisingly) difficult to get customer service on gmail - as far as I can tell, at least. And I don't even know if the problem is on my end, although the owners of the email addresses in question aren't having this problem with anyone else. One additional factor that may be worth mentioning: my emailing frequency has picked up dramatically at about the same time that this has been happening. Is it possible that my emails are being held up because I'm viewed as spam or something? Is there anything I, or the people I'm emailing, can do to ensure my emails arrive immediately? Do I need to talk to someone? If so, who, and how?
There's no way you can really diagnose or fix this; it's up to Google and Apple. As Pinback has said, Apple's Internet services have been pretty screwed up the past few days. Hopefully they'll fix their infrastructure and the problem will go away.
If you want to learn a bit more of what's going on, get a copy of the email headers once it's delivered to Apple. (If you're viewing the mail in Gmail, do "Show Original".) Somewhere near the top will be a series of Received: headers that show exactly when the mail passed through various mail servers. More explanation here, and be sure to mind the timezones! But all you're likely to see is that Google received your mail immediately, and then Apple received it hours later. Email these days seldom passes through more than two servers.
posted by Nelson at 7:40 AM on March 14, 2015
If you want to learn a bit more of what's going on, get a copy of the email headers once it's delivered to Apple. (If you're viewing the mail in Gmail, do "Show Original".) Somewhere near the top will be a series of Received: headers that show exactly when the mail passed through various mail servers. More explanation here, and be sure to mind the timezones! But all you're likely to see is that Google received your mail immediately, and then Apple received it hours later. Email these days seldom passes through more than two servers.
posted by Nelson at 7:40 AM on March 14, 2015
I have had no problems between my Gmail and iCloud email accounts. Going back and forth.
I manage many of them. There must be something else going on with your email. The Apple DNS problem was internally for the Store and not for the iCloud Services.
Are you using a Mail client for Gmail? If so are you using the Gmail SMTP server or accidentally an other one?
Also If you are sending out many emails or moving lots of email from one folder to an other in your mail client you will experiences delays or even lock-out. By Gmail and/or your ISP.
posted by Mac-Expert at 10:03 PM on March 14, 2015
I manage many of them. There must be something else going on with your email. The Apple DNS problem was internally for the Store and not for the iCloud Services.
Are you using a Mail client for Gmail? If so are you using the Gmail SMTP server or accidentally an other one?
Also If you are sending out many emails or moving lots of email from one folder to an other in your mail client you will experiences delays or even lock-out. By Gmail and/or your ISP.
posted by Mac-Expert at 10:03 PM on March 14, 2015
Response by poster: Assuming it's Apple - what can I do? The problem hasn't gone away.
Assuming it's Gmail - what can I do? I am having this problem whether I use my iPhone's mail app or the gmail web interface.
My emailing frequency has definitely picked up in the last 2 weeks due to a new work project.
posted by malhouse at 1:26 PM on March 15, 2015
Assuming it's Gmail - what can I do? I am having this problem whether I use my iPhone's mail app or the gmail web interface.
My emailing frequency has definitely picked up in the last 2 weeks due to a new work project.
posted by malhouse at 1:26 PM on March 15, 2015
I really don't think there's anything you can do to fix Gmail/Apple interop problems. You could get yourself a mac.com account for temporary use; presumably Apple is delivery mail to itself quickly. Be sure you're using the Apple server for outgoing mail, that Gmail is not involved.
posted by Nelson at 3:40 PM on March 15, 2015
posted by Nelson at 3:40 PM on March 15, 2015
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email is basically a store-and-forward system; it sounds like your emails are being queued up and held until delivery to the Apple servers either is successful (but late) or times out (resulting in an error message returned to you hours later).
AFAIK it's mostly fixed now, but the vagaries of DNS propagation & caching may mean issues for another couple of days.
posted by Pinback at 1:45 AM on March 14, 2015