Why Do My Email Apps Keep Crashing? – How to Fix Samsung Email, Gmail, Apple Mail, and Yahoo Mail

Imagine you want to check your emails when away from your computer, but whenever you try to open your email application, the app unexpectedly closes. This includes a number of popular email apps like Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Apple Mail, and Samsung Email. 

Many users prefer to check their email on their mobile devices because it’s quick and convenient, but frequent crashes of email apps can be frustrating. Even if the app doesn’t crash, it may become unresponsive, throw error codes, or becomes so slow it’s practically unusable. 

Don’t let this troublesome issue hold you hostage. Continue reading to learn various solutions to this pesky email app crashing problem. 

What Email Apps Have Issues With Crashing on Mobile Devices?

The crashing issue is not limited to a single mobile device or email application. Users have reported issues on both Android and iOS devices with the following email applications:

• Google’s Gmail – a very popular free email service, works well with Google’s suite of other tools and software commonly used by businesses.
• Yahoo Mail – is no longer in its heyday, but many internet users still rely on their Yahoo Mail accounts, with reports of 225 million monthly users. 
• Samsung Email – is an Android-only email app that lets users sign into multiple email accounts and manage them from one app. 
• Apple Mail – iOs-only email application that lets users sign into multiple email accounts and manage them from one app. 

Why Do My Email Apps Keep Crashing on Mobile?

There are many reasons why your email apps may be crashing on your mobile phone. In most cases, it can be attributed to one of the following causes: 

• Outdated Application – If an email application is outdated, it may be missing critical updates that are key to application stability. Ensure auto-updates are turned on for your email app and fully updated.  

• Outdated Operating System – If you do not have automatic software updates turned on, you should check if you have installed the latest version. Outdated operating systems can have unknown instabilities, security vulnerabilities, and other issues that might cause the crashing of your email apps.  

• Dark Mode Enabled  – Some users have reported that turning Dark Mode on in their email app has caused crashing. Ensure it’s turned off to rule out this problem. 

• Cache Error – If you have issues with your cache files, you can experience a number of problems, including problematic crashes. 

• Software Bug – For example, the iOS 16 update mail bug, called Mailjack, lets a malicious actor take down your email address by sending an email from an improperly formatted email address. If an email is sent from an address that starts with two quotations (“”@email.com), it causes Apple’s Mail app crashes immediately when opened. 

• Single ‘Bad’ Email – similar to the software bug, a single email can cause a crash. Something about that email, whether it’s an exploit like Mailjack or is just unusually large, is breaking the app and throwing users back to their Home screen. 

To effectively address this problem, we will provide some general as well as app-specific solutions. If none of the general solutions fix the unresponsiveness or crashing, you can move on to your specific email application to see if there are any fixes unique to that app.

Note: If you are experiencing crashing issues across multiple email apps, then it is likely related to your device. This may be an outdated operating system or OS software bug. In this case, stick to the general solutions for the best results.  

How to Fix the Constant Email App Crashes on Mobile Devices?

1. General Solutions to Fix Email App Crashes

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If all your email apps keep crashing, you should try the general tried-and-true solutions outlined in this section. There is a good chance one of these solutions will fix the problem, regardless of whether you are using an Android or iOS device and regardless of your specific email app.

1. Ensure the Email App is Updated

1. Navigate to the App Store or Play Store, depending on your device. 
2. On both iOS and Android, tap the profile icon in the top right-hand corner.

3. If you are on an iOS device, scroll down until you see the Upcoming Automatic Updates section. Tap Update All. You can also search the name of the email app in the App Store to double-check that there are no outstanding updates.

4. If you are on an Android device, tap Manage apps & device.

5. Then select Update Available. If your email app is listed in this new list, it has an outstanding update. Tap Update.

2. Force Close the Email Application

If the email app already had the current version or updating the app didn’t fix the problem, you can try to Force Close the app. 

Force Stop immediately closes all foreground and background processes for an application. When you tap the app again, it will be loaded up completely fresh. There won’t be any lingering processes that might be causing the app to crash. 

To Force Close your email application, follow these steps:

1. If you are on an iOS device, double-click your home button (other iPhones/iPads) or swipe up and hold until the App Viewer list comes up. Scroll through the list of apps until you find the email app that is crashing. Then swipe up to close the app. 

2. If you are on an Android device, navigate to your Settings application. Then tap the Apps or Apps & Notifications option.

3. To view all opened apps, tap See all apps. Find the email app that needs to be Force Closed from the list and tap on it. 
4. From the available options, choose Force Stop. Then click OK to confirm. 

3. Clear App Data and Cache (Android Only)

In addition to Force Stop, you can also try to clear app data and cache on Android devices. This option is not really widely available for iOS apps. Only some iOS apps allow you to control the storage and cache.

1. To clear the cache and app data on your Android device, navigate to the Settings app. Then click on Apps or Apps & Notifications. 

2. Choose Installed Applications and search for the email application that needs the cache cleared. Tap the application to open the App Info page. 

3. From the App Info page, select the Storage tab. Then tap Clear Storage, Clear App Data, and/or Clear Cache. 

4. Restart the Device

This solution is simple but effective for any mobile device issues. Turn off your iOs or Android device and then restart to clear any errors from the phone that might be causing the email app issue. 

Ideally, you should hard reset your phone. If you don’t know how to do this, you’ll need to look up the specifics for your smartphone’s model because it varies among manufacturers and models. 

5. Fresh Install

If all of the other general solutions have failed, you can also try removing the app completely and re-downloading it from the App Store or Play Store. 

• To uninstall an app on iOs devices, just press and hold the app’s icon. When the pop-out menu appears, you can let go and select Remove App. Head back to the App Store to find and reinstall the app. 

• To uninstall an app on an Android device, navigate to the app drawer or home screen and find the email app you want to uninstall. Tap and hold onto the icon and then drag the app to the Uninstall button located at the top of the screen. Then click OK to confirm you want to uninstall this app. Now, go back to the Play Store to find and reinstall the app. 

2. Apple Mail Solutions

1. Turn on Airplane Mode

If you think your email app crashing problem is caused by a single ‘bad’ or malicious email (when you scroll down close to that specific email the app instantly crashes – yes that’s the thing) then turning on Airplane Mode may help for iOS smartphones. 

Some users have reported that this fix gives them enough time to open the app and delete their Inbox before the app crashes again. Once the inbox is cleared, then the problematic email won’t cause any more problems. 

To turn on Airplane Mode, simply navigate to the Settings app and tap Airplane Mode to toggle this setting off. 

Note: You can try this solution on an Android device too, but there are no user reports of this yet as a possible solution for Android phones. 

2. Access Mail Account Via Browser

If you can’t keep your email app open for long enough to delete your inbox, you can try accessing your email account from a web browser. You can do this from your mobile phones web browser app or you can use a computer:

Just navigate to Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Samsung Account, or Apple’s iCloud Mail and log in to your email account. Then delete your inbox. It’s best to delete the entire inbox if you don’t know which email is causing the problem, but if you need to save emails you can try looking through your emails to find possible culprits. Delete anything that looks suspicious. 

Now head back to your mobile device’s email app to check if the crashing is fixed. 

3. Toggle Mail Account On and Off

iPhone users have reported success in fixing the iCloud Mail crashing issue by toggling their Mail account off and then back on. Here’s how you can try that yourself:

1. Navigate to the Settings app. Then scroll down to find and tap Mail. 

2. From the Mail window tap Accounts. 

3. Now click an email account from the list (iCloud, Gmail, etc). 

4. Toggle the Mail option off. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for all email accounts that are linked. 

5. Restart your phone. Navigate back to the same Accounts window and toggle the email accounts back on. 

What we are discussing here is just one of the common issues with Apple Mail, or even with other email services. There are several others you might encounter along the way that may disrupt your email communications. 

One common error is the “cannot verify server identity”, which is usually caused by a discrepancy between the mail server’s SSL certificate and your device’s settings. Another error message you can get on Apple Mail that’ll make you scratch your head is the “Cannot Get Mail: IMAP server not responding”. If you have to deal with one or both of these issues along the way, just click on the links we provided to guide you in fixing them.

3. Gmail Solutions

1. Disable Dark Mode (Android and iOs <13.0 only)

Some Gmail users have reported that Dark Mode was the culprit behind their Gmail app crashing. You’ll need to move quickly to try to disable Dark Mode before your app crashes:

1. Open Gmail and tap the hamburger icon in the top left-hand corner. 

2. From the pop-out menu select Settings.

3. Tap Theme (should be the first option) and select Light from the list of theme options. 

4. Samsung Mail Solutions

1. Allow Permissions 

The Samsung Mail app is available for any individuals with a Samsung mobile device using Android OS. It’s a popular alternative to iCloud Mail. If your Samsung Mail app is frequently crashing (instant crash loops are not as common), it may be related to a permissions issue. 

This email app performs best when it has access permission to Storage, Contacts, and Calendar. You can enable these permissions by following these step-by-step directions:

1. Navigate to Settings and select Apps. Then search the list and tap Samsung Email. 

2. Scroll down the App Info page and select Permissions. Now you can toggle on the Storage, Contacts, and Calendar permissions if they are not already enabled. 

5. Yahoo Mail Solutions

1. Disable Android System Webview (Android Only)

It appears that the Yahoo Mail crashing issue is often related to Android System Webview, based on user reports. Android System Webview is an Android feature that lets apps open browser windows within an app instead of moving the user to an actual browser. 

It’s a very useful feature that you probably use all the time without even realizing it. If you disable Android System Webview then every time you click a web link in an app, you will be directed to your browser app. 

But if you are desperate to fix your Yahoo Mail crashing problem, you can disable it with these steps:

1. Navigate to the Settings app. Now choose Apps and then tap More. Select Show system.
2. Select Android System WebView from the options and then on the App Info page tap Disable. 

Note: Not all versions of Android let you disable Android System WebView, but it’s worth checking. 

Solved! Email Apps No Longer Crashing! 

Chasing the cause of an unknown issue that crashes your email apps is not fun. If you are experiencing intermittent or continuous crashes of your email application on your mobile device, then you are not alone! It seems mobile apps are more prone to instability than other apps! 

This guide touched on some of the common causes behind unresponsiveness and crashes, but there’s no definitive one attributed to this issue for all email apps. Your best bet is to start with the general solutions we provided to see if the crashing stops, or at least happens less often. 

You can also check if there is a specific solution available for your app, whether it’s iCloud Mail, Yahoo Mail, Gmail, or Samsung mail. Hopefully, one of the many fixes outlined in this article has helped you and eliminated your constant fear of the app suddenly closing when browsing your email.