UPDATE: As Cult of Mac reader lepht points out below, there are contrasting opinions on whether push actually saves battery life. Check out his post here to see a different point of view. Also note tordofm’s comment below, and the original article I linked below, both of which support the push as battery saver idea.
You have a couple of options when setting up your email accounts on an iPhone or iPad: Fetch and Push. While Push is only available to more modern email accounts like Gmail, most of us have at least one account that can utilize this email service.
But what’s the difference, really? And how do you set it up on your iOS device? That’s why we’re here.
First of all, the terms fetch and push refer to how your email gets to your iPhone or iPad. With Fetch, your device connects to the internet, checks your email server for new emails, and then downloads them. With Push, it’s the server that does the heavy lifting, notifying your email client when there’s new email to be downloaded.
Fetch is typically set on a timed basis, while Push happens in real time. Fetch will use up your battery faster, as it requires your device to check the email server, while Push only needs to let the email server know where to send the notifications. If battery power is an issue, try to enable Push on your iOS device, if available.
Launch your Settings app with a tap, and then tap into Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Scroll down below the Accounts section, and tap the Fetch New Data section. Make sure Push is toggled to ON, and then tap each of your accounts below to set the schedule to Push, Fetch, or Manual.
If you set Manual as your schedule, your email will only show up on your device when you launch your email client. This is ideal for those with limited bandwidth or battery life. If you set Push on an email account that has the feature, you’ll get your email as it arrives at your email server in real time. This saves battery life, too, since the only activity happens when you actually get email, rather than on a set schedule.
If you set your email schedule to Fetch, scroll down to the section where you can set it to every 15 minutes, every 30 minutes, or hourly. This way, you can still get your email, but it will be on that specific schedule. You can also set the fetching schedule to manual, which will only go and get email when you launch your client.
Rob LeFebvre is an Anchorage, Alaska-based writer and editor who has contributed to various tech, gaming and iOS sites, including 148Apps, Creative Screenwriting, Shelf-Awareness, VentureBeat, and Paste Magazine. Feel free to find Rob on Twitter @roblef, and send him a cookie once in a while; he’ll really appreciate it.
10 responses to “Fetch Or Push? Set Your Email Accounts To Maximize Battery Life, Speed Of Delivery [iOS Tips]”
Rob push is not supported anymore on Gmail accounts. Google removed that months ago
Actually push consumes more battery if you get a moderate amount of email as the phone needs to keep talking to the server as your email pours in. Fetch every hour is the way to significantly reduce battery consumption.
I agree with rosmandb … “Fetch” uses less power, particularly if you select a longer interval, because the radio is turned on only at those specific times. With “Push,” the phone has to maintain a constant connection to it’s ready to get the emails in real time. I’ve found that “Fetch” can dramatically increase battery life.
Is it true that iOS7 could support Gmail for a push service? All I know is Gmail push could only happen with microsoft exchange setup in the stock iOS mail.app. But Google had dropped this exchange support for a free account months ago.
“Is it true that iOS7 could support Gmail for a push service? ”
I’ve been running the iOS7 beta since it released, currently on beta 4, and so far I don’t have support for push on my gmail account :(
As mentioned by a few others: This is almost entirely false. A quick write-up, with references, on my blog:
http://lepht.com/fetch-push-email-nobs/
This is completely false, and very easy to test. turn on push and you will see your battery draining faster.
push on ios normally goes over the cellular connection even if you are connected via wifi, unless mobile data is disabled. When you enable push a permanent TCP connection is created between your device and the push servers. Most networks time TCP connections out after a period of time so the device figures out the timer and then sends a push keep alive message just before the network tcp_idle value. Your cellular provider will typically have a push keep alive value of between 10 > 60 minutes but typically 30 minutes. The amount of packets and the size of the data is considerably less when sending a keep alive vs fetching.
If you are using imessage you already have push enabled, if your email provider (i.e Apple) uses APN’s (apple push notification services) then it uses the existing push connection so no extra overhead. This is not the case with push exchange active sync accounts so two push connections are created and maintained.
As the other posts say it is not black and white but I would say that push is better at preserving your battery than pull providing your cellular operator has implemented a circa 30 minute tcp_idle value.
It’s a great write up, lepht; thanks for the counterpoint. I’m not sure if it’s “total BS,” as a couple of posters and the link I have above in the article say that push is the way to go.
I do appreciate the discussion, though!
Sorry, but this does not answer the basic question: in which direction is the information going? I think Apple should have much much more clearly clarified the Fetch, Push, Sync features. I don’t care who does the work or how much battery power it costs.