Thanks to my Australian cousin who asked me this question, I have now officially provided tech support internationally! I hope this helps anyone who has this problem.
For issues regarding your email syncing improperly on your Samsung Galaxy S4 running on Android OS 4.3, please try the following methods below.
ENABLE SYNC:
The first thing to check is to make sure that syncing is enabled for your device. This was the most common solution because people disabled it accidentally without realizing it. *Update: You can also use this method to “reset” the syncing feature because sometimes software updates can interrupt the syncing process.
1. Swipe down from top of screen to pull down the notification menu.
2. Turn on the “Sync” toggle button.
3. Note: If you don’t see it, then look in the upper right hand corner of the screen. There should be an icon with three little boxes to expand/collapse for additional icons to appear.
ENABLE SYNC FOR EMAIL SETTINGS:
Next, we will enable syncing for all email accounts in your email settings.
1. Go to: Settings > “Account” tab > Email > Email Account (i.e. abcd@domain.com)
2. Then select the “Sync Email” check box.
3. Repeat this if you have multiple email accounts.
4. Return to: Settings > “Account” tab > Email
5. At the bottom of the “Email” area, there should be a button to Sync All your email accounts.
6. Press on “Sync All” to see if your email accounts have synced.
ENABLE SYNC FOR INDIVIDUAL EMAIL ACCOUNTS SETTINGS:
Finally, we will go through each separate account to adjust sync settings, sync schedules, etc…
Go to: Settings > “Account” tab > Email > Settings > Email Account (i.e. abcd@domain.com), don’t go to General Settings > Look under Sync Settings to enable syncing and how often you want it to update the sync by adjusting the sync schedule.
I hope this able to resolve your problems. If I have left out any pertinent information or other methods to solve this issues, please feel free to let me know. Cheers!
New Meridian 
My email on the galaxy s4 won’t sync like I want it to. I just can’t figure it out and it continously notifies me that my Sign in failed I have four emails synced and they all at once says that thesign in failed multiples times a day. Do you know what I can do?
I think it’s hard to troubleshoot with so many email accounts linked like that. I would first separate each email account to see if the sync issue is with a particular account (i.e. yahoo or gmail etc..) From there, you may be able to see if one of those four accounts is giving you trouble. Sometimes, the domain may have changed their send/receive ports or email smtp, which you may need to update for the account.
But for now, check to see if you can successful link one email account and see if it can sync between your desktop computer, your tablet, and/or your phone. Synching emails is different than signing in issues, so that’s why I’m suggesting you make sure that you can sign into all of them correctly.
i have an S4 mini and my hotmail account wont show any emails in the inbox or in any folder i have in my email account. how can i fix this its driving me crazy ive missed important emails and need this working. please help. it shows my email folders i have but not emails ?
Hi – can you provide with more information about the problem you’re having? Since you have an S4 Mini, I assume you’re running Android OS. What type of app are you using to link your Hotmail Account? Is is the Default Email app? Have you tried download the Outlook.com App which supports Hotmail users? Let me know!
my email will not show up on my galaxy s4 . it says not enough storage space. ive took a lot of stuff off. what else can I do can you help please.
Hi there,
I don’t think your issue relates to what this article discussed… however, your situation could include many possible problems.
First, do you have an external micro SD card installed to expand to more memory? If not, you may want to try this.. simple fix and not too expensive.
Second, if you’re still deleting things, and the storage space is filling up again, most likely, you’re synced with something that keeps downloading or re-downloading your files. Examples could be Dropbox or Google Drive, chat programs (like WhatsApp), photos/videos, cloud service apps, etc… You’ll have to check this by going into Settings > My Devices > Storage (something like this) and look to see which apps are using up all the memory.
Third, sometimes, if you have A LOT of emails for whatever reason, the “memory” that you’ve exhausted would be your RAM. Now, we can’t change RAM memory, but you should figure out a way to truncate your email inbox so that your phone will be able to handle it.
Fourth, after deleting all your files, have you tried restarting the phone?
Finally, if you can provide more information/details other than “I’ve took a lot of stuff off,” that would help.
Thank you
Thank you very much.
I have the same problem with S4 mini. My hotmail doesn’t sync even though I have enabled syncing. I tried to delete the account and add it again which helped as it synced all the e-mails then but after that it hasn’t synced even though i press the refresh button.
Hi – I’m not too sure what’s the difference between an S4 and an S4 mini, but I assume that the Android OS should be similar if not exactly the same. Try pressing the refresh button several times… like 9-10 times really fast. If you can get it to sync this way, then I believe there is a setting somewhere (I forget) that determines how often the hotmail app will sync. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the app to use for hotmail is Outlook.com now right? In any regard, see if you can find that setting and it will sync a lot quicker. Otherwise, you’d have to keep pressing the refresh sync button so that it will force the app to make those updates.
I have a Samsung S4 and after a recent software update my Microsoft Exchange email account would not sync. The message reads: “Email sync is disabled”
I have applied all of the points above – but it still give the same message. I have uninstalled the email account and reinstalled it. It loaded some emails and then gave the same message?
When you click on Settings, Account, Microsoft Exhange ActiveSync, then the Account message reads “Sync disabled”
I go in for more options and all disabled options (contacts, calender etc) are not ticket.
Any other advice?
Hello – I’m afraid I’m not too familiar with using MS Exchange on the S4…
Perhaps this link can help guide you better? Hope it helps.
http://techslate.net/syncing-your-android-phone-or-tablet-to-a-microsoft-exchange-server/
went to telstra for help they wanted yo charge me $20 i told them to shove it, thanks for your help
you are a marvelous person.
Brilliant thanku!!! 🙂
Million thanks. I was struggling with this sync issue for many days already.
Hi there,
Thanks for this post. I have done all the things you suggest and the email still does not sync.
Within the Email app, I go to Settings > Email Account > Sync schedule. there, the default is set to manual, but I have also set a peak schedule of ‘Every 5 minutes’. It doesn’t behave as expected, in fact, nothing happens.
Despite tapping on the sync icon in the ‘Home’ screen of the app, nothing happens.
What can you suggest I try?
Hi – That’s strange, but let’s see if we can troubleshoot and figure this out.
When you are doing this, are you using your 4G data plan or from WiFi? Secondly, what kind of email are you using? Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc…?
Sometimes, the mail provider have their own apps that sync much better than the default email app on Android OS.
Thanks for your reply. I really appreciate your offer of further help.
Thankfully, though it seems to have sorted itself out. Despite my having not changed anything since yesterday, today, it’s all fine. Weird.
Thanks again.
Awesome! Glad it worked out… 🙂
We have a Samsung s4 and use Hotmail directly on it but very frequently we have to remove Hotmail account and re add as it keeps stopping syncing is there any other email app or thing we can do to stop it doing this?
Are you using the Outlook.com app? Sometimes, that sync feature stops working – I’m not sure why though. Recently, I’ve been using this free app called CloudMagic. It’s an email client that allows you to connect multiple email accounts, while keeping them separated. A lot of email accounts like to pull all the emails into one inbox for you – I’m not a fan of that. This one allows you to check your inboxes separately (i.e. under your hotmail, yahoo, gmail accounts), and you can switch between them. Give that a shot – I think you’ll enjoy it.
Perfect! I had tried a bunch of other things, and kept receiving “master sync is turned off”. I didn’t know where to access it to turn it on until I ran across this page. Thank you so much!
OMG!!! Thank You Sooooooo Much!!! I have been trying to figure this out All Week!!!
now I can FINALLY see My Yahoo!!! wow!!! it was Sooooooo Easy YOUR WAY!
Quick Fix!!! Thanks for the info. I had trouble syncing some contacts after updating them at Yahoo. As you suggested “turn on Sync”, it was already on so I just cycled it off then back on and BINGO, it synced. You might amended your instructions, to try that first.
Duly noted! Thanks for the input!
Thank you so much!!!! It worked perfectly!