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Mail missing

Recently I noted that my 3,000 plus emails had gone missing on my ipad after the recent update


i then checked my iPhone which I did not allow update and they are there.


So I checked my windows machine and I have 17,000 emails.


All machines have the same email account details.


i did note that the ipad one where they are missing relates to about a three year period. ie 2015 -8


i went to apple and they reckon could not do anything - they said email company fault.


how can it be email company fault when they are on another apple appliance and windows?


one must be able to restore



Posted on Oct 1, 2021 12:10 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 1, 2021 7:54 AM

Depending upon your Mail server and your iPad Mail settings, you may be using POP3 or IMAP. This will have considerable influence upon what you see on your iPad and iPhone - and where your Mail messages actually reside.


When using IMAP, your device(s) will download a copy of your email messages when fetched from your Mail providers email server. The Mail server will keep the original email messages until such time as they are proactively deleted from either your iPad or iPhone.


If instead you are using POP3, email clients can be configured to (a) download and leave a copy on the server - or (b) download and delete from the server. As such, email messages may be deleted from the Mail Server as soon as they are downloaded to your device(s).


If supported by your Mail provider, it is also possible to configure a mixed environment where some devices are using IMAP and others POP3. Doing so requires considerable care - as misconfiguration can lead to unexpected behaviour. IMAP is the more modern Mail protocol that, for most domestic Users, is the preferred option.


Your description suggests that your iPhone has a cached local copy of your email messages - whilst your iPad does not. Before drawing conclusion as to the actual problem, you would be well advised to access your Mail using your Mail Provider’s web portal (using a web browser) and verify whether or not the messages that appear to be missing from your iPad (but are present on the iPhone) are still available to view on the server.

6 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Oct 1, 2021 7:54 AM in response to jwpinnacle

Depending upon your Mail server and your iPad Mail settings, you may be using POP3 or IMAP. This will have considerable influence upon what you see on your iPad and iPhone - and where your Mail messages actually reside.


When using IMAP, your device(s) will download a copy of your email messages when fetched from your Mail providers email server. The Mail server will keep the original email messages until such time as they are proactively deleted from either your iPad or iPhone.


If instead you are using POP3, email clients can be configured to (a) download and leave a copy on the server - or (b) download and delete from the server. As such, email messages may be deleted from the Mail Server as soon as they are downloaded to your device(s).


If supported by your Mail provider, it is also possible to configure a mixed environment where some devices are using IMAP and others POP3. Doing so requires considerable care - as misconfiguration can lead to unexpected behaviour. IMAP is the more modern Mail protocol that, for most domestic Users, is the preferred option.


Your description suggests that your iPhone has a cached local copy of your email messages - whilst your iPad does not. Before drawing conclusion as to the actual problem, you would be well advised to access your Mail using your Mail Provider’s web portal (using a web browser) and verify whether or not the messages that appear to be missing from your iPad (but are present on the iPhone) are still available to view on the server.

Oct 2, 2021 4:01 AM in response to jwpinnacle

Use of POP3 and your conflicting device settings are almost certainly the cause of your issues. Once Mail is deleted from the Mail Server in response to a manual or automatic deletion from your devices, the mail messages are gone.


So as to avoid recurrence and unpredictable storage of mail, you would be well advised to reconfigure your email services to use IMAP.

Mail missing

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