As of two weeks ago, the dates on all of my emails are set to 22 December 2022 on iMac running Sierra 10.12.6 A similar situation is occurring on my iPhone IOS 16.2.
This means my mails are randomised with recent messages interspersed with others 6 years old.
iMac 27″, macOS 10.12
Thank you jeffd55,
I have been forced to compare the contents of "gold standard" Webmail with the inbox content of my iMac, iPhone X and iPhone 6s (out of retirement for this experiment). While my email host provider would like to think that Webmail and Outlook are perfect, they are not. In this message, I'll ignore Outlook, whatever that might be.
At precisely 17:12 on Thursday 22 December 2022, Webmail shows around thirty messages with identical time stamps. As do all the Apple family. Every Apple device agrees with the incorrect Webmail content.
I know that all of the emails are from times past because, in the process of forwarding, a date is embedded in the content. This date does not agree with the date on the descending timeline of the inbox.
So, it's back to the hosting company.
Thank you jeffd55,
I have been forced to compare the contents of "gold standard" Webmail with the inbox content of my iMac, iPhone X and iPhone 6s (out of retirement for this experiment). While my email host provider would like to think that Webmail and Outlook are perfect, they are not. In this message, I'll ignore Outlook, whatever that might be.
At precisely 17:12 on Thursday 22 December 2022, Webmail shows around thirty messages with identical time stamps. As do all the Apple family. Every Apple device agrees with the incorrect Webmail content.
I know that all of the emails are from times past because, in the process of forwarding, a date is embedded in the content. This date does not agree with the date on the descending timeline of the inbox.
So, it's back to the hosting company.
Hi DaiWynnFineArt,
If this is occurring with multiple email accounts on your devices, it may be due to the date and time settings on your device. Let's check to ensure they are set correctly. Set the date and time on your Mac and Change the date and time on iPhone will walk you through how to ensure it's set automatically.
> System Settings, click General 
in the sidebar, then click Date & Time on the right. (You may need to scroll down.)Set the date and time automatically or manually - Automatically: Turn on “Set time and date automatically,” click Set, then enter a network time server for your region.
> General > Date & Time.If this is occurring with one specific email account, we'd recommend checking to see if the wrong dates and times appear when checking your email via a web browser. If you're using an iCloud email account, Read email in Mail on iCloud.com will show you how to check your emails from the iCloud website.
If you're using an account other than iCloud, and you see the wrong date and time checking your emails from a web browser, we'd recommend contacting your email service provider directly. The date and time for emails that appear on your device would mirror what you see there.
Regards.
DaiWynnFineArt,
Thank you for this information. At this point, because of the intricacy of restoring the date and time of your email messages, we would suggest you contact Apple Support directly for more specific assistance.
Best regards.
Hi Racheals14,
Thank you for your suggestions.
May I start by saying that, after several days and numerous emails between myself and my email hosting provider, their final response is "If it works in Webmail and Outlook, it must be an Apple issue".
I have checked date and time settings on both iMac and iPhone and all are set to automatic for the correct time zone - Melbourne, Australia. While the Apple message date stamps are all in descending order on iMac, a large number of very old messages are interspersed with newer ones. When a message is forwarded, it often contains the original date which obviously does not match the message date shown in the inbox.
If there is a common feature of misplaced messages, it might well be a forwarded email from a gmail account. It could also be a flagged message. Clearly, if I want to fix this issue, I need to compare the inboxes of Webmail, iMac, iPhoneX and iPhone6s (brought out of retirement for this exercise).
I suspect that this issue is not simple, especially since Apple wants to "synchronise" all of my devices all of the time.
Mail not showing correct dates on Mac and iPhone
