iPhone Mail: Incorrect email dates post-migration

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Level 1

8 points

iPhone Mail: Incorrect email dates post-migration

Hi.

I just moved my hosting from one provider (Hostgator) to another (Bluehost). I used cPanel to move the email messages for a domain that I own. On one account, I moved the message by file, groups at a time. These show up correctly on the Mac mail app. However, the dates of the emails on the iPhone (iPhone 15) running iOS 18 are incorrect. It is picking up the move date instead of the email sent date.

I have deleted the account from the iPhone and recreated it. I did this twice. The emails are still showing the wrong dates.

Any tips?

Posted on Jan 5, 2026 5:15 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

SravanKrA

Level 10

431,208 points

Jan 6, 2026 1:56 AM in response to Smhearty

If you still have the original HostGator mailbox files:

Drag-and-drop migration via an actual mail client (Mac Mail/Thunderbird) is the cleanest method.

This issue isn’t caused by your iPhone or your Mac at all—it’s happening on the new mail server. When emails were moved at the file level, some messages ended up with the wrong IMAP timestamps (INTERNALDATE), and iOS Mail uses that field for sorting and display. That’s why the dates appear correct on the Mac but wrong on the iPhone.

Before you spend more time poking around your devices, it’s worth getting in touch with the email service provider (Bluehost). They can check the affected mailbox directly on the server and confirm whether the timestamps were altered during migration. They deal with this kind of thing regularly and can help repair or reset those dates if needed.

Write an email to: support@bluehost.com

This may help --> https://www.bluehost.com/support

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