Phantom unread emails: Mail shows 5 unread messages, but there are none...

Not sure all i can say is when i updated to ios7 i suddenly got 6 phantom emails on both my iphone and ipad and marking them as read made no difference, my macbook didnt have them and neither did my yahoo main account as i cleared everything, but following what Packers 17-10 said worked although i have no idea why.....!!!!!!

An Update - its all clear.

Have no idea what's different but this morning, all the unread email notifications are gone from iPhone.

I have to believe its either iOS7 did some type of "clean up" overnight or clean up on the host server side.

Whatever it was, glad its gone. Sadly, not knowing what caused it or fixed it, it probably can reappear anytime again so it may just be a temporary fix but for now its all good.

Cheers!

I try everything you guys told me, but that didn't work for me, the phantom mail just like phantom..on the web & iphone The "unread" emails weren't in my Inbox only the "number" of unread email were appear.. why apple team do not know it...this problem caused by up grading ios 7 .... ???? we need help apple team 😟

I have had this issue with accounts on my own domain, hosted at a third-party provider. I have NOT had this issue with my Yahoo or Gmail accounts.

This is not a Yahoo or Gmail specific issue; this is CLEARLY an Apple (iOS Mail) issue.

MotionMan

AMHvillage's suggestionof 20.10.13 worked for me. at least for now.

How is it that someone on a forum can put their finger on a method of correcting it when all the might of Apple choose to ignore it and come up with a proper fix.

Bramleycox..

There are two types of mail accounts: IMAP and POP3

From my understanding of POP3 accounts they do not communicate the tag that a mail item is read.

In other words.. your mail is on the yahoo server, if you go and look at it at yahoo and read through the mail it never will tell your phone, ipad, or anything else that this mail is "READ".

On the other hand when you open your mail account on an iphone or android or anything else for a POP3 type of account the DEVICE will remember what you have read and haven't because it was read on the device itself. (these mails in the case of pop3 accounts are actually COPIES of your mail and not the actual mail).

So... then later on down the road you install a major update. Since neither the yahoo servers nor the iphone communicates to the server that POP3 mail has been "read", when you re-add the account you will have all "unread" mail again.

I tried to explain that in simple terms.. but the simple point is - It's the nature of a pop3 account. (I'm not speaking of the "phantom mail" error, I'm speaking specifically of the situation where you re-add your account in a major upgrade and the mail is remarked as "unread").

It's how POP3 email functions. So, this would be why Apple hasn't addressed it.. because that particular behavior is expected and not related to the device.

Callanfromnsw

There should be no reason to have to reinstall your apps after an update.

I know it happens to people.. but it's completely unnecessary.

Before doing any major update you should do a backup, icloud backs up automatically every 24 hours or if you connect to itunes and back up that way it backs up every time it syncs.. BUT what doesn't necessarily happen automatically, and the step that people forget to do when backing up to the computer is to make sure to TRANSFER PURCHASES. The option is under FILE > DEVICES > TRANSFER PURCHASES.

You see, the device backs up every time you connect to itunes and sync (if you aren't set to backup to icloud) but it doesn't put apps / music / videos purchased from itunes into the backup.. that would be an incredible waste of space. Those are stored in itunes itself and they all have to be there when you restore a backup to get them back.

As long as every app / song / etc that you purchased is in your itunes library then you will get every one of them back..

@krtrice -- excellect description! My problem: the unread message was deleted, and then the trash was emptied! So I can't un-delete it, to read it, to then reset it on both devices... Any thoughts?

Oh yes! This problem of over 9000 phantom emails has been confirming my views of Apple and IOS7 and their disregard of their users and quality control. Thank you for fixing a problem Apple obviously doesn't care to address for their users. Greedy, lazy and trying to control the tech world. Depending on cheap, or free, crowd sourcing to do their tech support. Cheers, V.

I was having the same trouble with the phantom emails....I have Yosemite....and, in desperation, after trying everything else, I saw this post and decided to try it. It worked! I have not had a single phantom email since. I have no idea why it worked or how it worked, but it is the fix that worked for me. Thanks so much....and I encourage everyone to give it a try.

I was having the same trouble with the phantom emails....I have Yosemite....and, in desperation, after trying everything else, I saw this post and decided to try it. It worked! I have not had a single phantom email since. I have no idea why it worked or how it worked, but it is the fix that worked for me. Thanks so much....and I encourage everyone to give it a try.

My phone doesn't seem to have the option to turn on/off email in mail, contacts, calendars. Anyone got suggestions? I've had 1-2 unreads showing up on the front screen ever since I updated my operating system. Grrrr.

And I've tried setting everything as read, and then unread. They disappear for a few moments and then come back.

I am working on this problem with a friend and his iPhone. He deleted the email account, readded it. Still one mystery unread email. We tried marking all unread, then marking all read, still one unread email. Tried force quitting. Can't upgrade, already at current iOS.

When I select Mail, Contacts, Calendars, it gives me the option of "Hotmail" only. If I select that it just lists the email account and gives no option to turn it off. If there's something I'm missing please point it out to me.

Thank you. This is a lot better than deleting the email account and re-installing it, which is what I did a couple of weeks ago for my Hotmail account. Today my work email account was doing the same thing and