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

FINALLY! Thank you

Is this problem not returning for those who have "fixed" it?

I have finally gotten my new iPhone 7 Plus. I took the time to painfully set it up as a new device rather than restore from a backup. I wanted to eliminate any possibility of transferring a mail app bug over from the process.

So I added my exchange account to my vanilla fresh out of the box new phone.

Sadly, I can report the issue has occurred yet again in my Junk Email box. It took less than 24 hours. There were 4 messages in there. I clicked Edit and manually selected each message (no more Delete All for some reason in iOS 10). Then I clicked Delete. Although it showed No Messages, the bottom flag indicates "1 Unread" and Junk Email shows a notification badge of 1 in the folder tree.

Of course I know I can toggle Mail off, power cycle, turn it on and reset the counter but that is just a short term temp fix for me.

So I ask again, is this problem NOT returning for the rest of you?

Perhaps this is a problem with SMTP and Exchange type accounts? I have seen people throughout this thread specify they have Gmail or Exchange. Any others? I would like to try to isolate if it is an issue with the type of Mail account or is just simply a long standing BUG within the iOS Mail App.

Unfortunately, I may need to use Outlook or another mail application until this gets resolved. It is just too frustrating for someone who keeps their Email folders curated and likes to see a clean mailbox as a result.

The account I experienced this problem with was neither GMail nor Exchange.

Please go through my solution.. It's not hard to do this every time it happens:

Go to your inbox and try to search for emails by pulling the email inbox screen down

On the search field instead of giving an real word to look up for, simply start typing "unread" and it will auto suggest to show all unread emails. Click on that and you'll get those phantom unread emails on your screen. Mark them as read and that's it!

So you are confirming that the problem returns for you then as I have been asking?

It may not be "hard to do every time it happens," but when it happens basically every day right after clearing it out, it is VERY obnoxious in my opinion and makes correcting it worthless in the first place. This is using the method of turning the Mail off in the account settings, power cycling, and turning it back on.

If the fix you are referring to is your search for "unread" and mark all as read, I do that and it comes up with no messages every time. Wish that worked for me as it would be quite easier.

Thanks for sharing.

Dear Atomic,

I don't think that you truly went through my solution.

There is no need of clearing anything, removing accounts, etc. A simple email search will reveal those phantom unread messages and you can open them. It's like a 20 secs process, just like when you are reading a new unread email. No needs to go through the possible full list, just the top 5 emails will do the job.

And I would say for me it doesn't happen all the time, but it happens from time time, like every once in a month.

Hope this helps

Yes I am familiar with your process Aris, and I directly addressed it in its own paragraph. When I search for "unread" it returns No Unread Messages. For me, your process does not work. The only way for me to clear them is the other process I mentioned which has a very short lifespan before it emerges once again.

It would be much easier on me if I just did not care!

Sorry to hear that than! I know it's hard not to care when you are seeing the unread email number.. It drives me nuts!

So just to make sure, you are using this other option "unread" and still not getting anything?? http://screencast.com/t/QbjEm0uizYi have you also enable the results for all email accounts?

Well, I am always getting a big list of unread emails, although usually the ones on the top create the problem. Pretty strange behavior though

Yes, and it does return unread messages under "All Mailboxes" however under "Current Mailbox" (which is the one showing the phantom message(s), it states "No Results Found."

If I were you I would try to read those, even if they were from another account to see how it goes.. Sorry i couldn't help any further

Already have, they were mostly from my Deleted Items folder. I purged those and refreshed. There was one quirky one remaining that I know was an email I sent and since deleted. I manually deleted that one as well leaving NONE. Junk Email still shows 1. Ugh.

Thank you very much for conversing on the matter. Any conversation is a help for sure!

The easiest thing to do is: Edit > Mark all > Mark as read.

Problem solved !

Thank You it work just now for me!