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

10/3/14 This morning...all of a sudden my Verizon email inbox was showing two unread emails and there were none. I am on a MacBook Pro...which I don't know if matters...for me the solution was simple...I held down the control key...with my curser over Verizon (under inbox) I clicked on the pad...essentially doing a right click if you are using a mouse.... which brought a drop down menu down.....selected mark all email as read....and that cleared it....the end of the problem....

10/3/14 This morning...all of a sudden my Verizon email inbox was showing two unread emails and there were none. I am on a MacBook Pro...which I don't know if matters...for me the solution was simple...I held down the control key...with my curser over Verizon (under inbox) I clicked on the pad...essentially doing a right click if you are using a mouse.... which brought a drop down menu down.....selected mark all email as read....and that cleared it....the end of the problem....

Jad's solution worked for me in Mail 5.3 on OS X 10.7.5, where Mail was showing 1 unread message when there were no folders showing any unread mail. After restarting Mail, it still showed 1 unread on the Mail icon, only now Mail also showed 1 unread mail in one subfolder, which it had not shown before. So the unread count is accurate at the moment.

Hello everyone
The failure is with me every few days.
I set OFF then ON in setting iphone - exchanhe, it works, but comes back after a day or two.

I updated to version 8.3, and still, the same thing.

We work with Exchange 2003 sp2. But I know also occurs in Exchange 2010.
Anyone found anything?
Is Apple facilities that?
I also checked if I connect via OWA ( Explorer, Chrome, Firefox ), it shows right. Email show read.

It's very long time that problem isn't solve about Apple, why ?

Thanks for every one.

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.

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

Jad2121,

It worked for me, thanks.

I had this phantom situation on my Mac not my iPhone like the others.

I've noticed when I delete messages off my phone it happens again...I think it's a reconcile issue.

I have the option to delete off handheld only so I'm doing that to avoid it happening again.

Go to mail settings and make sure that your account is a pop account and not imap. I t worked for me.

Thank you Tanery,

I had the same problem with a exchange account.

I followed your 15 steps but the first time it did not work.😕

Then I closed the mail program completely and tried again, that worked.🙂

Maybe the mail program should be closed first!

I used a Ipad 4 retina , ios 6.0.1

Many thanks

Al

I believe the bug is related to Outlook junkmail; I figured out that the exact number of junk emails in my Outlook junkmail folder (auto-assigned as such) was the same number of phantom unread emails. Outlook bug seems to be related to accessing the junkmail folder, I think...I tried to open the junkmail folder on my iPhone 4s without luck.

Everyone,

This is only a temporary fix. I've got a bug report filed with Apple. If more people would report the issue then we probably could get a permanent fix. They had the same problem in iOS 5 and they sent me a special update.

Report issued here http://radar.apple.com

I am now having what appears to be the same problem. I have a GMail account and before upgrading to iOS7 mail showed something like 14 unread messages based on the fact that Mail on the iPhone only 'looked' at the 50 most recent messages in the inbox (or any folder). After upgrading to iOS7 it now shows over 3,000 unread messages based on every single (unread) email in my GMail inbox.

I tried turning mail off and on for GMail, I tried quiting the running Mail app, I tried even deleting and re-adding the GMail account. I cannot see an option in Settings to define how many emails Mail will track. It still therefore is showing now over 3,000 unread messages.

I could mark them all read explicitely but is there any way to get iOS7 to behave as before and only monitor the last 50 messages?

Note: I am using IMAP not ActiveSync.

I updated to iOS 7 this morning and even though my inbox only has 250 emails - NONE of which are unread - my unread count is 922. When I try the edit trick I have no unread eamils in my inbox show I don't get the option to mark all as read

Went to my account online and mark all of my emails as read.

I have tried a reset. inactivated my account then turned in back on. went into notification center and turned off badges (which removed the unread count completly), turn on alerts chnged the number of emails to show.

Nothing fixes this issue.

My next step is to delete my email account from my iPhone 5 and recreate it.

APPLE PLEASE FIX THIS ASAP!!!!!!