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

Hi All,

I had a similar problem when upgrading to iOS 7, I have 4 different email accounts on my iPhone5 and one of my POP email accounts showed that I had 2 unread messages after the upgrade (on both my iPhone and iPad).  I tried many of the supplied solutions posted here but nothing worked, I then then turned the problem around and wondered if it was a problem with my POP email provider.  So I telnet'd into my POP account using the Terminal console and ran a LIST command which listed all the email currently stored on the server, along with their size, and discovered the first two messages listed had a 0 byte count.  I then deleted these two messages using the DELE command, then refreshed the Mail app on my iPhone (and iPad) and the two phantom messages disappeared.  I found the necessary POP commands here: http://www.yuki-onna.co.uk/email/pop.html although I'm sure there are many more to be found with a google search that may be a bit easier to read.

Hope this helps.

~s

For me it seems to be iphone specific after the IOS7 upgrade, I have numerous accounts on my iphone and the phantom unread mail app banner is on my defaulty account. However my mac book pro and my mac and my webmail site for the IMAP account in question all do not report the emails to be unread.

This worked for me

https://discussions.apple.com/message/23203760#23203760

Hello!!

This was THE ONLY thing that actually worked!!!

Ever since I upgraded to iOS 7 I've had this recurring issue, a single (1) phantom email pops up from time to time on my mail badge (iPhone 5) even though I've read all emails and won't go away. The first time it happened I just turned off and back on my account (Settings/ Mail/ Account) and it worked just fine, cleared the badge, as did the second time. But this last time NOTHING seemed to work, not the "turn off/on" trick, neither the "mark as unread/read" thing, nor the "turn off the primary server under settings". Nothing.

BUT doing it exactly as expressed by steve64_64, from  "All inboxes" ACTUALLY WORKED. Thanks!!!

After trying the previous suggestions the following worked for me:

1. This is probably the most difficult part - think of someone who emailed you months/years ago or someone that you have a long history of email going back months/years - objective is to get your phone to show emails that are available but not shown in your mailbox in the mail app.

2. Go to the home screen of your iphone, pull down the spotlight search and input the email contact you thought of in step 1 and select "Search" in the keyboard

3. Scroll through the spotlight search results and look for emails (from the contact) then scroll to the last email/oldest email shown and select it. The email will open up and hopefully the email is an older email (months, years old)

4. In the upper left of the email that opens select "All Inboxes"

5. Select "Edit" then "Mark All" and finally "Mark as Read"

6. After the "Mark as Read" is complete select "Mailboxes" in the upper left to return to all mailboxes

7. In all mailboxes the unread mailbox(es) should show cleared/zero

8. Select "All Inboxes" nd you should return to your mailbox with the lastest email shown on top

Hopefully this resolves the issue. Good Luck!

After trying the previous suggestions the following worked for me:

1. This is probably the most difficult part - think of someone who emailed you months/years ago or someone that you have a long history of email going back months/years - objective is to get your phone to show emails that are available but not shown in your mailbox in the mail app.

IMPORTANT - The email you search for must have been received in the mailbox that has the unread issue

2. Go to the home screen of your iphone, pull down the spotlight search and input the email contact you thought of in step 1 and select "Search" in the keyboard

3. Scroll through the spotlight search results and look for emails (from the contact) then scroll to the last email/oldest email shown and select it. The email will open up and hopefully the email is an older email (months, years old)

4. In the upper left of the email that opens select "All Inboxes"

5. Select "Edit" then "Mark All" and finally "Mark as Read"

6. After the "Mark as Read" is complete select "Mailboxes" in the upper left to return to all mailboxes

7. In all mailboxes the unread mailbox(es) should show cleared/zero

8. Select "All Inboxes" nd you should return to your mailbox with the lastest email shown on top

Hopefully this resolves the issue. Good Luck!

I believe the "search for oldest email" technique may work is it forces download of all emails to allow "select all/mark as read".

The technique I used was to keep scrolling to the bottom of my email list until new ones stopped appearing then waited some minutes then selected all/marked as read.

I had thousands of emails become marked unread yesterday on my iphone and ipad. I did all the scrolling down and marked everything as read but still had a few hundred on each device. Went to the Genius Bar tonight. I'm on Roadrunner email, set to save a copy on the web. They told me to go to my RR web account and delete everything in my inbox or put it in a folder. It worked!!!

Hallelujah.  Thank you Phil B!  Problem solved.  Bless you!

I had same problems, I went in and deleted the email acct from settings, readied it and then they were gone, FYI this happened on the iPad mini!

This post started in 2010 and I am amazed that people are still having the same problem now (October 2013).

I am referring now to an iPad Mini which I bought in January 2013, which did not have this problem until about the time that Apple released their new operating system about a month ago..  It is currently showing 35 unread emails and rising.

I spent 4 hours talking to an Apple help line yesterday who knew his stuff and after two complete resets it did not resolve the problem.  He concluded that the problem lay with the provider. In this case Yahoo. This opinion was reinforced to him because my iphone, with an earlier version of the operating system was experiencing the same problem and therefore could not, in his opinion be caused by the new operating system, which sounds logical..

I then spoke to a top tier Yahoo/Sky help line at length who again knew his his stuff. After a great of experimentation, he concluded that there must be unread mail in my folders, which have been read, but were regarded by the software, as unread.  I went through each folder and not only checked that there were no emails marked as unread (with the little blue dot against them), but opened each and every email.   The number of unread emails stayed exactlly the same.

He advised me to download the Yahoo Mail App and use that in preference to the ipad mail, which I did and I am now using that. Unfortunately the Yahoo Mail app does not indicate whether a new email has been received without opening the application, so that does not really advance the situation..

The Apple representaive told me that he would report the poroblem to their developers.  The Yahoo representative did not really come up with a final conclusion, except that he believed it was a problem with the iPad, did not sound too encouraging as regards the matter being investigated any further..

One of the bits of advice I was given at the first tier Yahoo helpline was to ensure that on the server the line relating to pop and forwarding was checked ' dont allow download spam mail'.  This does not apply in my case because I am using imap and there is no similar option for imap.

It's high time Apple and the internet providers, particular Yahoo,  got their heads together and came up with a fix for this problem because it is obvious that countless people are having the same problem.

Does Apple ever take any notice of these poosts, or is it just hot air?.  Sounds as though that is the case if it has been going on since 2010.

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.

----CRAZY BUT WORKED---Search "unread"

In email, I searched for "unread".

One old spam email showed up.

I opened it.

Went back to home screen.

Poof, gone.

ps im on gmail