Mika Inkinen
Level 2 (245 points)

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

I've got four email accounts set up with my iPhone 4 (updated to latest software). Yesterday, however, one of those inboxes started showing that there was one unread email on the account (an imap account), but when I go to view the message list there are no unread emails there. And this morning, it started showing five unread messages, but again no unread messages were there.

The 'unread messages' don't show up in Mail on my iMac either (and the Mail icon in the doc does not show any phantom 'unread' messages).


Has anyone else encountered this problem, and if so, how was it solved?

20" iMac 2.0GHz Intel Core Duo, original iPhone, iPhone 4, Mac OS X (10.6.4), 4GB RAM, 250GB HD, 128MB VRAM

Posted on Oct 20, 2010 2:25 AM

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Mika Inkinen

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

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  • by s4nier,

    s4nier s4nier Jun 15, 2015 12:21 PM in response to Mika Inkinen
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 15, 2015 12:21 PM in response to Mika Inkinen

    Ok I just finally figured this out on my iphone5s I went into ALL INBOXES and went to EDIT then I hit mark all UNREAD then I went back into Edit and marked all READ.  I had to scroll down a bit to a few emails that had multiple extensions (All grouped together ) and manually edit a few but that finally fixed it for me after such a long time of being very frustrated.  Hope this helps you!

  • by td451980,

    td451980 td451980 Jun 18, 2015 4:26 PM in response to Mika Inkinen
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 18, 2015 4:26 PM in response to Mika Inkinen

    I tried Joey's solution above, but had not luck.

    This is the only solution that I have found to work on the iPhone 6 plus:

     

    Go into your email account on your computer (I did it on my phone) and mark your entire inbox as unread. Do this by highlighting every message in the inbox, right click on the messages and select unread.

    Wait a minute or two for your iPhone's mail to update to show all email as unread. Now select all of your email on your computer (Inbox) and mark it as read.

    In another minute or two, you should have zero unread messages.

     

  • by ItsMelanie,

    ItsMelanie ItsMelanie Jun 19, 2015 8:30 AM in response to BrianAtTheBeach
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 19, 2015 8:30 AM in response to BrianAtTheBeach

    This worked for me the third time I tried it. I think the key was to pull down on the screen so email refreshes after marking all unread, and doing the same when you've marked them all read again.

  • by ejm009,

    ejm009 ejm009 Jul 20, 2015 8:57 PM in response to gumdoc2
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 20, 2015 8:57 PM in response to gumdoc2

    Thank you! This has been driving me nuts

  • by kliskey,

    kliskey kliskey Jul 27, 2015 10:00 PM in response to Mika Inkinen
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 27, 2015 10:00 PM in response to Mika Inkinen

    I had this issue with my hotmail account. It was only fixed by deleting the account off the phone, then readding it as an outlook account (i manually set it up last time), by adding it as an outlook email account the issue has now gone. Good luck out there!

  • by Janice Fisher,

    Janice Fisher Janice Fisher Aug 2, 2015 7:03 AM in response to jad2121
    Level 1 (101 points)
    Aug 2, 2015 7:03 AM in response to jad2121

    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.

  • by Janice Fisher,

    Janice Fisher Janice Fisher Aug 2, 2015 7:05 AM in response to jad2121
    Level 1 (101 points)
    Aug 2, 2015 7:05 AM in response to jad2121

    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.

  • by jim and brenda,

    jim and brenda jim and brenda Sep 10, 2015 1:56 PM in response to Joey C.
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 10, 2015 1:56 PM in response to Joey C.

    Thanks Joey, bit of a pain but we got there in the end

  • by Iempankaj,

    Iempankaj Iempankaj Sep 23, 2015 6:47 AM in response to Mika Inkinen
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 23, 2015 6:47 AM in response to Mika Inkinen

    I Had this issue a day ago. Delete your mail account which one is showing incorrect number of unread email from settings.

     

    Restart the Device.

    Add new mailbox account again.

    ENter your credentials.

    Refresh your mailbox.

     

    Problem resolved.

  • by Iempankaj,

    Iempankaj Iempankaj Sep 23, 2015 6:50 AM in response to jim and brenda
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 23, 2015 6:50 AM in response to jim and brenda

    I Had this issue a day ago. Delete your mail account which one is showing incorrect number of unread email from settings.

     

    Restart the Device.

    Add new mailbox account again.

    ENter your credentials.

    Refresh your mailbox.

     

    Problem resolved.

     

     

  • by slatts54,

    slatts54 slatts54 Sep 25, 2015 10:15 AM in response to Joey C.
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 25, 2015 10:15 AM in response to Joey C.

    Same problem as you on my iPhone 5c ver 9.0.1 and your solution didn't work, but thanks

    for the offering.  Anyhow, found another forum online and their solution worked as follows - in mailbox click on Edit,

    Mark All 'unread' as 'read', exit out, and go back in....voila, cleared!

  • by Thomasso51,

    Thomasso51 Thomasso51 Sep 30, 2015 1:32 PM in response to Mika Inkinen
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 30, 2015 1:32 PM in response to Mika Inkinen

    THe issue is that after an update, it presumes all email on your server was unread, and, it cannot load all of them if you leave email on your server for a while. When you delete the older email on your server (not on your Apple product)' it clears the "unread" emails. Afterwards, do "mark all as read" on your Apple product.

  • by mfm9800,

    mfm9800 mfm9800 Oct 2, 2015 2:47 PM in response to componentgeek
    Level 1 (9 points)
    iCloud
    Oct 2, 2015 2:47 PM in response to componentgeek

    Three years later (October 2, 2015) and your solution still solves the problem.....who knew.  Thanks!

     

    This SIMPLE solution is:  go to settings, then open "Mail, Contacts, Calendar", touch and open "outlook".  The first box should be Mail and green should be showing.  Turn it off.....wait a couple minutes and turn it back on.  That will do it.  No recreating mail etc., etc.  waaayyyyy too complicated.  This is simple and it works.

     

    Regards all......

  • by Mocktarczar,

    Mocktarczar Mocktarczar Oct 5, 2015 7:37 PM in response to s4nier
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 5, 2015 7:37 PM in response to s4nier

    The following worked for me.

    Go to Settings

    Select Mail, Contacts, Calendars

    Go to your email account

    Turn off Mail

    Reboot your iPad/iPhone

    Go back and turn on Mail.

  • by liad.t,

    liad.t liad.t Oct 7, 2015 7:44 AM in response to mfm9800
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 7, 2015 7:44 AM in response to mfm9800

    Perfect worked for me I had 2 phantom messages for weeks.  I turned just mail off for my exchange account and then closed the mail app and when back into setting, mail and turn mail for that account back on and that forced a sync.  Fixed!

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