Mika Inkinen

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

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  • by Joey C.,Helpful

    Joey C. Joey C. Oct 15, 2012 12:46 PM in response to componentgeek
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Oct 15, 2012 12:46 PM in response to componentgeek

    This worked for my iPhone 5, however I did the following:

     

    Went into email settings and turned email to "Off"

    Exited back to home screen and turned off the iphone

    Turned iphone back on

    Went into email settings and turned email "On"

    This cleared the unread email notification, and when I went into email, my old email messages were not there. Therefore, I went back into settings and selected "Show 200 Recent Messages" and then refreshed my inbox, and my old email messages started to come back into view.

     

    This was the only solution that worked for me, tried everything else.

  • by DMFNHR,

    DMFNHR DMFNHR Oct 15, 2012 1:13 PM in response to Joey C.
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 15, 2012 1:13 PM in response to Joey C.

    Thank you Joey C!  Your solution worked for me!

  • by cjmccoy,

    cjmccoy cjmccoy Oct 16, 2012 2:18 PM in response to componentgeek
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 16, 2012 2:18 PM in response to componentgeek

    This did it for me as well, as soon as I figured out how to turn off email.  Thanks!

  • by Haxley ,Helpful

    Haxley Haxley Oct 23, 2012 8:18 PM in response to Mika Inkinen
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Oct 23, 2012 8:18 PM in response to Mika Inkinen

    What worked for me:

     

    I have 6 email accounts on my iPhone

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    To get rid of phantom unread emails (17 in total) I went to settings, turned off email for all each account individually, then turned them back on.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Some say to restart phone after turning off email, but I did not need to.

     

     

    These phantom emails came about for me because I used the search function in the email app.

  • by dlc50llc,

    dlc50llc dlc50llc Oct 26, 2012 7:47 PM in response to Joey C.
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 26, 2012 7:47 PM in response to Joey C.

    Joey C you are a genius! Tried so many things suggested online to no avail...this worked on my iphone 4. Had 2 unread emails that did not exist on my server or anywhere. They are gone and not making me crazy any longer. Thank you for making me less crazed

  • by Tipsy ,

    Tipsy Tipsy Nov 11, 2012 2:59 AM in response to Joey C.
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 11, 2012 2:59 AM in response to Joey C.

    Thank you, so easy! I had 2 unread phantom emails on my iPad 2 and tried many things, I even turned off the badge icon so it didn't bother me! Your answer worked for me.

    Cheers

     

    Message was edited by: Tipsy

  • by idfitter,

    idfitter idfitter Nov 19, 2012 10:54 PM in response to Mika Inkinen
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 19, 2012 10:54 PM in response to Mika Inkinen

    Same issue here - happened after doing a search on that particular mailbox (an exchange server).

     

    Switching mail off/on for that account didn't work here.

     

    Sending myself an email did work however.

  • by Luke Lin1,

    Luke Lin1 Luke Lin1 Nov 21, 2012 1:40 PM in response to jad2121
    Level 1 (65 points)
    Nov 21, 2012 1:40 PM in response to jad2121

    JAG2121's solution worked for me. Thank you very much for solving this problem that has been plaguing me for 6 months. BTW, this works well for Mountain Lion also.

  • by sbma,

    sbma sbma Dec 11, 2012 8:37 PM in response to Mika Inkinen
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 11, 2012 8:37 PM in response to Mika Inkinen

    Thank you this post is still doing good in Apple-land. My iPad had 65 phantom emails that drove me crazy for two weeks and now, thanks to you, they're gone. BTW these phantoms also showed up when I did a search in this mailbox...

    Thanks again!

  • by tanery,

    tanery tanery Dec 21, 2012 6:51 AM in response to Mika Inkinen
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 21, 2012 6:51 AM in response to Mika Inkinen

    I found a fix (and cause) for my iPad (version 3).  The problem was caused when I changed my password, per company time requirements, on all my devices except my exchange email client.  During this time, I read mail in my desktop app.  When I correct the iPad exchange password, it was out of sync (showing 8 unread messages in my inbox).

     

    To fix it, I:

    1. Opened iPad Settings
    2. Selected Mail, Contacts, Calendars
    3. Selected Exchange
    4. Turned mail OFF
    5. Selected Done
    6. Exited Settings and saw mail was empty
    7. Opened iPad Settings
    8. Selected Mail, Contacts, Calendars
    9. Selected Exchange
    10. Turned mail ON
    11. Selected Done
    12. Exited Settings (noted that mail still showed incorrect unread number)
    13. Opened Mail
    14. Forced a sync by dragging inbox contents down
    15. Messages read was resync'd

     

    Hope this helps others.

     

    Tom

  • by p944,

    p944 p944 Dec 22, 2012 12:20 PM in response to tanery
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 22, 2012 12:20 PM in response to tanery

    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

  • by rjthegreat,

    rjthegreat rjthegreat Dec 22, 2012 3:05 PM in response to Joey C.
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 22, 2012 3:05 PM in response to Joey C.

    This fix works but it’s only temporary. The problem happened again a few weeks later. Apple please fix the bug.

  • by Kats4124,

    Kats4124 Kats4124 Jan 1, 2013 2:26 PM in response to Joey C.
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 1, 2013 2:26 PM in response to Joey C.

    This worked for me, too, to eliminate the phantom notifications message on my iPad2 IOS5.  Thank you!

    BTW, it was only my Outlook mail that had the issue, not gmail...does this help with the bug fix? 

    Cheers!

  • by rjthegreat,

    rjthegreat rjthegreat Jan 1, 2013 5:11 PM in response to Kats4124
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 1, 2013 5:11 PM in response to Kats4124

    Thx Kats,

    I have an iPhone 5 with all the updates.

    I have 4 email accounts.

    1.Gmail

    2.Corporate Microsoft Exchange 2010 account

    3.Two Microsoft O365 (cloud based Exchange Server)

    And you are correct that it only happens on the Exchange / Outlook accounts.

    Since it is happening on at least 2 independent servers I am guessing The Apple devices are not communicating properly with the Microsoft servers...but I guess Apple and Microsoft have always had communication problems. :)

  • by c_cake,

    c_cake c_cake Jan 16, 2013 1:22 PM in response to Mika Inkinen
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 16, 2013 1:22 PM in response to Mika Inkinen

    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.

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