Some (not all) emails disappearing / deleting themselves from folders in the Mail app on iPhone 4S

Think I got it this time. My Macbook pro email was set up as a "pop" account. My email account on the phone was set to "imap". I deleted the account, recreated it as a "pop" account and now it's fine.

I can't claim I came up with this solution. I spent 20 minutes on the phone with Apple and they couldn't fix it, so they recommend I call my local internet provider. Mike at Aeneas (my local acct) came up with this solution and it works fine.

So just be sure all your devices are set for for the same system... either POP or IMAP.

my emails are dissappearing from my yahoo so where would i find this imap/ pop setting pls?

This issue has been going on for ages since 2007!! Apple is anyone listening??!! how about making a fb account and organizing a mass meet up outside apple shops on a specific day ... that'll get them listening!!

I''ve had an iPhone 3GS for over two years and using the same AT&T Yahoo account. I just started having this issue about a month ago or so. I think it may be a new feature of IOS 5 as it never acted this way prior to upgrading to IOS5. It is very frustrating having to get people to resend information. Seems to be happening to me only when the email is in a folder. I go to the folder, see the email, and then the folder refreshes and the email is gone. Please help Apple!

Yes, it only happens when opening a folder. Occasionally, emails get deleted right in front of my eyes. They are not found when logging in afterward to Yahoo directly and this is not a pop or imap issue, simply an ugly defect in iOS5mail client.

Is Apple reading this at all? Show you care here please!

So how do you get Apple to respond to this issue without paying for support?

Hmmm. I have an iPad 2 and its happening to me. Anyway to get the missing messages back?

Like many others in this thread I had thought they perhaps it was some carelesness on my part which was causing emails to vanish from my Yahoo account, after all, moving to the Ipad2 approach to life from the world of PC was bound to cause some confusion ... but increasingly I felt sure that my habit of carefully moving items from my inbox to storage folders was proving unreliable, things just were not there when I revisited the folders to seek that message.

I began to notice the phenomenon of the 'brief farewell' as some emails showed for a very short time as the mail updated and then they were gone, completely gone and not just moved to the trash folder (which would itself perform the same trick, at first I thought this must be a rather irritating self cleansing process for the trash folder).

I have also tried twiddling and tweaking with the settings, changing the defaults, turning off push etc. and have been through periods of 'that should fix it' before the confirmation that this is not so ... Things continue to vanish without any obvious reason, older messages remain untouched, newer ones vanish ... I am pretty sure that some lost ones have returned on occasion ... All very unsettling.

This conversational thread seems to suggest that much of this has arisen with the OS5 upgrade, I can't comment on this since I have only known Ipad2 (since October last) with version 5 ... I am contemplating reverting to Yahoo mail directly via Safari, which seems a pity ... If the problem is with Apple I wonder when they will fix it?

s2Linda's solution worked!!! Had the same problem as everyone else on here, but this worked for me guys! It re-synced all the emails that had deleted themselves. I didn't realise but I had it set to "sync 3 days" so it only synced emails that were 3 days old or less. Everything older than that deleted. Once i changed the mail setting to "no limit" it re-synced them all, Welldone Linda.

A big THANK YOU to s2linda and Mil_Prep for their help.

I lost all my Hotmail emails and folders this morning and thought someone had hacked my account.

Applecare told me that my tech support had run out and put me in touch with the web support.

This is the first time I've used this forum and after carrying out your instructions my Hotmail account is back up and running.

I don't find the 'Mail Days to Synch' option on my iPhone 3GS.

Does anyone know if iOS 5.1 has resolved this issue?

I had a draft inexplicably disappear last night and posted about it in another thread. Several of the posters there had this problem with drafts specifically.

I can't find the message anywhere, including using my email provider's webmail interface. I'm running iOS 5.1 on an iPad 3 and using IMAP. I had only one mail account.

("Had" because I deleted it, as I'm no longer willing to give the mail app access to my account.)

I did not have a "Days to Sync" setting.

I too have been getting this in both my iPad and iPhone and I believe I know why - although I will caveat this by saying I haven't done exhaustive testing!

The emails that disappear appear to be the ones I have set rules up on on my Mac!!! All the mails that haven't got a rule on them stay in my iPhone and iPads Inbox!!!

It kind of makes sense really as they go out of my iMacs inbox because of the rule and therefore effectively disappears from sight!!!

This only seems to happen to mails from my me.com account all other accounts don't do this!

So it's not a bug per se but if it's correct in what I say Apple need to either change the way mail is delivered to an iOS device OR more importantly all sub folders and rules on ios devices that sync with a Mac!!!

...or as an afterthought - remove any rules that are set up on me.com mails until its sorted out!

How can we get Apple to test this btw?