How do I retrieve older emails on my iPad?

Use the email search function.

Are you using Gmail?

Go to Settings>Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Under the Mail window - go to Show> and select the number of recent emails that you want the iPad to load in your email accounts.

While you are in the mail settings - tap on the email account, tap on the account in the next window, tap on Advanced in the next window and tap Delete - and select the amount of time that you want the emails to stay on the iPad.

In some mail accounts there will also be an option for Delete from Server - tap that and set it to never if you want to control when to delete your old emails.

Go back to your email inbox in the mail app and swipe down to the bottom of the window - there may be an option to "load more messages from the server" in blue letters. Tap that and you will download as many odl emails as you set up for in the Show recent messages setting. At the top of the inbox is a search field - type in keywords in that search field to find old emails.

You can also search for emails in the spotlight search. Go to the home screen and tap the home button and the search feature pops up. Type keywords in the search field at the top to find old emails there as well. When you tap on that email in the search, the mail app will open and you can read the email.

If you do not have easy access to a computer, and are relying on the pad for your email linrary, you will continually have this issue. You might want to try accessing the mail provider from a browser rather than the pad e mail app.