Deleted emails keep coming back

I'm having the same problem.

This seems to be a bug in Apple OS as this has never happened before until the last update.

I have exactly 50 messages all from the 17th April that keep coming back no matter what I do.

All other messages previous to the 17th & after the 17th that I deleted have not appeared.

But for some reason this 50 keep coming back every time I open the mail app.

It's really annoying.

I had this problem before on the iPad I changed some settings and it resolved it, but no matter what I do on the iPhone these messages won't delete.

And it's exactly 50 all from the 17th April.

Hi Matthew,

Thanks so much I have been searching for and answer to this very irritating e-mail problem. Hope this works I will check back and let you know in a few days to see if my e-mail is returning after I delete it!

Eleanor

I have an iMac, MacBook Pro, iPad, iPhone, an an iPod Touch. I also have 13 email accounts, some IMAP and some POP. the iMac is the main repository and has all 13 accounts. The other devices have subsets of the accounts

What I used to be able to do is delete emails from my portable devices, never to return to that device, and still have them retrievable on the iMac. Now, for IMAP accounts, I can either delete the email from one portable device and never see it on any other device or I can delete it from the portable device only to return as a zombie new email sometime later. POPs always return to the portable devices until deleted on the iMac or directly from the server.

Back before Lion, I did not have this problem.

Something in IOS or Lion+ is causing/allowing this behavior. It's can't just be the nature of POP or IMAP since it doesn't happen with my Blackberry/Windows XP combo.

Mike

I'm having the same problem. I want to delete emails from my iPhone 5 but keep them on the Comcast server so my wife can see them from her devices. However, now my phone shows 239 emails and keeps incrementing with emails I've previously read and deleted on my phone. I keep no more than 15 or 20 on my Mac at a time. My Mac doesn't keep incrementing with previously read and deleted emails. Matt's solution doesn't apply to me. Anyone have a solution?

I'm an IT guy and I have had this annoying issue ever since Lion. All 5 of my email aliases are IMAP, but no matter what, when i dump mail in to the trash and delete, they come back in the Inbox. Some days it works, others it doesn't. Also doesn't matter which machine i do this from (6 different macs of various flavors).

It makes me crazy insane. I wish Apple would address this issue. Even does it in Maverick

It happened once before to me. Shutting everything down and restarting seemed to fix it.

But not today. I keep deleting them and having them come back a few minutes later. I notice that I can just delete one mail, but it doesn't appear multiple times in the trash.

Right now, it is showing 9 unread messages in my account, 6 in junk, but the icon in the dock shows 50 unread messages (where they are, I can't guess). I marked the 9 as read, and now the icon in the dock shows 29 unread messages. I marked the 6 as read and now the icon shows no unread messages.

I closed and restarted mail and no new messages were found. I sent myself a message and it's working OK. Now I deleted all of the messages now marked as read, and it is still working OK.

So, the trick to fixing the bug is when they come back again, just mark them as read. Later on delete them.

Definately an Apple bug.

I use gmail and had the same problem. Messages just kept comin back. Went here in gmail and followed setting instructions, now my messages delete properly. Hope this helps gmail users.

https://support.google.com/mail/troubleshooter/1668960?rd=1#ts=1665018,1665143

I assume other sites have similar help.

I agree, it's seriously annoying and definitely an Apple bug.

I've been having this issue since I upgraded from iOS4. Until then, everything was fine. I haven't changed any settings on my Mac or iPhone, but suddendly e–mails kept coming back from the trash.

I seem to have fixed it though by setting the iPhone to "remove from server when removed from inbox", deleting a few useless emails from the inbox, then setting it back. This removes emails immediately from the server so they aren't availble to other devices to download.

But once changed back, emails haven't started reappearing again. Here's hoping it's fixed.

Getting on the discussion waaay late, but I just got iPhone 5s and am receing e-mail from over a year ago. I deleted all mail from AOL a while back and all those e-mails shouldbe long gone anyway.

Tried change advanced settings in iPhone but there is no option to "delete immediately" only "never", "afetr one day" "week' or "month". Either way, e-mail is now useless on iPhone and I can't even delete the account.

Help

This problem is the cause of GMAIL....you have to go into your SPAM folder in GMAIL and delete all of them forever. Otherwise when your Apple mail retreives messages it will bring them back again and again and again.

This worked for me.

Are you having a problem understanding English? It is NOT Apple's problem. It IS YOUR email provider using a "POP" email account. You keep trying to place the blame in the wrong place.

So if Apple doesn't work with a popular standard, the fault is in assuming "it just works" applies to working with popular standards. That's my problem, I keep wanting my computer to work with me, instead of the other way around.

Actually "POP" email protocol is OLD and dying out. It was once a "standard", but it was only designed for text and doesn't do well with any form of media. If you stick with AppleMail, or another "MAPI" supported provider, you will be a lot happier and can manage your mailbox more efficiently.

POP is an old protocol, so why can't Apple figure out how to handle it properly? My Windows PCs do not download messages from POP servers that they have downloaded before. And before you say "why don't you get a Windows phone then?, allow me to say "already done." Apple is now an OLD standard. Long live Apple!

I have someone I'm helping who experienced the same issue. I remembered someone else I helped who had problems with FaceTime and I solved her problem by updating the iOS. I checked this gentlemens phone and found it needed updating. This solved the problem.