Deleted emails keep coming back

from a user on verizon forums:

Re: why do my old/deleted emails keep reloading?

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06-05-2014 07:27 AM

Verizon email servers use the "POP" protocol. This is a simple store and forward protocol. When an email client connects to a POP server, it gets a list of all messages on the server and then downloads a copy of contents of any messages the client hasn't seen before (i.e. new messages).

The key part is what happens to the message on the server after the client has downloaded a copy. All modern email clients should have an option to either delete the message on the server or leave it as is. When you're only using one device to access email, you should configure it to delete the message to avoid confusion.

The tricky part with POP is when two or more devices are used to process email. If one device is set to delete messages, the other devices can miss messages that are deleted before they get a chance to see them. Because of this, most multiple device users will configure all clients to leave messages on the server. However, POP servers do not keep track of message status (new, read, deleted). Thus, it is up to each email client to keep track of which messages it's seen before. If the client forgets which messages it has read, it should get all messages on the server (again).

If no client ever delete messages on the server, the server will eventually fill up.

You can directly see and control the contents of the email server by using the Verizon web mail interface.

The bottom line is POP is not a good protocol for multi device email handling. IMAP is designed for this, but it is not available on Verizon servers. Email services such as Gmail and Outlook.com support IMAP and can be linked with Verizon's email to avoid these issues.

Good Luck.

I still use POP (live.com)

I was having this issue with my phone... deleted emails kept coming back.

On my laptop I went into my mail preferences and told it to remove copy from server, right away, and remove now.

I just last week did a huge cleanup of old emails on the laptop, so I hoped this would solve the problems.

I just changed the preferences a few minutes ago and now my laptop is grabbing 1032 messages. hmmm

I agree with you and on top of that I can tell you this isn't even the cause. I have just deleted over 2000 emails containing security cam pictures ans within 5 seconds they are back. I can tell you that could never be downloaded that fast from the server. So in my opinion something else is ongoing.

I have this issue on my iPhone 5. emails from several different servers all POP. I only access these accoounts from the phone, so no other device is being used. The deleted emails don't come back for quite while sometimes months.and then I have to delete again emails that are almost a year old, I'm talking almost a1000 emails between the different accounts.

So they don't come right back but much later, What causes these emails to return after many months? If it happens, it's from all the servers I have emails with, not just one. The common denominator seems to be the Apple iOS.

Suggestions?

This is happening to me also. I did check my settings on my email and i don't see anything about changing inbox or deleted emails. I have a 2012 Macbook Pro. I am using a Google IMAP and a ICloud IMAP account. I do have my IPhone 5S linked to my Mac with email.

I have spent hours deleting emails from my Mac and they keep coming back. Can someone PLEASE give me a simple, easy to understand solution to this? I am not a computer programmer and I need simple to understand language. Thanks so much in advance!

So frustrated!!!

I'm sorry sir, you are wrong. When an email client talks to a POP server, it is told the sequence numbers of the emails that are on the server. It is then the clients responsibility to say "Oh I've seen all through 110, give me 111 on".

Apple seems to ignore the sequence numbers and get ALL messages on the server. Over and over again!

Yep, this is happening to me too. It's never happened before now and it seems to be since I've upgraded the iPhone software. I'm still on iPhone 4S but on the latest iPhone OS I think. Has anyone found a solution? I have 8,500 emails that have suddenly returned into my InBox and it doesn't matter how many times I delete them all, they just keep coming back after I think they've disappeared. I'm quite sure I haven't changed any preferences which was one of the first things that were mentioned in this post ...

Brigitte: I don't know if your 4S is able to run OS9, but if you are trying to use the "Trash All" feature that Apple has added to the latest OS mail client, lots of people think that it is not working when it actually is. If you are trying to delete 8500 emails using the "Trash All" button in OS9, 1st of all, make sure you are deleting emails from specific email accounts on your phone and not from "All Mailboxes". Then, when you have confirmed that you want to Trash All the emails, after all the emails disappear, SET THE PHONE ASIDE and do something else... it's going to take the phone a LONG time to delete 8500 emails...you might want to even make sure it's plugged in. But if you just let it sit there and do its thing, it WILL delete those emails. Do the same thing with each specific "Mailbox" and then do it again with the Trash folder to truly get rid of all them. There's no "spinning colorwheel" or progress bar of any kind to let you know that something is happening after you confirm Trash All, but it's working. If you close out of the email client before it has finished deleting, this is when all the emails will return. Hope this helps.

Thank you sooooo much Bocadr1. THAT has saved me a LOT of time. I'm sorry I haven't got back sooner to thank you. This last couple of weeks have been a bit crazy. I kept thinking that was what was happening but because there was nothing showing that things were deleting (and every time I looked, they'd come back), I just thought it wasn't working. After reading this, I ended up taking my phone off sleep mode so there was no chance of it stopping and it worked. I was gradually deleting them whenever I had time so now I can get on with more important things. Yay! Thank you!!!

You are most welcome! It was frustrating me terribly before the most recent iOS upgrade that Apple wouldn't've had that Trash All feature in there in the 1st place. Then, when they added the feature, it just was inconceivable to me that it would not actually work. After trying everything I could, the only other thing to consider was that it actually WAS working but just needed some time...

Now someone else in this thread replying to my post made a very interesting comment, to the effect: OK, so it's working and that's good, but why in the world should it take so long to delete emails?? On a PC or Mac when you delete lots of emails, at MOST it takes seconds. If one actually sits there and watches how long the iPhone takes to complete that Trash All task, depending on how many emails there are it's really a full minute or 2 or even more. I'd be interested to know why it does take that long...if any gurus out there happen to know...

Anyway, I'm glad I could be of help.

My proposed fix: In OSX El Capitan 10.11.2, go to System Preferences / iCloud, then uncheck "Mail" in iCloud. Once I did this on my iMac, junk mail and deleted messages stopped repopulating in the "Mail" Trash folder.

Bocadr1 wrote:

<irrelevant content snipped out >
But if you just let it sit there and do its thing, it WILL delete those emails. Do the same thing with each specific "Mailbox" and then do it again with the Trash folder to truly get rid of all them. There's no "spinning colorwheel" or progress bar of any kind to let you know that something is happening after you confirm Trash All, but it's working. If you close out of the email client before it has finished deleting, this is when all the emails will return. Hope this helps.

I am having this issue with my new iPhone 6s. My main "computer hub" is my iMac. I use the Apple Mail server but for the life of me I cannot find any setting to delete off the server as per the suggestions in all 4 pages of this thread. I use Verizon for my cell service and they fully destroyed all the original settings and tweaks you can do on their website regarding spam filtering and other options. There is no "delete from server" option there at all. I wanted to set a higher junk mail filter which they used to have and found the mess they have created while looking for that setting. Ugh.

Also, check out this weirdness. When the old emails are deleted off the phone, the phone fetches the mail again and shows like 80+ new emails, but all the folders are empty. Normally the number of mail that was there will disappear in a few seconds because it was deleted. Nope. I delete a different number of emails than what "pops" back up. I have to either quit the mail app and reopen it to make that go away or reboot the phone. Sometimes that doesn't even work.

Another issue - I have my mail set to fetch mail manually but it continues to fetch mail and act as my alarm clock in the middle of the night by alerting me that there is mail. Even if the mail app is fully closed. I have an elderly mother so I cannot shut the phone in case of emergencies.

We have 2 iPhone 6s' in this house, both using Mac computers. Both are not having the same issue.

The MacBook Pro is running Mavericks without issue. I don't use that for my email at all. My husband does.

The iMac is running Yosemite and giving me grief with the mail and phone. This is my main squeeze 🙂

This never happened until I got the new 6s and it only happens to me.
I do not use the cloud for anything but my wallet.

Does anyone with the same issues use Thunderbird for their mail client and if so, do you have these issues with that too?

Any suggestion would help. I am tired of deleting all the email on my phone only to have it come in again right away.

One more thing I would like to add (there is no edit feature here GAH!) -

Email continues to return on gmail and yahoo accounts as well. Yes, those are set as IMAP accounts and they're coming back.

Twitchin Kitten wrote:

One more thing I would like to add (there is no edit feature here GAH!) -

There is an edit option. However, it's only available for 15 minutes after you submit the post.

Meg St._Clair wrote:

Twitchin Kitten wrote:

One more thing I would like to add (there is no edit feature here GAH!) -

There is an edit option. However, it's only available for 15 minutes after you submit the post.

10-4

thanks 🙂