My email usage is at 548mb although I've deleted most of the emails. When I receive and delete emails, it still adds to the total usage. I'm using an email account on a pop3server from my PC. What can I do to dump the memory and prevent this from happening again. Many thanks.
iPad, iOS 7
I had this same problem and spent a ton of time with online apple chat and many other sources, but I finally figured it out! Go to your settings, scroll down and click on "Mail". Delete all email accounts you have. Push the home button until you are on your home screen. Click on settings again, and then click on "iCloud" and scroll to the bottom and select "Sign Out". Push the home button until you are back on your home screen. Finally, delete the mail app, I mean the actual icon. You do this by holding your finger on the mail icon for a few seconds. When you remove your finger you will see an x in the left hand corner. Click this x. Your phone will ask you if you are sure you want to do this as it will delete all data stored on the app. Select "remove". Then restart your phone. When you turn your phone back on you will see your mail is no longer taking up any data. Now go to the app store and reinstall your mail app. Just type in "mail" and it will be the second option. Then you can click on this app icon and it will prompt you to log into your email accounts. You can choose to sign in to your iCloud this way, or from the settings menu. If you would like to sign into iCloud from settings simply clock on "iCloud" again. You will be prompted to sign in to your iCloud account and set your settings. If you need to add more than one email account, go to settings and click on "mail". Then click on "accounts". Next click on "add account" and proceed from there.
It seriously took me months to figure this out, so I really hope this helps somebody!!
I had this same problem and spent a ton of time with online apple chat and many other sources, but I finally figured it out! Go to your settings, scroll down and click on "Mail". Delete all email accounts you have. Push the home button until you are on your home screen. Click on settings again, and then click on "iCloud" and scroll to the bottom and select "Sign Out". Push the home button until you are back on your home screen. Finally, delete the mail app, I mean the actual icon. You do this by holding your finger on the mail icon for a few seconds. When you remove your finger you will see an x in the left hand corner. Click this x. Your phone will ask you if you are sure you want to do this as it will delete all data stored on the app. Select "remove". Then restart your phone. When you turn your phone back on you will see your mail is no longer taking up any data. Now go to the app store and reinstall your mail app. Just type in "mail" and it will be the second option. Then you can click on this app icon and it will prompt you to log into your email accounts. You can choose to sign in to your iCloud this way, or from the settings menu. If you would like to sign into iCloud from settings simply clock on "iCloud" again. You will be prompted to sign in to your iCloud account and set your settings. If you need to add more than one email account, go to settings and click on "mail". Then click on "accounts". Next click on "add account" and proceed from there.
It seriously took me months to figure this out, so I really hope this helps somebody!!
Hi all,
Case solved.
On my iPhone 4 under IOS 7.2 (highest poss. ) I had 10 POP3 accounts. Each 3 months my Mail Usage would run upto 800 MB to 1 GB...!
A persistent Apple bug caused any attachment to reside in storage even when the original email was deleted.
Since thevrmailclient itself cannot be deleted (yes under IOS10 it can) only the following proved successful.
Per account save any text or leftover attachment.
Then delete each POP3 account.
Observe in Usage your MB's go down!
In my case when 10 POP3 accounts were deleted Mail Usage went down from some 800 MB to some 70 MB.
I would have. a list ready of all usernames and passwords and the whole operation tolk me under 1 hour per quarter.
As I observed that IMAP accounts do not suffer from this effect so I changed all of them into IMAP.
Now my quarterly storage/usage buildup is only some 150 MB. So POP3 is the culprit combined with bad Apple internals.
A similar bug exists in SMS where the attachments will not be deleted with the messages but accumulate.
There is a Windosbased app to clear those out. Ask me for its funny name if you're interested.
Maria
yes, that can be a solution but it is not very practical. I do not want to delete all email-account settings and reenter them egain - just to delete mb's/gb's. it is till a bug and apple has to fix this.
yes, thats the only way (and already known) how to get the gb's back. but its a bug and apple has to fix this. its the same problem for several years and every year with an new ios i hope that it got fixed. but apple would like to sell more iphones with min 32 gb...
Hi all,
Case solved.
On my iPhone 4 under IOS 7.2 (highest poss. ) I had 10 POP3 accounts. Each 3 months my Mail Usage would run upto 800 MB to 1 GB...!
A persistent Apple bug caused any attachment to reside in storage even when the original email was deleted.
Since thevrmailclient itself cannot be deleted (yes under IOS10 it can) only the following proved successful.
Per account save any text or leftover attachment.
Then delete each POP3 account.
Observe in Usage your MB's go down!
In my case when 10 POP3 accounts were deleted Mail Usage went down from some 800 MB to some 70 MB.
I would have. a list ready of all usernames and passwords and the whole operation tolk me under 1 hour per quarter.
As I observed that IMAP accounts do not suffer from this effect so I changed all of them into IMAP.
Now my quarterly storage/usage buildup is only some 150 MB. So POP3 is the culprit combined with bad Apple internals.
A similar bug exists in SMS where the attachments will not be deleted with the messages but accumulate.
There is a Windosbased app to clear those out. Ask me for its funny name if you're interested.
Maria
It's called iBackupBot for iTunes and it will remove ATTACHMENTS for SMS/messages/texting as well as ATTACHMENTS for emails.
It will make a backup of your iPhone and allows you to correct and alter unwanted and other items from that backup. Once you've corrected and changed this backup you will then instruct the software to replace the altered backup to your iPhone effectively overwriting the current OS and its data and leaving you with a "cleaned" iPhone.
Always keep a copy of the initial backup should you make an error.
No, not really. You must make a serious distinction between POP3-type accounts and IMAP-type accounts, as they are different animals.
The latter IMAP accounts you can delete on your iphone and, once reinstalled, yes all e-mails will come back since they are still on the ISP's server (good for you!) and being synchronized back. That is exactly so by design.
Now the POP3 is a different kettle of fish: a different mechanism. Their emails once opened and viewed by live on your iPhone and not anymore on your server,
The Apple email bug involves locally stored emails and their attachments, so POP3 only.
Even when you delete your locally stored emails the attachments are NOT deleted and this is why POP3 accounts keep accumulating and increasing your storage-usage.
So be prepared to print out or otherwise save your POP3 emails and their attachments before you delete their accounts!
If you want to easily get rid of the accumulated attachment storge-usage runabove mentioned iBackupBot for iTunes and it will remove ATTACHMENTS for SMS/messages/texting as well as ATTACHMENTS for emails.
Please re-read all of my above postings and you will understand why.
Good luck
Maria
I don't want to buy a SW for $35 to fix a problem which is Apples job to fix. And not sure what it does beside removing some attachments. Sorry, but in opinion it is Apps responsibility to fix this (and this bug exists for several years!).
Hi this procedure is fine if your e-mail client only holds IMAP-type accounts; the related server holds the data which will return after re-install.
On most Apple IOSs deleting of the e-mail client is not possible however.
Therefore safer is to delete the IMAP-accounts one-by-one first and count/write down the reduction in storage step-by-step.
It is however the POP-type accounts that build up extensive storage in the iPhone.
The e-mail data for regular POP-type accounts is not recoverable after delete unless 1) you saved the data using iBackUpBot 2) selectively deleted them from the stored BackUp and 3) replacing that altered copy to your iPhone.
The Windows application iBackUpBot is ideally suited for this procedure. http://www.icopybot.com/download.htm
Thank you! This finally solved my problem! I kept deleting the email accounts and still it would say that email was taking up 1.7GB. I was going mad. Finally I did as you suggested and deleted the little Mail icon and reset my phone. That's what finally gave me my space back. Thank you so much!!!
His method only works with iOS 10 and above. The OP wrote this in 2013, and many with this issue can't delete the mail app because we are stuck with iOS 9.
I'll add that iOS 9 ruined the iPad experience for My 2012 iPad.
My iPad Air took up 4.8 GB Mail storage even after I deleted my yahoo mail account. So, I tried this. I deleted my yahoo mail account the Mail App from my iPad. Then, I downloaded the Mail App from APP Store and added back yahoo mail account. My Mail storage was reduced to 8 MB. As I crolled down my mail box to reveal older emails, Mail storage space was increased since revealed emails were stored somewhere in the iPad. If you do not need to store emails in iPad received over a long period of time, delete Mail App from iPad completely after a period of time, then, get it back from APP store and add back your mail account. This procedure will remove old emails stored in iPad and give you more available storage space. Note that your old emails are still stored in yahoo server.
I think the MAIL application stores all previous emails somewhere else even after you delete them.
The device was set up this way so that you can view prior mails even when device is not connected to
internet via WIFInor cellular network via satellite.
My device allows me to delete the MAIL app. I gained back all the storage space used to store previous mails.
Then, I got the MAIL app back by downloading the app in APP store.
The same thing is happening to me but mailis using even more in my phone..
Email using too much memory
