After ios9 update my emails with attachments won't open and say "message not yet downloaded from server". They were there previously. How do I get them back?

That is great Lawrence - thanks for working to reproduce this on behalf of all the users on this thread.

What happens next in terms of an escalation and resolution - based on your experience?

I agree with the other writers who have been working to try to isolate and troubleshoot this issue. POP is acting like IMAP since the ios9 release and seems to want to reload the message from the server every time vs storing on the phone, as has been the case for POP email for years prior to this. Once the message has been deleted from the server on my master machine - it's gone from the copy on my iphone and unretrievable in a matter of hours. My workaround has been to set my master machine to not delete at the server level.

It sounds like a couple of persistent users besides yourself have managed to get this escalated up the chain of command. What should we expect to see now in terms of next steps?

I've had a response from Apple engineers:

The customer is reporting that POP emails are not opening after updating to iOS 9. iOS Mail caches the email, and then that cache may clear when space is needed. It will then download them again from the server.

This issue usually starts if one of the devices/computers that was setup with this email account has been configured to remove a copy of emails on the server. If this is the case, the customer will need to check the settings of all the devices and computers that are running this email account.

iOS leaves messages on the POP3 server by default. iOS never stores email permanently, whether POP3 or IMAP. If they are removed from the server by another device then this issue can occur.

A test that you may want to do to confirm this is to have the customer produce the error by opening one affected mail on the iOS device, and then locate that specific email on his webmail. If not found, then the device is behaving as expected. If found, please try to forward it to the same mailbox and see if the same issue occurs.

I look forward to your follow-up on this issue with the results of checking data on the server.

Response from Apple's engineering

The customer is reporting that POP emails are not opening after updating to iOS 9. iOS Mail caches the email, and then that cache may clear when space is needed. It will then download them again from the server.

This issue usually starts if one of the devices/computers that was setup with this email account has been configured to remove a copy of emails on the server. If this is the case, the customer will need to check the settings of all the devices and computers that are running this email account.

iOS leaves messages on the POP3 server by default. iOS never stores email permanently, whether POP3 or IMAP. If they are removed from the server by another device then this issue can occur.

A test that you may want to do to confirm this is to have the customer produce the error by opening one affected mail on the iOS device, and then locate that specific email on his webmail. If not found, then the device is behaving as expected. If found, please try to forward it to the same mailbox and see if the same issue occurs.

I look forward to your follow-up on this issue with the results of checking data on the server.

Thanks for sharing Whitlam75.

Not sure if they are saying this is new protocol in how iOS *9* handles emails, but if they are saying this is the way it has always worked with IOS - that is inconsistent with my prior experience. Prior to the update, my master machine was set to delete messages from the server after being downloaded to master. If my iOS device had already received / downloaded the messages, they were on my device and fully readable, forever or until I deleted them (after being deleted from the server). I'm not clear based on this note you shared from Apple how they view the difference between POP and IMAP now (except that IMAP allows users to sync across different devices by maintaining copies of all emails on the server). I thought a main feature of POP is that it allows users to download copies of emails for offline reading then remove those emails from the remote server - e.g. security and accessibility.

Maybe I'm not understanding or not experienced enough. But I know that prior to iOS 9 my POP email would download to my phone and I never got the 'this message has not been downloaded from server'. Something changed on email behavior when I updated to iOS 9 whereby my email is behaving as this Apple engineer describes in your post - but that is different (and undesirable).

Sounds like based on this note that we have to leave email on the server - one flavor of email whatever initials you call it? Which at least for my style of usage defeats the features of POP mail that I found very desirable. Not sure how this will work when I'm in a remote area with poor connectivity or a long flight to APAC now. But I know that previously once downloaded to my device, I always had access to those messages and could work them even after being deleted from the server.

Thank you for sharing this information ! And thanks everyone else for your postings and assistance in trying to get this issue addressed. I have to admit after reading this note from Apple engineering - I'm confused and disappointed.

I also had this same problem and I believe I have now solved it. After downloading ios9 , my phone which was set to a POP Account reverted to an IMAP account. This seems to be the default setting. So I changed my phone back to POP and it all works fine again. Attachments that have been deleted from the server are still on my phone

Unfortunately mine were already set to POP3 - and still have the issue. Glad you were able to sort out. Mine issue continues

The statement from Apple that POP emails are left on the server and never stored permanently on iPad or iPhone is completely changed from before Ios9 and is unacceptable. There are good reasons why POP is different to IMAP and this response from Apple wrongly makes them both practically the same. If this view is not changed then iOS mail will become useless to me!

I need reliable access to emails even when I don't have an Internet connection and I need to be able to delete emails from my email provider's email server once I've downloaded them to my desktop computer as it would otherwise increase the monthly cost of my email storage from around £3 to around £15!

Sorry, just to add to the previous message, perhaps Apple need to re-read the definition of POP mail on Wikipedia:

POP supports simple download-and-delete requirements for access to remote mailboxes (termed maildrop in the POP RFC's). Although most POP clients have an option to leave mail on server after download, e-mail clients using POP generally connect, retrieve all messages, store them on the user's PC as new messages, delete them from the server, and then disconnect. Other protocols, notably IMAP, (Internet Message Access Protocol) provide more complete and complex remote access to typical mailbox operations

You can't have a "download and delete" system if you expect the emails to remain on the server!

I got this not long ago (from Apple) - as I suspected, a dead end. Deal breaker

As far as I can tell its something they changed in the software and they don't plan on "fixing" it.

. This issue is happening with every POP3 account on every device so it is a known issue but its not technically anything wrong with the device or the software, its designed to work this way. Maybe they will put out an update to change it but I don't have any information on that right now. Hope this helps.

.

App thinning has nothing to do with the problem, and it doesn't apply to the mail app, which is built in to iOS. What app thinning means is downloading a device-specific version of an app rather than a universal version that will work on all iOS devices. So if you install an app on an iPhone you don't get the code needed to make it work on an iPad. Previously you got either a "universal" version that would work on all devices, and thus had code that would never be used on your specific device, or the developer could create different versions, one for iPhone and one for iPad. With App Thinning the developer can create one version for the iTunes store, but when you install it only the code for your device would be installed.

It requires the developer to change the way they write code, and most haven't done so yet. There were also some early problems with it, so when iOS 9 came out Apple turned the feature off.

I am too, very disappointed with the lack of support from Apple on this matter, as i am sure a lot of people reading this thread are. Since updating iPhone 5s

last week I am also have the same issue with attachments on email. Spoken to Apple support here in the UK and they say they have not heard of any problem!

Tried various settings/suggestions but still loosing email content 'This message has not been downloaded from the server' is displayed.

Have left feedback on Apple page. Let's hope they get this issue sorted out soon as it is totally unacceptable.

Greetings,

UPDATE.

• iPhone 6s and POP server (Verizon email).
• Storage space is nearly 4 GBs.
• Downloads email perfectly. Have nearly 80 messages on iPhone. Can read everyone.

HOWEVER, based on advice from this thread, I went to the Verizon email website and deleted approximately 15 emails that were received on Monday (I left the remaining emails on the server/website). With the exception of simple emails (text, some embedded photos), most of the 15 emails are not visible - This message has not been downloaded from the server.

I plan to go to the Apple store and discuss this with the Apple advisor I spoke to earlier this week.

Conclusion - if you leave the emails on the server/website they can be read on your iPhone...not the most ideal situation.

Semper Fi

Here in Italy, after some phone calls with Apple support, the department responsible told me today that Apple engineers know of this BIG BUG and they're working to fix. I hope it's true.

Whitlam 75 wrote:

"It seems that email accounts are being treated as IMAP, even when set to POP3."

I concur. It is a significant issue because iOS9 defeats the benefits of a POP server. While not having access to data when not connected is a major inconvenience, there is a more serious issue which for me is security. To me the most important benefit of POP is not having to store messages on the server because if our mail server was ever compromised, the bad actor would only have access to that mail not yet retrieved.

Our small business runs a POP server. Every network user's computer is set to remove messages from the server when mail is retrieved. Our iPhones are set to NEVER remove messages from the server. That way if mail is retrieved on an iPhone it remains on the server but only until that mail is retrieved by that user's computer. The security issue is major for me because our email contains private and confidential business data which may include financial statements, tax returns etc etc.