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?

MY husband and I having same issue both on iPad and iPhone 6 after this bloody update. After reading emails the disappear except for title. He had one on his iPad he needed and later on it had vanished. All emails go t both devices. They are both set to never delete from server. Very strange. Before this update I would delete about 25 emails only to have them return on next download.

Just because it seems to be useful for others to know that many other people are finding this a real problem, I am also negatively affected but the main point I have raised in my feedback to Apple is that I never gave them permission to delete my sent emails in particular, as no copy of those messages now exists. If you are using POP email, as we all are, then sending via the SMTP protocol does not keep a copy of that message anywhere other than the device on which it was sent. Although I can see there is a (very small) justification for keeping iOS 9 application content small by relying on the "cloud" (assuming users want them to, which clearly isn't the case with us), this simply isn't the case for sent messages. Basically Apple have decided to delete all these emails without any warning or any justification (or any alternative solution to retaining sent messages for POP/SMTP users) and I am very angry about this. In particular Apple do not seem to have considered those of us who do not have always available data (by Wi-Fi or cellular). I work on ships and am often at sea, and spend weeks at a time with no data connectivity either from cellular data, or access to Wi-Fi (in ports), and not being able to refer back to my sent messages or my previously received messages on my iPhone is a real problem (clearly not a problem in Cupertino). The kind of anti-user mentality being shown by Apple in the responses quoted above was what we all changed to Apple in the first place to avoid. It could genuinely be a deal breaker for me, unless they somehow give me a way to retrieve my old emails, which must still exist as you can still read the header and the beginning of the content and see the fact there is an attachment, in the email placeholders. An interim solution could be to reissue the old Mail app (or even re-sign iOS 8.4.1 so we can downgrade). Unless I'm mistaken, surely it's the Mail app and not the iOS itself that is the issue here? Should we, as a POP community, start to agitate for the old Mail app back rather than push for iOS 9.0.3, or wait for iOS 9.1? This would solve all the issues being experienced and allow Apple a face saving "way out" of this disaster.

I Simply do not understand why this has changed. All previous emails would download to both my devices and be there till I deleted although quite often I'd delete and an hour later they would return. I though this was because they are all on my Telstra BigPond webmail which can be accessed via computer. I checked all my settings , I haven't changed any but I did select NEVER as to deleting. I couldn't find anything that says POP or IMAP. In my advanced settings. This is total BS. APPLE has no right to take over in this way. I don't understand where the attachments are. And why they aren't downloading.

This issue just happened to me and my husband in the past few days. Absolutely APPLES FAULT. We both updated to IOS 9.0.2. In Australia. I had 2 emails from the same place sitting in my inbox for later reference. One now says , message not downloaded from server, !!!! ***. It was bloody there. Where did it go

iOS 9 "upgrade" causes multiple problems: iOS 9 bugs

clayfromgreenville wrote:

I ended up trying AltaMail yesterday for $5. So far, after setting it up for 9 POP accounts, it is working well. There is a learning curb but I like it and it works well with my iPad as well as my iPhone.

http://mobile.eurosmartz.com/products/altamail.html

Thank you for recommending. Could you manage to preload mail content or attachments? I have to open each single mail to download. There is a setting for preload content as well as attachment, but it does not seem to work...

Regards

I can testify to that - having migrated some important emails with attachments from my main POP email account, to another IMAP account, to avoid the need to carry copious amounts of paperwork to a meeting earlier this week, I then found that without access to the password protected wifi on offer at the venue (as visitors we were denied access) I was unable to download them onto my iPad ... all in all a fruitless and extremely annoying exercise. Cue yet another increasingly angry feedback form to Apple😠

Same problem here. Have my phone set not to delete messages from the server. The missing messages seem to be emails with video attachments and hotel/car reservation confirmation emails.

I have emailed the following to haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk, hopefully, if BBC News do decide to publish an article about the issue, it 'may' increase the chances of Apple engaging gears and commence a resolution process:

"Hello BBC News

Can you please consider publishing an article in your News Technology category about a 'major' email handling issue with Apple's recent iOS 9/9.0.2 update for their iPhones and iPads?

I do not wish to sound like a 'broken record' by reiterating all the details of the issue that myself, and many other iOS 9/9.0.2 users are currently experiencing with the new iOS 9/9.0.2 email app because all the reports that contains every 'nut & bolt' relating to the issues are detailed within the links below, particularly in the first link for Apple's community discussions forum:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7221489?tstart=0

http://www.macrumors.com/2015/10/09/ios-9-pop-email-account-issues/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2015/10/09/apple-ios-9-0-2-three-more-pr oblems/

In a nutshell, emails that have been retrieved into iOS 9/9.0.2 devices appears to be disappearing at random intervals leaving only the email headers and an error message in the content body that states "This message has not been downloaded from the server.". This issue has never existed prior to the iOS 9 update.

Currently, despite many attempts to contact Apple to highlight this issue by, myself, and I'm sure also by many other iOS 9/9.0.2 users as well, there still appears to be no definitive resolution actioning from Apple. I am hoping that by widening the media coverage in addition to the above publishings by Macroumours and Forbes, may increase the chances of penetrating Apple's 'egg shell' and reach their 'yoke' level that will result in Apple acknowledging this to be a 'major' issue that requires swift attention.

At the moment, there are a significant number of iOS 9/9.0.2 users, possibly on a global scale, who have paid 'premium' prices for our devices that, basically, are not functioning as intended."

Users who are still running on iOS 8, you are the fortunate ones, stay on it!... D O N O T upgrade to iOS 9 yet!

Same problem on mine and wife's devices here in South Africa, thanks to those furthering the cause. Have sent feedback for each device. Been to two Apple stores who say they are not aware of the problem

See the posts in this thread from schoodle

AndroidEnvy wrote:

"Who knows how far off we may be from a resolution, but I'm just bit encouraged that at least now we are getting some visibility."

Good morning AndroidEnvy. We have no way of knowing and as Lawrence stated we should not expect seeing anything from Apple until they're ready to issue a release for the world to see, which is consistent with my own past experience with Apple. At this point we can't even tell if the operative question is "when" or "if" so we' have to let this play out.

I am encouraged on two particular areas posted on this forum.

First, it's pretty clear this an iOS9 issue. The clincher for me was a post yesterday describing how a user and his wife both using POP3 mail on identical iPhones with mail settings on their phones and other devices also identical, using the same ISP, had different results. One iPhone updated to iOS9 has all the email problems described here, while the other still on iOS8 continues to function problem free..

The second area is seeing an alternative reported to be a proven workaround which is use of a 3rd party mail app. Multiple posts report that Alta Mail, MyMail and ibisMail installed for POP accounts on devices running iOS9 all run free of the reported problems. These apps have been around for a while and I see them on the App Store and CNET.

I have not gone to a 3rd party app since the iPhone is not my primary email device and is rarely used for business. If I receive a photo or video that I want to keep I merely save it and it remains of the device irrespective of the email message no longer being available. My MacBook Pro is set to remove messages from the server so I have permanent access to those messages. A lot of folks use an iPhone or iPad for business in which case these issues can be huge headaches versus a minor annoyance as in my case. In that situation a 3rd party mail app definitely warrants consideration.

I agree with you that much of the info posted in this forum has been helpful. Thank you for your contributions and to everyone involved in this collaborative effort.

SailorJamie wrote:

"I work on ships and am often at sea, and spend weeks at a time with no data connectivity either from cellular data, or access to Wi-Fi (in ports), and not being able to refer back to my sent messages or my previously received messages on my iPhone is a real problem"

It remains undetermined whether these issues were caused by Apple's intentional action and from all that I've read it seems that more than likely is not the case. You obviously cannot afford to wait for Apple's fix so consider using one of the 3rd party mail apps that have been mentioned on this forum as a workaround. Apps mentioned include Alta Mail, MyMail and ibisMail. Good luck.

Yes, I am having the same issue with my New Zealand POP3 emails, which were working fine pre iOS9. I had them set up on my iPhone 6 plus and IPad Air 2 using "never delete from server" and run my emails onto to my iMac with "delete after 1 month" from the email server (Yahoo/XTRA). That used to work fine. My emails would download on each device. I would keep all the ones I wanted to on the iMac and the important work ones on my iPhone and iPad so I could refer back to them when not in my office.

Since I upgraded to iOS9 all my old emails previously stored on my iPhone and iPad now only have the title and maybe two lines of preview text with the main message showing "message not yet downloaded from server". So, no email and no attachments. Well they are old emails, and won't be on the server (the whole point of POP being to store your emails on your device....). They were on the devices, now they aren't. Looking under the usage settings the mail accounts are very small, suggesting that all my old emails have been deleted from my iPhone and iPad. This was the main reason I brought an iPhone and iPad, so that I could access my emails and attachments directly from the device. Now they are gone.

From a business perspective (I am a self employed Professional Engineer), this is a disastrous outcome. I now have a very expensive iPhone and iPad that has deleted years of important work information. I don't know yet whether the old emails can be restored from the iTunes backups I made before "upgrading" to iOS9.

For an upgrade to remove critical functionality is an awful outcome. Given the beta testing this is a major quality assurance fail and for me, casts significant doubts over the ability of Apple to provide reliable software upgrades. It pretty much means either an urgent fix from Apple (will the lost emails restore themselves from some locked memory...), a change to a different email app, or a change to another eco-system all together.

I doubt they will keep this under the carpet, it's a real shocker. Losing years of data through an upgrade promoted as removing bugs and improving performance. I guess so, if you like new emoticons, but if you are in the business of using your phones as work tools, not so much so. Really, very disappointed with this.

If you haven't "upgraded" to iOS 9, don't!

I've tried 2 alternatives - and neither worked for me. Alta Mail works like an IMAP account - so after you have downloaded and read email on your device and then go to an area with no reception (plane, ship or in my case 150km from the nearest town with reception) you get placeholders and the app tries to download the content again. It doesn't seem to store the email on your device.

i Also tried MyMail - downloaded the email to my iPad (& phone), later after the email was downloaded to my PC all the email disappeared from the iPad - not even a placeholder.

I'm going away mid week into heavy forest area - without phone reception - I'll need access to email content, as nothing on the iPad / iPhone seems to work since iOS9 (Apple or 3rd party apps) as a proper POP3 account, I'll take my smallish Windows 10 touch screen laptop - at least Outlook on Windows stills works correctly for POP3. Makes you wonder then why still have an iPad.......