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?

Haven't bought a new Mac, haven't bought the new Apple TV. Using my iPad as a paper-weight.

The iPad I bought is now no longer fit for pupose as sold - as a consequence of Apple intentionally or advertently introducing something in the IOS9 release.

Will be buying a Microsoft Surface Pro 4.

There are at least 10 seperate threads on this forum that appear to be concerned with this problem. A problem which some "level" users still deny exists. Think I'll create a list and send to Apple via the feedback link.

The pattern that occurs on my machine is anything with a graphic disappears. I have several long text messages that are months old, some with links, but no actual graphics. The IPad keeps them. So could the email bug be Apple's rude and crude way of managing Pop emails and also insuring a small footprint for its new upgrade feature? Does this pattern hold for others? Is it with some or all graphics fIles?

If this is true it seems yet another indication that in making upgrades less painful Apple has sacrificed Pop. As we now near the first of December nothing from the beta testers of IOS 1.2 seems to indicate it is fixed.

Another interesting tidbit that does not bode well for Pop users. Virtually no reviews of the new IPad Pro mention the issue. Apple has acknowledged various issues with the Pro and has fixed them or is working to fix them. But not email. Apple has labeled us as troublesome whiners. Posting on this site has gotten us nowhere. The tactic needs to be to post on every Pro review site that permits comments and remind people the Pro will not work if you have Pop. The Spotify folks are getting more traction than we are.

That's close to my experience - however, I think it's anything that has a link to an external resource that would normally be displayed in your email that is being subject to being 'tidied off' your device on the assumption that it can be retrieved/ refreshed when you're online. Graphics are displayed when they are inline in the html of the received email, like the Amazon order updates I get. Text emails with URL references alone are fine since the url reference isn't accessed till you touch/click on them. Attachments seem to cause the email to be tidied as well, even though logically they're akin to simple URL references, but there might be an assumption there that attachments tend to be larger and so shouldn't be held on your device, again perhaps because they can be retrieved online.

i don't hold to the small footprint for upgrade notion as that should only impact when we do infrequent o/s upgrades - this supposed bug seems more in the vein of device storage parsimony and the notion we're always online and therefore can always retrieve content. But who knows? Apple will never tell us...

Just chiming in. The problem is REAL. I don't care to rant (Apple is not the devil, my devices are not just paperweights, etc.). I just want it fixed.

Until it is fixed, my advice is to just keep your email on your service providers server and access via a web client and/or download to a device/computer that permanently stores your message and any attachments. I download mine to my MacBook using Mozilla Thunderbird. It's inconvenient, but that's the best I can do until Apple takes care of the problem.

Exactly my finds as well.

The only mails that are unaffected are plain text or those with a hyperlink - any other mails will at some point disappear.

The timeframe for them disappearing also appears to be getting shorter - it's now a matter of less than 6 hrs. I've specifically tested this today with a mail account that has nothing more than 12 emails (all notifications from Apple Community forum related to this thread). As far as any pattern goes - I haven't worked it out. All Mails tested were notifications to this thread... example: mail received at 4pm - is OK, one mail processed at 4:30 disappears, next mail at 5:00pm is OK, another mail at 5:30 disappears - mail at 6pm is OK. All the mails are basically the same notification message from same source, same format, just marginally different size.

When a service provider (in this case Apple) fails to delivery the level of service or goods that I expect or was sold, then I have a right to state my disappointment.

I want tools that work. I don't want to spend my time on bug analysis, fixing and workarounds. As a customer I choose who to spend my hard earned cash with. I choose suppliers who at least appears like they care.

For whatever reason, mail doesn't work the same on IOS9 as it worked previously. I don't really care why. Apple have failed to acknowledge this - whether by design or oversight doesn't really matter. What does matter is acknowledgment. Fixing the issue would be a bonus.

I'll give it this though - it makes a jolly good paperweight.

I use a POP3 account myself. My emails starting disappearing after the update to iOS9. I've read every offered solution in these Apple forums and all the other websites that discuss this issue. Nothing works. I'm really surprised this issue has been going on for two months now and Apple has not openly addressed it. This is a major issue of functionality for many people. I'm not sure I believe the theory that Apple is tying to get people off POP3 and on to IMAP, I don't see the point. From what I understand IMAP needs to be connected to the internet whenever you want to view an email, new or old? I don't understand why some people think POP3 is outdated and IMAP is the way to go. What if I have an iPhone and a MBP and I want copies of emails on both devices, but also be able to delete certain emails from either device without it affecting the other device? I also want to view ALL my emails even when I'm not "online", such as when traveling and my phone is in airplane mode or I'm somewhere where there's no wifi access. Believe or not, there are places like that which still exist on the planet. So before iOS9 I could be off the grid somewhere and look up an old email on my phone that had an address or whatever in it, and I would be able to read the entire email and see any attachments. Now, in that same situation, all I get is

"message not yet downloaded from server".

Flophouse wrote:

"I don't understand why some people think POP3 is outdated and IMAP is the way to go. What if I have an iPhone and a MBP and I want copies of emails on both devices, but also be able to delete certain emails from either device without it affecting the other device. I also want to view ALL my emails even when I'm not "online"

Roger that.

In my research on the problem I ran into an ominous note on the ICoud site. It now plainly states I cloud will no longer support Pop email. I hope this is not what is in store for Pop O IOS 9.2. But the paranoid side of me sees us as reluctant rats in an experiment to see how much ruckes there is about dropping Pop from IOS 9.1. So far no reviewer has pointed this out as a glitch in the Pro and with the exception of this site protests are muted. I predict 9. 2 will announce the end of Pop support with the mea culpa that "we tried" and suggest Pop 3 users go elsewhere. The risk they run is we will go to some other manufacturer. As a loyal Apple user I will wait for the new laptops coming out early nest year. My existing IPad will be traded in.

THe irony in all this that in touting the pro as a substitute for a laptop they will have driven us back to laptops.

Re iCloud and Pop, I did a quck Google to read what you say and straight away came across some forum entries saying that iCloud didn't support Pop as far back as Dec 13 and maybe even earlier, so I don't think this is something new

iCloud not supporting POP should not be of consequence. iCloud backs up the mail app and its settings but not the mail itself.

I don't even use iCloud myself, if that's the cause. If Apple doesn't support POP anymore then fine, state it to everyone, so we can move on. HOWEVER, that still leaves two major issues. One, for people who still want or need to access older email content when traveling or outside an internet zone how is this possible? Two, if the Apple Mail app doesn't do this then you are pushing your customers to download 3rd party apps to do a job that should be the most basic thing on a smartphone. The workarounds I've read about including copy and paste email content to your notes or archive the email before it disappears are stupid.

I take photos with my phone and they sit there for as long as I decide to keep them, regardless of internet connection. Why is it so hard, or so bad, or outdated to want a tiny sized text file to stay in my email until I don't need it anymore?

Doesn't ANYONE read threads before posting? You can learn amazing things by reading first:

• No one in this thread or any other message thread on this forum is pushing customers to do anything. We are all users; Apple is not present and doesn't read most messages.
• There are plenty of 3rd party email apps that are better than the built in email. Why should Apple care what app you use?
• It's a BUG, and it will be fixed in the next update. There's no conspiracy here.
• To expand on the 2nd item, all Apple apps are very basic, and there are better apps for almost any function available in the app store (Calendar, contacts, notes, calculators, weather, stocks, cameras, etc; even phone calls). This is smart of Apple, because it means they aren't competing with app developers. As a result there are over a million iPhone apps from 3rd party developers.

I actually have read all the posts, here and elsewhere. But that solved nothing, for me or anyone else still with this issue. I started reading posts about his issue two months ago and I've never once written about it in a single forum anywhere until today. I've just dealt with the crappy Mail app the last two months thinking an update would fix it, but it hasn't happened.