iPhone mail suddenly downloaded thousands of old mail!

UPDATE - This theoretically "Fixed" it for me for the moment (going to each server and moving all mail from the inboxes to a new folder called iPhone fiasco), but I don't know that's really a fix.

I have no idea what caused the iPhone to do this, and it can't be the servers, because they are all different on different hosts, and some that are corporations like embark/centurylink or gmail. It is definitely an iPhone issue.

Even when I delete emails, it still shows hundreds of emails in the red badge count and in the overall "inbox" on the iPhone even though when you look at the inboxes of individual accounts they are empty. When you trash emails, they appear to be gone from the inbox, but the count remains in the red badge and the overall "inbox"….. then after a while the trash will "download" a count of what I deleted. Meaning: the phone seems to have an enormous amount of time recognizing that emails have been moved from the inbox to the trash and then recognizing they have been deleted - many times putting the emails BACK into the inbox ⚠ If the overall inbox shows a count of emails, when you look, they are ghosted light grey in color, have crazy impossible dates (like 1969 or 2000) and say "no content" - but they remain in the inbox count.

For the record, I do not open weird emails or attachments so I can't imagine this is a virus - no idea where that would come from magically, since I was doing NOTHING with the phone all day - it sits on my desk waiting for me to leave! LOL!!!!!

I've never had any problem with my iPhones and this one is only 2 months old running the newest iOS. So weird!!!!!!!

I hope this helps someone else…..

Thank you all for helping me!

Hi Jen - I hope it works for you. Just a note - I don't know that you have to mark all the emails on your server as "read" - if there are ones that you want to keep as Unread by all means do that.

I believe (just guessing from my experiences!) that whatever is in the Inbox is what downloads to a new mail account set up on an iPhone. Unless of course you are setting it up as IMAP instead of POP. I believe IMAP makes the server and all other devices mimic each other. So I assume if you made a folder on your server called "Money" and moved emails into it, that folder would also appear on your device (and visa versa). I DO NOT use IMAP so I can't swear by this, but managing my boss' wife's email on her iPad (which is a gmail account) makes me believe so.

If you IMAP, even if you "read" the mail, it will download on your phone to mimic the set up on the IMAPed server. So if you have an inbox with 1,000 emails in it on the server, that will try and come onto your phone. If they appear "read" on your server, they will on your device.

I prefer POP because I use my phone to see if I got answers, or have a check on email at all times, but I can delete on the phone and then its still waiting for me when I get home or work.

Hope I'm making sense. I have no idea why Apple took away the ability a couple of years ago to choose "only show 50 emails" on the phone as it was quite handy.

My suspicion is that the vast majority of users are younger generation who don't care about keeping every documentary email for the past decade. For someone like me with a legal and admin background, I keep everything! And for the last 30 years I've been used to using my Inbox as a "to do" list. When I'm done I delete or file it to a mail folder for keeping. So I never have an Inbox with 500,000 emails in it, but know many people who do...

Hope this helps you!!!! Good luck 🙂