Emails from 2016 to Present Disappeared?

[julesme]

Hey everyone - Apologies if this has been discussed. A family member asked me for help, as her emails from 2016 to present suddenly disappeared in the Mail app Inbox on her iPhone 6s as well has her old iPad Air. The emails (from Gmail) are still visible in the Gmail app as well as on her iMac from within Gmail in the Safari browser. Also - if she searches for a specific topic, the missing emails show up in the search. They still are NOT visible in Inbox, though.

I assume it’s some kind of syncing issue...I’ve checked all the other folders in the Mail app, such as “All Mail” and “Trash” etc and the emails aren’t there, either.

Also, she just bought the new iPad Air 10.5 yesterday, imported her accounts, and the emails are still missing on her brand new iPad. New emails DO show up as they come in, however (such as emails from today).

Any ideas? Thanks!!

 

[ventmore]

When you search and it finds one of the missing emails, open the email, and it should tell you underneath the subject and date, in which account and folder the email is located.

 

[julesme]

When you search and it finds one of the missing emails, open the email, and it should tell you underneath the subject and date, in which account and folder the email is located.

I just checked - When I search, the missing emails say they are in the “All Mail” folder, but they aren’t. If I scroll through All Mail, they aren’t there.

Has anyone else experienced this? I deleted her Gmail account from iPad and iPhone, then re-added it (forcing Mail to pull the emails again from Gmail), but it didn’t solve the problem.

 

[ventmore]

I just checked - When I search, the missing emails say they are in the “All Mail” folder, but they aren’t. If I scroll through All Mail, they aren’t there.

Has anyone else experienced this? I deleted her Gmail account from iPad and iPhone, then re-added it (forcing Mail to pull the emails again from Gmail), but it didn’t solve the problem.

I’ve just added one of my gmail accounts to my iPhone to test this out.

Inbox under gmail is only showing mail back to January, but the “All Mail” box under gmail is currently showing mail back to December, and is pulling more in as I scroll...albeit very slowly. There are however over 45k emails in the account, so that could be why it’s so slow for me.

Update: it won’t pull any more in before December 5. I’ll leave it overnight and let you know tomorrow if it lets me go back any further.

 

[julesme]

I’ve just added one of my gmail accounts to my iPhone to test this out.

Inbox under gmail is only showing mail back to January, but the “All Mail” box under gmail is currently showing mail back to December, and is pulling more in as I scroll...albeit very slowly. There are however over 45k emails in the account, so that could be why it’s so slow for me.

Update: it won’t pull any more in before December 5. I’ll leave it overnight and let you know tomorrow if it lets me go back any further.

Cool, thanks!! In the meantime, until I find a solution, we’re using the Gmail app as a workaround.

 

[ventmore]

Cool, thanks!! In the meantime, until I find a solution, we’re using the Gmail app as a workaround.

After sitting on the charger overnight, mine seems to have settled down. I can now scroll through the inbox folder, and as I get to the bottom of the list, it’ll drag in more emails as it should. The all mail folder is also working the same. I scrolled all the way back to 2015 without any problems.

Is there a chance that you have “archived” the mail that’s missing from your inbox? If I archive an email, it’ll disappear from inbox and only show in all mail.

 

[Polydactyl]

Cool, thanks!! In the meantime, until I find a solution, we’re using the Gmail app as a workaround.

I experienced this problem last week after accidentally made a mail filter rule that moved all my inbox email to a subfolder. Once I moved it back to the inbox, I could see the missing messages on my mac and iCloud, but not on iPad or iPhone.

What worked for me was to scroll all the way to the bottom of my inbox, and then a portion of the old messages would download and reappear in my inbox. The moment the message reload, you will no longer be at the bottom of the inbox, and have to scroll again. This was counterintuitive, since the emails being reloaded were recent, and the emails at the bottom of my inbox were from many years ago. I had to do this 20-30 times before all the old emails were visible. Hope this helps.

 

[julesme]

Really helpful, thanks! I just found the roughly 4,000 missing emails in the “Important” folder. For some reason, they aren’t in the “All Mail” folder. I’m going to check the desktop version of Gmail to see if some rule was created that moved them to Important. Strange but at least now we know where to find them.

Also good tip about scrolling to the bottom. It definitely forces a refresh (though they still weren’t showing up in All Mail or Inbox).

 

[ventmore]

I have around 7k emails which have been deemed important by gmail and are therefore shown in the important folder. Those emails are however, also shown in inbox and all mail.

I believe gmail doesn’t actually move emails, it just adds labels to them so they show in different folders. That’s why I can have the same email in inbox, all mail, and important.

I still think those 4K emails have been archived. If that’s the case then you need to move (I know what I just said ) them back to your inbox.

They absolutely should be showing in all mail, because, as the title suggests, it should show all mail no matter where it is within your gmail account.

Anyway, you should be able to select the emails and move them to your inbox. Probably quicker to do this through your computers browser than your phone.

Edit: Scrolling to the bottom wasn’t working for me last night, but as I said, after a night on the charger, it’s working as it should.