Problems with memory and mails

[LazarS]

Dear Friends,

I have an iPhone 4s/16GM running on iOS 7.0.4. for a couple of months.
Very soon after I have started using it I received a message that there was no more free memory on the card!

After I erased all the music and some photos, releasing over 3 GB, everything looked OK. But then I noticed another problem related to the memory card and free available memory.

In Settings/General/Usage I found that my Mails occupied 3.1 (very soon after that 3.8 GB) never mind that I have erased all read mail messages. And I did the same for all of my four accounts activated on the phone.

That was the reason to visit the mobile shop in my neighborhood. I do not know what they did there but my mail boxes were empty and memory occupied by mails was reduced to 611 MB. Quite nice!

Just a couple of hours later I noticed something very strange.
My phone started to download all mails from the server. Very soon, after just few hours, in all my mailboxes there were 1,763 mails!
At the same time, the space occupied on the card remained unchanged -611 MB.

When I tried to erase mails (one after another – I do not know how to do multiple mails erase) after erasing several hundred mails from one, although there were no more mails in it, it was written on the screen that 220 mails were in the mailbox!

The next strange thing followed: I received a message that erased mails could not be sent to the Trash!

What I did then?
I marked all mails (old and few just received) in all mailboxes as read and now they are in my mailboxes. Right now there are 1,044 mails. Still the space allocated on the memory card is 660 MB.

After all I have few questions:

- Does anyone know what is happening with my phone and memory allocation?
- Is there any way to type a command to erase multiple mails at once?
- What to do in order to prevent downloading from the server old mails already seen and read?

I hope that my explanation and my questions are clear enough. In case that due my inadequate English or insufficient description of the problem you need more let me know end I shall try to give additional information.

Your help will be really appreciated.
Thank you in advance.
Yours truly, Lazar Stanojevic

 

[LazarS]

Hello to everybody.
It seems like my questions were too difficult for everyone.

Well, I was trying to find solutions and partially I did.

I still do not have any explanation why I have this problem with memory allocation and with labeling of the number of unread messages.
But after a numerous attempts (read: deleting and reinserting and reactivating my mail accounts) this morning everything looks as it should be.

There are no more read and erased mails in my mailboxes. Space occupied on my memory card is below 60 MB and my phone is not downloading mails from the server.

What has happened, I do not know.
Why all this has happened, I do not know.

And just one minor thing - I have found instruction how to erase multiple mails with one command. Actually there is a process described in: How can I “Delete All” from Inbox or Sent mail folder in iOS?
Here is the link: http://apple.stackexchange.com/ques...ete-all-from-inbox-or-sent-mail-folder-in-ios .

But - my experience says: this does work but not always! Good luck to everybody.

 

[Meister]

You are in the wrong subforum.
This is for Macs. You want to post this in the appropriate iPhone subforum.

 

[LazarS]

You are in the wrong subforum.
This is for Macs. You want to post this in the appropriate iPhone subforum.

Dear Meister, thank you for the information.
Reading the instructions I found that we should post our questions to this one if we do not know exactly where to address them.

May I ask administrator to relocate my questions to the right place?
I would really like to get some answers and advices...

 

[Weaselboy]

May I ask administrator to relocate my questions to the right place?

I would really like to get some answers and advices...

[Mod Note]

I moved your thread over to one of the iPhone forums where your question should get more exposure.

 

[Cmd-Z]

In Settings/General/Usage I found that my Mails occupied 3.1 (very soon after that 3.8 GB) never mind that I have erased all read mail messages. And I did the same for all of my four accounts activated on the phone.

That was the reason to visit the mobile shop in my neighborhood. I do not know what they did there but my mail boxes were empty and memory occupied by mails was reduced to 611 MB. Quite nice!

Email itself does not take up much storage, even if they have attached files. It is only when you tap the attachment to download it that it takes up space, and over time this can really add up. If/when you delete an email with an attachment, if you downloaded the attachment it should get deleted too, but iOS doesn't seem to handle this well.

A solution to clear out these old attachments is to either restore your iPhone, or I've seen it work if you delete the mail account from the iPhone and then re-add it back onto the iPhone. Perhaps your local shop restored your iPhone and re-loaded your backup? That would have cleared up the space mail was occupying.

Just a couple of hours later I noticed something very strange.
My phone started to download all mails from the server. Very soon, after just few hours, in all my mailboxes there were 1,763 mails!
At the same time, the space occupied on the card remained unchanged -611 MB.

Depending on the type of mail account, you may not be able to control how far back your iPhone retrieves email in your Inbox, Sent, etc. But that is not a problem since (as above) attachments are what take up storage and that only becomes an issue when you specifically tap the attachment icon to download it. This is why your 1,763 emails still only occupied 611 MB, but once you start opening attachments you'll see Mail's usage increase.

 

[LazarS]

Email itself does not take up much storage, even if they have attached files. It is only when you tap the attachment to download it that it takes up space, and over time this can really add up. If/when you delete an email with an attachment, if you downloaded the attachment it should get deleted too, but iOS doesn't seem to handle this well.

A solution to clear out these old attachments is to either restore your iPhone, or I've seen it work if you delete the mail account from the iPhone and then re-add it back onto the iPhone. Perhaps your local shop restored your iPhone and re-loaded your backup? That would have cleared up the space mail was occupying.

Depending on the type of mail account, you may not be able to control how far back your iPhone retrieves email in your Inbox, Sent, etc. But that is not a problem since (as above) attachments are what take up storage and that only becomes an issue when you specifically tap the attachment icon to download it. This is why your 1,763 emails still only occupied 611 MB, but once you start opening attachments you'll see Mail's usage increase.

Many thanks, Cmd-Z, for your comments. But this does not explain what is really happening.
It is now three days after I finally set up the phone (deleting and reinstalling accounts). In the meantime I received a lot of mails on my four accounts (mainly spam ) and after all were read and deleted (one by one, one after another) and erased from the trash mailbox, I still have just 446 MB of the memory occupied by mails (which is good).

My problem is that I do not understand what has happened and when it might happen again. Why at one point my memory was full and why it is not now?

And still I think that it is a big shame for Apple and iOS that there is not a command for multiple mails deleting. Everybody who founds himself in the situation like I faced (to erase hundreds and hundreds of mails in a short time will understand this). The procedure which I have found on internet and which I referred to in my earlier post does not do the job (at least not in my case).