Suspicious e-mails popping up in Mail and how to get rid of them.

[deannnnn]

This is my 1,000th post here at MacRumors!

...so I thought I'd use it to share a strange little bug that I've come across on my iPhone 4 today.

When I opened up my Mail app, I noticed that I had (what it claimed to be) a new message with no sender, no subject, no body, and that was sent on December 31, 1969. It would let me select it (like in the first screenshot below) but it wouldn't let me open it, or delete it.

I closed Mail to see if the app was showing me a new notification for this message, which it was not. So I reopened the app just to find 3 more of these blank messages in there!

Several hours later I opened up Mail again, they were all still there, with new mail coming in with it. So I closed Mail, double tapped for the multi-tasking toolbar to come up, and closed out of Mail completely. Upon reopening, they were gone, and haven't been back since.

Anyone else have this happen?
I searched and didn't see any other threads about it.
Just thought I'd share

 

[Geckotek]

What's the source account? Gmail?

 

[TSX]

I have yahoo and it does the same thing, there was a thread on this yesterday.

 

[deannnnn]

What's the source account? Gmail?

No it's an IMAP account with NYU.

I figured the problem must be specific to the iPhone though since a) the messages didn't show up in Mail on my Mac and b) they went away upon force quitting the app.

 

[deannnnn]

I have yahoo and it does the same thing, there was a thread on this yesterday.

Sorry, it was a tough thing to search for.
Post the link!

 

[Geckotek]

No it's an IMAP account with NYU.

I figured the problem must be specific to the iPhone though since a) the messages didn't show up in Mail on my Mac and b) they went away upon force quitting the app.

I'm guessing they will be listed at the bottom of your mail account w/ NYU if they have a 1969 date. I've seen this before w/ badly formed spam messages.

To find the thread isn't difficult at all. I just searched "1969".

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/950019/

 

[dgstan]

Yes, I had this problem. The thing is, you can't read the emails or delete them, so they always show up as "unread" and the the number bubble always shows on the mail icon.

I have a Yahoo email account and these emails do not show up in the normal computer-based email browser. I managed to get rid of the offending emails by deleting the account off the iPhone and adding it back.

I have a feeling that this might be related to the new "threaded" option. I have disabled that and we'll see if I get any more of them.

 

[WhySoSerious]

Same problem for me.

I'm on MobileMe, recieved a couple of these phantom emails, couldn't read/delete them.

Solution for me was to go to settings/mail and turn off mail/sync; reboot the iphone; turn on mail/sync and problem was resolved.

 

[Fuchal]

Yeah, there's some bugs in Mail 4.0

The quickest way to fix this is to force-quit Mail -

Hold down the Power button until the power off switch appears, then let go and hold down the Home button until the home screen appears.

 

[gb7]

You can also just open up the multitasking bar, hold any icon until the - symbol appears then quit the mail app by clicking the -.

When you reopen mail those 1969 emails will be gone.

 

[SAD*FACED*CLOWN]

doesen't this happen when the emails aren't completely downloaded to your phone?