Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

some older Mail marked as unread

jdw13

jdw13

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 2, 2015
199
58
Boston, Maine, Chile
I am using M1 Mac Air running latest MacOS Tahoe 26.0.1 and Mail Version 16.0 (3864.100.1.1.5).
Yesterday, I noticed many older emails from late August and early September* have been newly marked as unread.
The emails are on folders on the Apple Mail server, so perhaps something happened on the servers.
Has anyone else noticed this?

* Seems approx 24-Aug-2025 to 6-Sep-2025
Some of them could possible by deleted emails that reappeared.
 
Last edited:
jdw13 said:
Yesterday, I noticed many older emails from late August and early September* have been newly marked as unread.
Click to expand...
Select the mailbox in the left sidebar and then select menu Mailbox > Rebuild (at the bottom)
 
Had not thought of that. Online I see only the current email, but the online header agrees with the local header reporting 14 messages and 14 unread (12 from late August- early September). Locally I see 14 messages, but online only 2.
Here is local on Mac and online:



Local_on_Mac.png
Online.png
 
The issue persists after
  1. Time Machine backup
  2. use of Onyx to delete the existing Mailbox index in Mail
  3. reboot
  4. start Mail and wait for all the Mail to sync and get get reloaded
but if I mark exiting mail that I can see online read/unread on my Mac the status is quickly reflected in the Web view of my Mail.

I don't know how to see if the messages in question are on the Server but not visible or if they are only on my local Macintosh. They are at least local because I can view them on the Mail app locally on the Macintosh. If I delete one of the 'unseen' messages on my computer, the counter in the online web Mail view changes consistently with the Mac-locl view of the Mail.

Also, for messages viewable both on Web page and local Mail, I can mark read/unread from either end and both ends update and agree. Also if I delete such 'both visible' messages from either end, both ends update and agree but the 'web-invisible' messages deleted from the Mac just change the Mailbox counters.

P.S. Mailbox/Syncronize/iCloud does not change the status. Mail messages seen locally are still not seen on the web page mail https://www.icloud.com/mail/.
 
Last edited:
I think I finally understand what is going on. The messages may not really be on the server even though the message statistics seem to include them ins "X Messages, N unread." So the bug is either:
  1. The Web-page iCloud Mail header of "X Messages, N unread" is wrong
  2. The messages are on the server but not being shown.
The following seems to indicate the bug option "1" is more likely because:
  • missing messages appear on Mac in On My Mac / Recovered Messages (iCloud) -- On My Mac
  • On Mac Mail, I can copy or move 'missing' message from "Recovered" to my inbox and see it in the Web-page Mail
  • On Mac Mail, I can move 'missing' message from "Recovered" to my iCloud Lowes Mailbox in Mail Application and see it in the Web-page Mail
  • BUT, on my Mac Mail, if I copy 'missing' message from "Recovered" to my iCloud to my iCloud Lowes Mailbox in Mail Application I DO NOT see it appear in the Web-page Mail
So, from macOS Tahoe Mail application, the "move" from Recovered to the Mailbox to the Mailbox seen in the App makes the Web-page and Application consistently agree and show the message but "copy" does not.

From Mail App, both "move" and "copy" to the Inbox seem to work as expected when going from "Recovered" to "Inbox."

I plan to report this Apple.
 
From time to time -- not often, but once in a while -- I've seen a similar issue.
That is... a few messages, already read, show up as UNread.

My remedy is another "Fishrrman dumb solution™":
I click on each of them as if to "read them" again and make the "unread" markers disappear.
Done.
 
Last edited:
Bug has been reported to Apple via feedback with ID "FB20819878" for MacOS and Subject
"inconsistency between Mail Application on Macintosh and Web iCloud Mail"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back