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Help Old emails become "unread" again

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Android Question

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Hello,

On my Samsung Note 3, stock Android 5.1, I use the standard Email app for managing my 5 e-mail accounts.
4 of them work perfectly, but 1 account does a strange thing.

Situation: all e-mails are downloaded and have been read. A new e-mail (on that 1 strange account ) comes in, I read it, I delete it, and by the next synchronization, the OLDEST email ( from that 1 account ) which was already previously downloaded and read, comes in as a new email and is marked unread again. If I delete 2 new mails, 2 old mails reemerge. Etc. etc.
Sometimes, for no apparent reason, lots and lots ( sometimes more then 100 ) of old emails reemerge as new mail and are marked unread again.
Every time this happens, I have to scroll all the way down to mark them read again.
All accounts are setup the same, but only this one ( the standard mail account ) shows this behavior.

Anyone have an idea what this is and/or know what to do about it?

Thanks in advance!
Grtz Tim
 
I would complain to the host of that account.
I just can't fathom that the phone is the problem.

What happens to this same account if you access it from a PC?

and, have you tried temporarily to use a different email app on that particular email account to observe the action with it?

I personally prefer Type mail, used to be called Blue Mail.... never could understand why they changed the name.

* Blue Mail - Email App - Android Apps on Google Play
 
I've had this phone for 2 years and this just became an issue a couple of months ago. I didn't do any update or changed anything, it just happened out of nowhere.
Factory reset and 5.0 > 5.1 lollipop didn't help. I've also deleted the whole account and added it again, no difference.

PC works fine with this account. I'v got an own domainname and use 5 emailadresses, and only this one is acting up.

I haven't tried a different app, but I will do that tonight! Thx!
 
It's IMAP already.

I've tried the Type Mail app. It doesn't seem to mark old mails as unread again after deleting a new mail, but after your security warning, I rather not download all my mails...! Thanks for the warning! I will be deleting the app again.
 
Okay, this is new: I've downloaded the mails of the last 3 days with Type Mail and deleted 19 of them ( apparently deleted them from the server, even though it's an IMAP account and the settings only allow server deletion with pop3 account.... right... ). Now after synchronizing with the standard app, I get, you guessed it, 19 new "old" mails marked unread!
 
It sounds to me like you have not marked all emails as read, and you have a download limit
( 25 is default I think ). When you delete an email, it just downloads another to reach the maximum
you have set in the settings for that account.
 
Well, it was fun as long as it lasted... Aquamail is a pretty good app, it has some nice features and I was willing to pay for the full version so I could manage all 5 accounts, but even Aquamail has now marked old emails as unread and presented them as new mails... ( I only added the account with the problem ).

No idea why this sudden change, like the original app, it was working fine!
 
Well, at this point I've gotta agree with what AZgl1500 said in post #2, basically, that I don't see how the phone could be the problem and you should take this up with your domain provider.

a. You have, as I understand it, 5 accounts, all from your domain provider and I assume all exactly the same except for the username.
b. Only one has a problem and only when communicating with mobile email clients. With a computer all is OK.
c. You trashed the troublesome Samsung app and tried Type Mail, which while I wouldn't use it because it's cloud-based, it does work pretty reliably. And you tried AquaMail, which is as rock-solid as they come.
d. I don't think glc has a valid point with his reply (sorry glc). I know for sure AquaMail doesn't do that.
e. It used to work for years and still does for 4 of 5 accounts. So setup must be correct.

Put all that together and simple logic says that you've eliminated the phone and email apps as the problem. Your service provider has to fix this on his end - needs to clear cache files or has file corruption, something is not right.
 
Well, after a lot of contact with my provider, they say that they aren't the problem... or at least can't help me with this.

Aquamail is a very good app, but even this app sometimes marks old mails as unread... but it's very random and not so annoying as the Samsung mail with every deleted mail.

I think I will have to live with this for now... hopefully only until I get a new phone somewhere begin next year and this problem won't come back.
 
I don't think you ever said who your email provider is, but it's fairly certain at this point that the problem is theirs. If different email apps didn't fix it a new phone won't either.

If I were you I'd bug 'em some more and if they refuse to investigate further I'd change email services.
 
I've got 2 domains from www.helderhosting.nl and they also include use of your own emailadresses and with one of those 5 I've got this problem with.

It happends with old mails from 2014 and they say they don't have any logs of those files anymore, so they can't see what's happening...
They also said that the server always listens to the client, so their server won't push new old mails to my phone, which kind of sounds logical.

What I also don't get is why the email apps ( both of them ) don't load all the mails, even though the settings say "total mails".
The Samsung app goes back to august 2014 ( 1337 mails ) and Aquamail goes back to 24 december 2014 ( 1008 mails )
 
The fact that all is well with all but one account indicates that unless you have something setup differently about that one account than all the others and have repeated the same mistake every time you set that account up, which at this point is highly unlikley, things are correct on your end and their email software has a problem with that one account. If it was on your end, either your email app or your setup, all of the accounts would exhibit the same problem that the one count does. It's only logical.

Unless...it was your fault or your email app. Because you added something new about this problem. Now you said:
MetallicatTim said:
It happends with old mails from 2014 and they say they don't have any logs of those files anymore, so they can't see what's happening...
Click to expand...
That kinda changes things. You never said before that it was email from a specific time period only. I assumed it was happening to any email, be it very old or very recent. So now I assume - correctly this time I hope - that the problem is only with email from a certain time period in 2014. Correct?

If so, the problem could be there was a failure in communication between your email client and the email server resulting in improper setting of the read 'flag' on the problem emails and that error has never been resolved in subsequent mail passes. IOW, apparently the read flag or tag is stuck. This could have been caused by your email client or a glitch in the server software. In this case, especially since the Samsung email apps are buggy pieces of trash, I would be inclined to believe your app is the guilty party.

They also said that the server always listens to the client, so their server won't push new old mails to my phone, which kind of sounds logical.
Click to expand...
Well, of course it listens. But the server is still pushing old 2014 emails because the read flag is borked on those emails. It doesn't know any better. That's my best guess anyway.

What I also don't get is why the email apps ( both of them ) don't load all the mails, even though the settings say "total mails".
The Samsung app goes back to august 2014 ( 1337 mails ) and Aquamail goes back to 24 december 2014 ( 1008 mails )
Click to expand...
I don't know where you see "total mails" in AquaMail. But you can set it to load any amount of mail by number of emails or by date of emails. Do this:

1. Long-press on the account titlebar to enter 'Account settings'.
2. Tap 'Account options'.
3. Tap 'Messages to sync'.
4. Choose a number of emails to sync or date to sync.
5. Get outta settings.
6. Tap the arrow circle in the account titlebar.

It should sync the specified emails.
Can't help you with the Samsung email app, sorry. Never owned a Samsung and never will.
 
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