Mail gets auto-deleted

[sherlockholmes76]

I recently upgraded to an iPad3 and it keeps deleting my emails. I'll have a few emails stored, and sometimes (but not always) when I open the program to either refresh my mail or to respond to a message, they'll just disappear. The only message that isn't deleted is a welcome letter from iCloud. Hmmm...

Thanks for any help...

 

[twerppoet]

Who is your email provider, and how to you have them set up: IMAP, POP, Exchange?

 

[sherlockholmes76]

I have a local service provider - North Dakota Telephone Company. I think it's set up as IMAP. I followed the path SETTINGS/MAIL, CONTACTS, CALENDAR/ACCOUNTS/GONDTC/IMP.

 

[twerppoet]

If you are set up as IMAP, an understanding of how it works, may help to explain things.

Everything is on the server. Whenever your email connects to the server it will update to reflect the server's status.

This means that if you deleted the email somewhere else, it may show briefly on the iPad, then go away as it deletes it from the iPad also.

If you leave a computer online and connected to the server, anything that happens on that computer will change the server; but those changes may not be reflected on the iPad until the next time you open Mail. It depends on whether the iPad gets to them first or the computer does.

Things that might do this are junk mail filters or rules that you've set up on the computer.

 

[sherlockholmes76]

This happens regardless of what is done on the main computer. Quite often, there are days that I don't even collect the mail on my computer, that I'll use my iPad exclusively. With my old iPad, I could accept and delete emails, and it had no effect on messages stored on the main computer. That is still the case. This issue of "auto-deletion" is occurring regardless of what happens on the main computer.

 

[twerppoet]

That does not sound like IMAP at all.

Two things to check then.

If you typically have more than 50 emails in your Inbox, in Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars, down in the Mail section, make sure you've got Show set to something higher.

Go to your account at the top of the Mail, Contacts, Calendars settings and open it. Check to see if there is a Mail Days to Sync setting. It defaults to 3 days. This is for an Exchange setup, not IMAP, but is the most common cause of emails disappearing.

You can also try a clean sweep approach.

Delete the account and add it again using the provider's instructions (hopefully on the support site).


That is all I can think of at the moment.

 

[sherlockholmes76]

So, my iPad 3 is still eating my email, and the problem has now also shown up on my iPod. There are also new folders in my folder list - #Help, #Trash (I'm sure there was a trash folder before - I just don't remember there being a #), and now there's a folder labeled #Lybeck. What the heck is #Lybeck? Should I be worried? Is this Lybeck a person?

 

[twerppoet]

That certainly sounds like an IMAP account, at least as far as syncing extra folders.

Why you are getting new folders that you've never set up is a mystery. The iPad would not do this on it's own. It can't.

I'm thinking you need to go to your provider's support page or contact them directly. Either this is something they are doing, or your account has been compromised. The second is unlikely (from your description of what is going on) but it wouldn't hurt to change your password.

You probably have a website that you can check your mail on. It wouldn't hurt to look at it and see if those folder exist, if there are any rules set up, and other settings that might be involved.

Good luck.