Spotlight displaying deleted emails

Spotlight search displays deleted emails. All of them. Followed various suggestions incuding syncing with itunes, powering down and up again, but the messages keep appearing in spotlight results (titles only: if i tap on a deleted email, spotlight takes me to the correct mailbox, but the email is still deleted and no longer visible. How do I delete whatever data spotlight is picking up?

You can't. I opened an Expresslane AppleCare case with Apple about this a few days ago, and they confirmed that this is how it works (maybe just sometimes, who knows). It's the same on my iPad and (I think) on my wife's iPhone.
You need to restore the phone to get rid of it.
I explained how this is really broken... it gives search results that don't actually exist, and it's also a potential privacy invasion (anyone using Spotlight Search on your phone can see who you have emailed, the subject line, and some of the text). And, of course, it makes a real search difficult because actual results are buried in hundreds of fake results.
The support tech really had to twist his words to keep from admitting that this is a bug, but I did get him to agree that it is a broken system. However, there was nothing he could do about it.
It's a bug. Plain and simple, a bug. And it's been in existence for years and years, according to what I've read.

Similar Messages

Spotlight resurrects deleted emails

I delete on a regular basis certain emails. However, spotlight find the deleted email and they come back to life. Usually when you hold the mouse over the file in spotlight it will tell you the name and path. If you know the path you can delete the file. However, with these resurrected emails there is no path. Please help delete these files.

Presumably that happens because Spotlight is not searching your actual files, but only an index of files that it fails to keep up to date.
Despite what some say, Spotlight is evidently not capable of keeping up.

Search is showing deleted emails

The new search feature in 3.0 is displaying deleted emails that have been emptied from the trash. The same emails are not accessible at all from within the Mail program. I thought this was an issue when upgrading the system, but after a complete restore, without copying anything from a backup, the same thing is happening. Any way to permanently delete emails from memory so they do not show in spotlight search?

Recently upgraded to 3.01 and using spotlight search I've noticed the same. Maybe this explains why I'm sure my phone is slowing-up. Spoke to apple tech support today and I was told that the next O.S release will include something to remedy this and make it possible to clear the cache. I was informed they have been trying to resolve this issue and the O.S release is due later this month (Sept 09). The other suggestion given by tech support of restoring as a new phone seems a ridiculous way to sort this out - I'll wait for the new release. Just doing a restore will reload the previous info back on from the backup. Naming/restoring as a new phone will effectively mean there is no backup available to go onto the phone once it is totally erased. Hope this helps and makes sense

Does spotlight display in date order?

So when spotlight displays deleted text messages, are these in any particular order?

A bug was reported in RoboHelp 8 where date fields with alpha characters show as Feb etc in the dialog and do not update on adding to a topic or forced update. Numeric dates appear to be correct on adding to a topic.
This was found to be a a problem only when the month is September. I am wondering if this is one of those curios that has been around for a long time but no one has spotted it before.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
@petergrainge

Stop deleted emails from showing up in Spotlight on iPhone 4s

Has anyone found a way to clear the cache yet from spotlight search on the iPhone? I know you can disable spotlight from bringing up the mail, but if it's turned back on the deleted emails show backup. As the phone is used by multiple people we want to be able to clear everything without doing a factory reset.

I have tried going into settings>general>spotlight search> and unchecking messages and mail so they dont show up in my spotlight search but this could presumably be amended and then back to square. Is there anyway text message can be permanently deleted from the phone?

Q10 IMAP deleted emails displaying on my email list on my Lexus Enform

This is an issue.
With the Lexus enform you can bluetooth connect your Q10 and read IMAP emails in your car.
That is a nice feature. However, something happens with the Blackberry email app and the bluetooth enform connection.
When you delete all your IMAP messages from the Blackberry Q10 so there are no messsages in your inbox those deleted messages are still viewable on your car.
So the Bluetooth is still displaying deleted IMAP emails on the Lexus. How do I delete these emails so they do not continue to display on the Lexus. The Lexus email list is getting long of old read emails.
Comments and ideas?????

ask Hotmail.

Deleted emails show up again in spotlight

When I type a few characters in spotlight, very old emails show up. I clicked it and it opened the mail.app and the email is still there in a freestanding box. I am unable to delete it however. I have tried several things. rebuilding mailbox. deleting and adding the account back into the mail.app. rebuilding spotlight. Nothing. Even in spotlight, when I click on show in finder, select the files, delete them and then empty the trash, they still keep showing up. Isn't it a security flaw that Apple should adress, as it seems is has been going on for quite awhile? Ia there a way to delete them once and for good?
It doesn't have anything to do with the OS.

I'm using Mavericks here and I have the same problem.
After I decided to NOT use Mail and deleting all my mail accounts from my mac, spotlight still finds all my emails and open them with no problem with Mail app, even tho it has no accounts and no folders in it.

Spotlight on Iphone 4 showing deleted emails

When I use spotlight for various searches, it shows email messages which I have already deleted. Although when you select them it takes you to the folder the message was originally stored in, but the message is not there.
The messages are not in any trash folder or deleted messages folder either on the iphone itself or on the server. It doesn't seem to matter whether it's a POP account or IMAP account.
There are also a number of messages which can be read - these seem to be ones that I have written or started to write, but not actually sent (could have been saved as a draft - but again nothing in the draft folders). You get taken to and can read the full email from being selected in spotlight, but is not stored anywhere in my mail folders.
I'm running the latest version of iOS 5.1.
Is there anyway to either reset the spotlight cache, or delete the cache to remove all these "deleted" emails from spotlight. I have searched many forums, but to no avail.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Andy

I was able to contact a company that has a similar app as ierase. Now I understand the issue. These programs do overwrite "free space." But, WITHIN various apps, including email, there are files that basically point you to the data by saving a line or two (in the case of emails) in the application itself. This is called a "cache." These files live in the apps, not the free space. It's important because that's how computers know how to "remember" stuff for you so you can search, etc. BIG BUT: iPhone does not allow you to remove the cache or specific items from it. Android phones seem to have this setting. Your computer has this capability. But your iphone does not. The only way to remove information from the cache is to do a complete restore and not back up with iTunes. Puleese tell me if I'm wrong.
Think of it as a file cabinet. The top drawer has the operating system files that don't get touched unless there is an update of the operating system, e.g. to 5.1.1. The second drawer contains all your applications, with subfolders for each one. The subfolders contain a whole lotta flags (often called placeholders). These flags say: go to file drawer 3 and look up such and such. File drawer 3 i is your free space where all the stuff you do is stored. If you go to file drawer 2 and remove the flags, the system doesn't where to look for stuff in file drawer 3. You can add and remove files from drawer 3, or zero out the data, but the flags are still hanging around in drawer 2. You get my drift. I'm so right brained...
This is my basic understanding of why this problem is so widespread. It would be nice if Apple could allow cache editing.

Spotlight Search showing deleted emails

After loaded IOS6 - now when I do a "Search Iphone" using spotlight search I see emails from my Gmail account that were COMPLETLY deleted over 3 weeks ago (about 10 of them). This occurs even AFTER COMPLETLY cleaning out ALL Gmail folders (which they were when I downloaded the update)
How can I delete from this permanently search? Where could they be "hiding" on the Iphone..... Archive is shut of (and always has been). again ALL MY gmail folders are COMPLETLY empty.
Tried deleting Gmail account from phone and did a power down and reboot AFTER deleting Gmail account from phone too! yes... cleared history & cookies in Safari too.

I've been having the same problem with deleted emails showing up in Spotlight on iOS 6.0.2 (iPhone 5) so I did some experiments. (I'm using an IMAP account, not POP, and all my folders are on the server.)
There are actually two different problems (three if you count people who don't check all their account folders so the message is just tucked away in a place they didn't think to look).
The first problem occurs when you compose a message but don't hit Send, then hit Cancel, hit Save Draft, go back to the draft, and send it. Then you go to the Sent folder and delete the message and go to the Trash and delete it there. Now it doesn't show up anywhere in any account folder. But, if you go to Spotlight and search for something in the message, it will appear and you can bring it up and send it again. Mail is obviously squirreling away the draft in a place where it can't be deleted. Nothing short of a backup, reset, and restore will get rid of it.
The second problem occurs when you delete a message from a folder and then go the Trash and delete it there. If you immediately go to Spotlight, you'll see a "ghost" message: it's in Spotlight but if you try to bring it up, you'll find it doesn't really exist and Mail either shows a blank message or shows the account folders. You can get rid of these "ghosts": press the Home button to see the home screen and then double-click the Home button to show the running apps, then press and hold on the Mail icon and click the '-' badge to quit Mail. Then if you go back to Spotlight and search again, they're gone.
So there are two bugs: one serious and one that can be fixed by quitting Mail. And these are caused by real files being kept by Mail so using iErase or Zero Free Space to clear free space (by writing a huge file) has no effect. And, until Apple fixes the serious bug, never, ever, save a draft. (And if you do, you'll have to back up, reset, and restore.)

Deleted email accounts still searchable in Spotlight...

How can I permanently delete emails from deleted accounts that are still searchable in Spotlight?

hi,
does your trash is empty? spotlight is also looking to element in the trash. click on one of these files from the spotlight result; it will show the location of the files on your harddrive.

I delete emails but they do not show up in the trash folder, how do I make them visible?

There are 2 trash folders one under my email address and one under local folders but the deleted emails do not show up in either. I have been using file>empty trash to keep things from getting too full but sometimes I would like to see what is the trash in case I deleted something that I want back. Thank you so much!

Hello RumDog,
I think this article will help you find the media in your library.
Where are my iTunes files located?
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391
Discovering and changing the iTunes Media folder location
Note: You would usually only change the iTunes Media folder location to share music between accounts on the same computer. See this article for specific steps on how to accomplish this. Also, see this article if you want to know how to move your music to a new computer.
Mac OS X: Click the iTunes menu and choose Preferences.
Windows: Click the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
Click the Advanced pane. iTunes displays the location of your iTunes Media folder.
You can then:
Note where your media folder is, such as for backing up your media.
Use the Reset button to reset it's location to the default (which is the iTunes folder).
Click the Change button to select a folder for a new location. Once you change this location:
If you make a new or alternate iTunes library, the new location will be used by that library.
Existing files will not be moved unless you choose File > Library > Organize library and choose the option to "Consolidate files."
From: Where are my iTunes files located?
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391
Cheers,
Sterling

Rescuing deleted emails from Outlook Express 5 for mac

Dear Forum
Wasn't quite sure where to post this, but I would be grateful if anyone could cast some light on the following puzzle. I am trying to retrieve deleted emails from Microsoft Outlook Express 5 Macintosh edition (vers 5.02 2022) running on a G4. Using Data Recovery 2, I have uncovered two databases that hold the information, but I am unable to open them in Outlook or other programs. Is it something to do with 'End of file' as a friend suggested? I have tried importing them as my default database to no avail. When they were opened as raw text, there are definitely email addresses and parts of emails embedded in there, but nothing I can use. I desperately need to access these mails so that I can take an ex-client, who still owes me money, to court.
Any assistance would be most appreciated.
Thanking you for your help.
Kind regards
Chilliman2

Hi, chilliman2 -
There is one other option. You can use BBEdit Lite to open the message and database files. This utility will display all the text in most any file, including many damaged ones that otherwise can not be opened. BBEdit Lite is free -
BBEdit Lite
Although the SFGet window, opened via the Open command in the File menu, will not display the OE files as openable files, they can be opened by dropping them onto the icon for BBEdit Lite (just confirmed that to make sure).
The bad news - you would need to search through the file to find the section for any specific email message, then copy that portion to another file for printing. This can take a lot of work if the file is large.
The good news - even the usually non-visible header info for each message is included in the Messages file, and is shown in BBEdit Lite.
Whether this result will be suitable for your purposes is a different issue.

Rescuing deleted emails from Outlook Express 5 mac vers

Dear Forum
I would be grateful if anyone could cast some light on the following puzzle. I am trying to retrieve deleted emails from Microsoft Outlook Express 5 Macintosh edition (vers 5.02 2022) running on a G4. Using Data Recovery 2, I have uncovered two databases that hold the information, but I am unable to open them in Outlook or other programs. Is it something to do with 'End of file' as a friend suggested? I have tried importing them as my default database to no avail. When they were opened as raw text, there are definitely email addresses and parts of emails embedded in there, but nothing I can use. I desperately need to access these mails so that I can take an ex-client, who still owes me money, to court.
Any assistance would be most appreciated.
Thanking you for your help.
Kind regards
Chilliman2

Hi, chilliman2 -
There is one other option. You can use BBEdit Lite to open the message and database files. This utility will display all the text in most any file, including many damaged ones that otherwise can not be opened. BBEdit Lite is free -
BBEdit Lite
Although the SFGet window, opened via the Open command in the File menu, will not display the OE files as openable files, they can be opened by dropping them onto the icon for BBEdit Lite (just confirmed that to make sure).
The bad news - you would need to search through the file to find the section for any specific email message, then copy that portion to another file for printing. This can take a lot of work if the file is large.
The good news - even the usually non-visible header info for each message is included in the Messages file, and is shown in BBEdit Lite.
Whether this result will be suitable for your purposes is a different issue.

Problem changing location of Deleted email

I've got my iPhone setup to use my imap server. Everything works well so far, have all the folders displayed, and things look good.
I can't seem to change the location of the Deleted Emails though. Whenever I go into advanced options, click "Deleted Mailbox" the setup crashes and goes back to the home screen.
I was able to change the location of Sent email, but now when I click that button it also crashes.
Is this a known issue with the iPhone? Or does anyone have a workaround?
Thanks

I had a problem with the Mail app crashing whenever I'd try sending email from a Yahoo account. A reboot fixed it, so you might try that. Or you might try resetting your iPhone, though you'll need to reconfigure certain aspects of it.

Deleted emails

How can I make sure deleted emails onmy blackberry are also deleted from my laptop before receiving ? After I delete on blackberry i must once again delete same message on my laptop. Thanks

There may be better ways, but here is what I do. You may already have part of it.
1. Set up your email on the BlackBerry using IMAP.
2. In Hub Display and Action Settings, set the BlackBerry to delete in Hub and on Server.
3. Set up your email client on the computer to use IMAP.
- Ira

Spotlight displaying deleted emails

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for