iPhone 3.0 search finds old e-mail

Has anybody noticed this with the new iPhone 3.0 search feature: I am getting search results of messages that I received in February that have been long since deleted. Some additional observations:

1. The e-mails were deleted and purged (i.e., trash emptied) from my phone long ago.
2. I looked on the hosting server and the messages are not in the inbox or in the purged file folder.
3. I reboot the iPhone, put it in Airplane mode, and received the exact same set of search results which would indicate that the messages are still somewhere on the phone.
4. This is not just one or two odd messages - it seems to have everything since February (don't know what's magic about that date)

Anybody seeing similar behavior or have any thoughts? I am wondering if these were getting indexed by Spotlight (although this search facility is new with OS 3.0, maybe they were indexing in 2.x in preparation?) or if these e-mails are just not deleted ... oh yes, there is always the possibility of the obvious user error

Thanks,
Jim

You deleted the e-mails, but did you empty the e-mail box trash?

baggss said:

You deleted the e-mails, but did you empty the e-mail box trash?

Click to expand...

Then Spotlight is doing it's job and finding them in the trash!

I have the same issue with deleted emails, a few observations on this problem.

1. All emails are deleted from inbox, trash etc there are none on the phone.
2. Switch to aircraft mode and it still finds the same emails so they are not from the server.
3. Some of the emails can be loaded and some can't.
4. I have just upgraded my 3G to OS 3.0 and it finds email from before the upgrade.

It feels like the search is finding items that have been deleted but not yet been overwritten in the storage.

I have found many people are seeing this problem and can only assume it's a bug that needs to be fixed. Not sure if there is any software for the iPhone that randomizes empty storage space but they may be an option.

Until you empty the trash it'll always be there. Just like in real life.

same thing happening here too. and yes all emails have been deleted from the trash, sent and the inbox, so there are no emails showing in any folder in mail.

anyone else?

Please read the above emails: trash HAS BEEN EMPTIED ALREADY!

I am having the same problem as the above poster. Please read the above posts CAREFULLY before replying!

As the above posts state (repeatedly), when this occurs, the trash has already been emptied. There are no messages in it to delete anymore. Nonetheless, the iPhone 3.0 search function is apparently capable of finding zombie messages that have long since been deleted out of the trash folder. Once displaying such a message, deleting it (again!) does not make it disappear from the phone either -- it just moves it to the Trash. Deleting it from the Trash just puts it back in whatever folder it was in before. At no point does the message actually vanish from the phone to the point that the 3.0 search function can't find it. There seems to be no way to make sure that the message is gone for good.

After playing with this myself for a while, this seems pretty clearly to be a bug. And an annoying one, since it makes it difficult to find legitimate email messages amidst all of the long-since-deleted 'spam' messages that show up on my phone. (Why are they still even there? Shouldn't that space have been overwritten by now? Is this a memory leak in the iPhone?)

Check out this thread as well:

Apple - Support - Discussions - Iphone 3.0 Search Oddities ...

Ixchel said:

Check out this thread as well:

Apple - Support - Discussions - Iphone 3.0 Search Oddities ...

Click to expand...

Thx for the link Ixchel...

Interesting comments in that other discussion

Ixchel said:

Check out this thread as well:

Apple - Support - Discussions - Iphone 3.0 Search Oddities ...

Click to expand...

One thing that is important to remember, with your iPhone, Mac, PC, etc., is that "deleting" doesn't really delete anything. That's why the US Gov, DOD, etc., have special programs that delete files and then overwrite the file locations multiple times to completely destroy unwanted information.

It wouldn't surprise me that data can still be found after being deleted, but that doesn't mean, as some voiced concern about above, that the data is "taking up space". When you delete those files on your computer, they are still there but the computer shows that space as free space and eventually something else you save to your computer overwrites that old data, bit by bit.

That's why I still have every PDA I've ever owned, every thumb drive, and every computer hard drive - all except the ones I've physically destroyed or wiped using the DOD algorithm.

The real glitch here is that the search feature apparently "sees" these ghost files, which your computer normally cannot do, at least not without having the snooping software that data thieves use to find data on your sold/traded/discarded IT.

Lingering ghosts

Did complete scrub/restore of 3G w/3.0. Got rid of all deleted email that kept showing up (yes - it had also been deleted from Outlook and Server). Then ---- received some new mails, deleted them . . . and alas -- back they appeared on Spotlight

iPhone 3.0 search problems.

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Ixchel said:

I am having the same problem as the above poster. Please read the above posts CAREFULLY before replying!

As the above posts state (repeatedly), when this occurs, the trash has already been emptied. There are no messages in it to delete anymore. Nonetheless, the iPhone 3.0 search function is apparently capable of finding zombie messages that have long since been deleted out of the trash folder. Once displaying such a message, deleting it (again!) does not make it disappear from the phone either -- it just moves it to the Trash. Deleting it from the Trash just puts it back in whatever folder it was in before. At no point does the message actually vanish from the phone to the point that the 3.0 search function can't find it. There seems to be no way to make sure that the message is gone for good.

After playing with this myself for a while, this seems pretty clearly to be a bug. And an annoying one, since it makes it difficult to find legitimate email messages amidst all of the long-since-deleted 'spam' messages that show up on my phone. (Why are they still even there? Shouldn't that space have been overwritten by now? Is this a memory leak in the iPhone?)

Click to expand...

I have had the same problem. All email has been deleted from the trash and deleted from the server however hundreds still appear in the 3.0 search. HELP!