I Deleted Many Messages, but I Can Still See Them in My Email App

There may be a few reasons why this can happen:

The Messages Were Archived, Not Deleted

If you accidentally archived the messages, rather than deleting them, the messages are not removed from your mail server. If you see the messages in the All Messages or Archive folder in your email app, the messages have been archived (not deleted).

Clean Email shows all messages in your email account (including archived messages) by default, but some Smart Folders may have an additional filter to include only what is in your inbox. When you archive messages, they are removed from the inbox, but not deleted. For more information, please see Archiving Messages.

Your Mail Server May Be Directing Us to Slow Down Processing, but We Hide Deleted Messages from Our Interface Right Away

When you delete messages, Clean Email immediately hides them from our interface, so you will not see them in Clean Email anymore. However, when a large number of messages are deleted, your mail server may require us to slow down and process them in smaller batches or to wait longer between processing batches. When this happens, it can take some time before we can finish deleting all of the messages from your mail server. Therefore, your email app may still show some of the messages until we have finished processing your request.

The larger the number of messages you have deleted, the more likely this is to occur. Other factors can also cause your mail server to direct us to slow down. For more information, please see Why Does Clean Email Sometimes Slow Down?

Your Email Application May Be Waiting to Download the Updated List of Messages

Clean Email works directly with your email server, and all actions initiated in Clean Email reflect directly in your email account. However, the current state of your email account may or may not also be reflected on your local devices, such as a phone or a computer.

When you delete a large number of messages, it may take some time for your email client to download the updated list of messages from your mail server. For example, if you are using an email client that is configured for POP3, you may experience issues with Clean Email. For more information, please see Possible Issues Using Clean Email with a POP3-Enabled Email Client.

Do you have more questions?

Please contact us and we will be happy to help.