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3.0 Bug: Deleted Mail Is Still Searchable

Submitted by Edward Kirk on July 10, 2009 - 3:51pm.
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Macworld has stumbled on an interesting bug dealing with how your iPhone deletes (or more accurately, doesn't delete) email. If you use your iPhone for email, chances are you've deleted at least a few messages by now. What you may not know is that just because these messages are no longer accessible in the Mail app, they're not completely gone.

They're surprisingly easy to get to. If you can't remember any of the text from an email you've deleted, just type any vowel or other small amount of text ('sa' works well), and you are likely get a few email messages in the results. Chances are, you will also get an email or two that you thought you deleted permanently. Tapping on one will open it up in Mail, as if it had never been deleted, but if you navigate from there to the inbox, there will be no trace of it.

While you might suspect these messages to still be in the Trash or on the IMAP server, neither is what is true. The only possible answer is that these messages haven't been fully deleted from the device.

It is hoped that Apple will fix this in 3.1, as it could be a minor security risk.

[via Macworld]

Submitted by foamysking on July 10, 2009 - 4:24pm.
this is a pain espically with spam emails that hit your iphone. i have found that after you fill the iphone the files seem to be gone but the only guarantee is a restore
also turning off the searching of mail fixes it but then you cant search mail

that's some powerful searching ability

Submitted by wizdomseeker on July 11, 2009 - 9:58pm.
In 4.0 it'll find email you haven't received yet.

Submitted by Golf11 on July 12, 2009 - 9:53am.
Funny how things get broken and no one notices during the beta phase. Speaking of 3.0 mail bugs...when you send a pic via email from your iphone, it doesn't sync with mobileme and you're not able to access it on your desktop or the website's sent folder; it does show in the sent folder of the iphone.