Why does old email randomly show up in my inbox?

April 18, 2015 9:52 AM

I use Gmail. I read Gmail through Gmail.com, and Mailbox for ios. No other client. For the past 18 months, I randomly get old, archived email suddenly showing up in my inbox for no reason.

Sometimes 2, sometimes 50.
Nothing of importance either. Old notifications, invoices, GitHub issues etc.
Some days (or for some weeks) everything is normal.

The only other email related service I use is Boomerang for Gmail but there is nothing set to be boomeranged for later.

Any idea why this happens? It drives me crazy to wake up to 50 emails in my inbox and only 5 are new.

posted by special-k to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

Are you deferring it in Mailbox accidentally?
posted by backwards guitar at 11:19 AM on April 18, 2015

Response by poster: There is nothing deferred on Mailbox. And the mail showing up is from 2/3 years ago, long before Mailbox was even around for me to defer.
posted by special-k at 12:06 PM on April 18, 2015

Someone has your username and password and unarchiving old mall?
posted by moiraine at 2:11 AM on April 19, 2015

Archived email, even if it got moved into your inbox, it shouldn't become new email. But even if it was unarchived and marked unread, if it's from two years ago, you wouldn't see it because it would be pages and pages back. Are you finding it because you have a zero unread inbox and you look to see unread email only? Or is it showing up as new email from the current date when you're checking your email, instead of from two years ago?

Check and make sure no one else is accessing your account: https://security.google.com/settings/security/activity?pli=1 You should also see if any services/apps are connected to it and turn those off ("account permissions") unless they are legitimate: https://security.google.com/settings/security/permissions?pli=1

I doubt these make a difference, but I'd also check to make sure you don't have any filters set up: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#settings/filters And also check out your forwarding settings: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#settings/fwdandpop

I've never heard of Boomerang, but you could stop using it and remove permissions and see if some sort of glitch or mistake in your configuration is causing it.
posted by AppleTurnover at 2:22 AM on April 19, 2015

Do you use IMAP to connect Mailbox to Gmail? I use an Android email client to read my mail through IMAP and sometimes it randomly shows old emails as brand new, like they were delivered today. I have no idea why this happens, but just wanted to add a data point.
posted by gakiko at 5:48 AM on April 19, 2015

Response by poster: I have two factor auth and very strong passwords. I also live alone and my phone is always next to me. So I don't think anyone has access. Even if so, it would be super weird to move an inconsequential email (unsubscribe notification from 3 years ago) into my inbox (as read email).


> Archived email, even if it got moved into your inbox, it shouldn't become new email. But even if it was unarchived and marked unread, if it's from two years ago, you wouldn't see it because it would be pages and pages back.

Good question. I usually have 10-15 current emails in my inbox. So if 50 more got moved back, they go under that 15. However, on Mailbox, they go on top (because they got moved to Inbox after other email has already been sitting there). So you are right, but I never have to go pages back since I have so few emails in my inbox.

Thanks AppleTurnover and gakiko for the other suggestions. It looks like I have both POP and IMPA turned on. I'll turn off POP since I don't use it and Mailbox requires IMAP.
posted by special-k at 10:15 AM on April 19, 2015