But, I already read this!

February 14, 2008 10:19 AM

Why is Gmail forgetting what messages I've read?

I've had a problem lately where Gmail "conversations" that I've already read are showing up as new messages with at the top of my inbox with the other new arrivals. The latest one shows the today's date in the inbox view, but has the original date they were sent in the message.

I'm not marking them unread, and there is no additional information. I have no reason to believe the sender is resending them. What is happening in my inbox?

FYI: this happens on both Windows XP and Vista.

posted by mynameismandab to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

Are you replying to them? or forwarding them? Gmail brings my conversation threads to the top and lists them as unread if any new actions are taken whatsoever.
posted by almostmanda at 10:34 AM on February 14, 2008

Are you using IMAP? I've found that Gmail tends to "forget" that messages have been read sometimes since switching to IMAP and accessing them with a third-party client, especially when I access them from my phone. It's a little annoying.
posted by Kosh at 11:54 AM on February 14, 2008

Are you using Opera? For some reason, the last message I read usually stays marked as unread. I suspect something funny with the Javascript updater in the background of Opera. Have no fix for it, but I don't find it too annoying as it seems to happen only to the last read message. Your case seems worse, though.
posted by Iosephus at 5:09 PM on February 14, 2008