How Do I Get Rid Of Mysterious “No Subject, No Sender” Mail Messages?

By Danny Maiorca 84 comments Last updated August 30, 2023

Several users have reported an issue in the Mail app on iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch) displays mysterious messages with no subject and no sender.

Some readers report they receive upwards of 10 messages at a time from no sender with no content!

These items usually display one or even all of the following:

(No Sender)
(No Subject)
This message has no content (no body text)
No attachments
Incorrect Date (in particular, a date far back in the past like 1970… before iPhones and even email existed!)

How Can I Stop These Emails? Fixes for “No Subject, No Sender” Mail Messages

First, check with your email service provider to find out if there’s a service outage in your area. If you have a service outage, your emails likely won’t load as they should — which would explain the problem you’re encountering.

If That Didn’t Work…

If you haven’t got any known problems with your email provider’s servers in your local area, you can still try a couple of things to fix this issue and start using your Mail app in the way that you initially intended to do so. Here, we’ll outline some of our top suggestions for solving the “No Sender, No Subject” problem in Apple Mail.

Try a Forced Restart

This is the simplest solution, and it could help solve any glitches that might occur on your iPhone. How you restart your iPhone will depend on the model you have.

On an iPhone or iPad with no home button: Press and quickly release the Volume Up button. Press and quickly release the Volume Down button. Then, press and hold the Side button until you see the Apple logo.
On an iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus: Press and hold both the Side and Volume Down buttons for at least 10 seconds, until you see the Apple logo.
On an iPhone 6s and earlier, iPad with a home button, or iPod touch: Press and hold both the Home and the Top (or Side) buttons for at least 10 seconds, until you see the Apple logo.

Force Quit Mail

Have you tried force restarting your iPhone or iPad, only to find out that you’re still having issues with the Mail app loading properly? Fear not, as there are other solutions you can try. Try force quitting the Mail app as your next possible solution.

Again, this will depend on the iPhone or iPad you have. If your device has home button:

Go to the home screen.
Double-press the home button.
When the list of apps appears, swipe up on the Mail app to close it.
Restart your iPhone or iPad before you reopen the Mail app.
Check to see if the problem is now solved, which it hopefully should be.

For devices without a home button, which is most newer iPhones and iPads, you can follow these steps instead.

Go to your device’s home screen.
Hold and swipe up from the bottom of your iPhone or iPad screen. Wait for the apps you’ve got open to appear.
Close the Mail app.
Restart your device.
Reopen the Mail app by tapping on its icon.

If force quitting didn’t help, add in a forced restart instead of a normal restart. You can follow the steps in the previous part of this guide.

Turn Off Threading

Another possible solution is to turn off threading in your iPhone or iPad settings. Do this by following these instructions:

Go to Settings > Mail (for older iOS, Mail, Contacts, Calendars).
Turn off Organize by Thread. Updating this feature often prevents phantom messages from appearing in your Mail app!

Some users tell us that they turn off all the settings under Threading — and that works for them. So, if you notice issues despite following the steps above, you might want to switch off all settings instead.

Check Your Date & Time

These mysterious emails often show up when users check their emails in a different time zone than the one they established when purchasing their iDevices. So, it’s a good idea to take a look at these settings — especially if you haven’t set your time zone automatically.

To verify your Date & Time information:

Go to Settings > General > Date & Time.
Toggle on Set Automatically or manually update your Time Zone If Set Automatically is already on, toggle it off, wait 30 seconds, and toggle it back on.

Delete the Account and Add It Back

Your iPhone does not back up your email.

When you delete your email account, all the account’s previously downloaded emails are removed from your iDevice. So first, check that your email is in your account using a web browser.

Once confirmed, let’s delete your email account and then add it back in.

On the iDevice with the Mail app problem, go to Settings > Mail > Accounts.
Tap the email account that’s showing no subject or no sender errors.
Tap Delete Account.
Restart the device.
Add your account back in via Settings > Mail > Accounts > Add Account.

Delete and Reinstall the Mail App

You can also try deleting and reinstalling the Mail app, which should fix the problem.

Tap and hold on to the Mail app on your device.
Select Remove App when the menu appears.
Click on Delete App when the pop-up window shows up on your screen.
You will then see another pop-up window. Choose Delete to confirm your decision.
Turn your device off and on again.
Go to the App Store and re-download the Mail app. Then, sign into the same account that you previously encountered problems with.

Prompt to remove the Mail app on an iPhone

Delete the Mail app via the pop-up window

Confirm that you want to delete the Mail app in the second window

Get Rid of the “No Sender, No Subject” Problem in the Mail App

The Mail app is useful for keeping up with your latest correspondences, and you will often not encounter that many issues. But on some occasions, you may have to deal with problems that can stop you from accessing your messages — such as the “No Sender, No Subject” discrepancy.

Though this problem is undoubtedly annoying, there are several fixes to stop it from lasting too long. And in this guide, we outlined a broad selection of things you can try. You can also consider resetting your internet connection or downloading new versions of your iOS/iPadOS software if they’re available.

Danny Maiorca

Danny is a freelance writer who has been using Apple products for over a decade. He’s written for some of the largest technology publications on the web and previously worked as an in-house writer before carving his own route. Danny grew up in the UK, but now writes about tech from his Scandinavian base.