I have a Samsung SIII which I have had for two years. Yesterday I started receiving a "-1" notification on the Email symbol. I have no idea what it means.

I use the generic Android/Samsung email client, no emails are showing as Unread, I have carried out several scans with AVG Professional Internet Security and nothing untoward is showing.

I use Thunderbird as my laptop email client and it doesn't show the "-1" prompt. I even tried a Google search, but to no avail.

Any ideas?

Fin

Hi fin, I think the -1 tells you there is a missed calander event.. failing that, if you press on thd black bar with all the icons at the top of the touchscreen and swipe your finger down it tells you what all the current notifications are and theres options to clear them.

So I am not the only one that gets this.... 

 

I seem to get it in stages, it will do it for a day or so then be OK for weeks, I have to delete all my email address/settings, download all my emails on my PC, then restore using Samsung Kies, pain in the backside... 

 

I have sort of narrowed it down to the handset downloading old emails from somewhere, no idea how or were from,  so when you delete them it has nothing really to delete from the handset so makes it "-1"

 

I have also noticed that if you tick all your emails to delete them on the odd occasion, it appears that one may not be ticked so you do it again, which then seems to deletes it twice if that makes sense... again making "-1"

 

Glad it is not just me...

Tom, the notification area is blank and the email still says "-1"!

I thought it might be a new combined email and weather app, but it is currently -5, (Real Feel-8!), so it's not that. :-D

Fin

UPDATE!!!!!!

It's now indicating -2!.

I think a bit of rooting around on the Samsung forums is on the cards!

Fin

Are you using an imap account?

Yes. It's via Sky, if that makes any difference.

Fin

Sounds like it's failing to sync correctly. The -1 says that the device has fewer mails than the server.

There's no need to backup and delete all mail. Just delete the account on the device and re-set up.

I deleted a number of emails today that didn't have a senders name, only the text of the email. All of them were for either debt management, PPI claims or the like. It is now indicating -6, which would tally with the original -1 and the five non named sender emails I deleted.

Is it the format/coding of the non sender emails that is causing the issue? If so, how do I resolve this?

Many thanks,

Fin

It's purely that changes you're making on the device aren't being reflected on the server.

In settings on your phone, you have a setting for storage. Go there, find cache and clear it. Then try your email again

Gadgetman, many thanks for your advice, so far deleting and reinstalling my email account is working a treat. At one point I had -23 showing!

The delay in the reinstall was down to forgetting my email password.

Many thanks.