A bug has been found in Firmware 3.0 that allows Spotlight’s search function to bring up cached messages of deleted emails even if they’ve been removed from a user’s phone and email server.

The bug, (demonstrated after the jump) occurs due to Spotlight’s nature of caching content on the iPhone to speed up search results and to provide faster access to content stored locally or remotely on a server. The problem with this bug is that messages that have been totally erased from the iPhone and from the server it was retrieved from can still be brought up if the subject is typed in to Spotlight. However, a fix is in the works by Apple and will be released in Firmware 3.1 which should arrive sometime this fall. But the issue seems to be specific to POP accounts on the iPhone. In the mean time, you can reconfigure you mail account to avoid this bug thanks to a tip from a Cult of Mac reader Dr. Harry K. Zink:

If you properly delete your emails, this does not happen – i.e. remove the email from both SENT and INBOX, after which you need to go into the TRASH folder, and manually select the messages, and select DELETE again. This applies to IMAP, ActiveSync and MobileMe accounts. POP accounts are affected by this, but only because they are configured to retain deleted mail for a period set in ’settings’ for that account — if you set it to one day, and wait 36 hours, the messages are also gone.

This is a function of the way IMAP and especially POP mail leave mail in the Deleted Items folder, or Trash folder, for the duration specified in the settings — it seems most users never bothered looking in their settings (the default is to keep deleted messages for a month before they auto-delete – you can also set it to a day, or manually delete instantly).

Furthermore, this does *not* apply to ActiveSync accounts, where a deletion is instant and complete (thus corporate kids can stop the sweating and heavy breathing – Apple’s got your back), and neither on MobileMe accounts (you know, Exchange for the Rest of Us). On IMAP accounts, if you manually delete it from the trash, the messages are gone as well. It’s POP accounts which have this issue.

So for the most part this is being blown terribly out of proportion – not by the original guy who discovered this, but by all ruminants and regurgitators, particularly those who are too lazy to properly investigate something like this

Via: The iPhone Blog