Protonmail: All emails disappear from inbox (and reappear, then disappear again...)

Sync Issues
, ,
21

same issue here! A fix would be highly appreciated

22

I solved this by disabling local cache on the Proton Mail Bridge app.

Restart of the bridge is required.

23

I tried your procedure @maximgx. Unfortunately that did not solve the problem for me.

24

Yes, for some reason, it only worked for me for a while, then the problem returned @aseedb .

Now however, when I hit F5 a couple of time all the emails appear. But when I restart the app have to hit again F5 until it shows.

25

@maximgx Yes in my case it also keeps reappearing after a while. But I can see that protonmail bridge is generating a huge network traffic. I think it keeps downloading the mailbox again and again.

26

I have the same issue with protonmail, disabling the cache on proton bridge didnā€™t help. I have to keep hitting F5 to see my email and the most annoying part is when you are trying to write a reply and it keeps disappearing.
Is this really not solved by now since 2017?

27

I cannot use Mailspring until this ProtonMail issue is reliably resolved - which is a great pity, since it seems excellent.

I am also bringing the issue up with ProtonMail.

Replying here to see updates on this issue, please!

28

After struggling with this for a long time, hereā€™s how I worked this around (also thanks to helpful insights by this community): https://gitlab.com/wobblyhen1/mailspring-protonmail-fix. Still, I think that an official upgrade on this would be much appreciated.

29

After using Mailspring with minimal issues for well over 6 months, this issue recently started happening for me, except it affects BOTH Gmail and Proton Mail. I noticed the behaviour when I missed several important emails from my employer.

As a result, I have uninstalled Mailspring (for now), and have gone back to the native apps for each mail service. This issue simply renders Mailspring unreliable.

Hope there is a fix coming, because I really enjoyed using it!

30

Hi,

after successfully adding a Proton Mail account via Proton Bridge to Mailspring (Free Edition) on Ubuntu 24.04, the synchronization process is inconsistent and incomplete.

Actual Behavior
Two main issues occur during and after synchronization:

Incomplete Sync: Only about 50% of the total messages are successfully downloaded/displayed in Mailspring.

Intermittent Visibility: Messages frequently disappear from the thread list and reappear later without user intervention.

Environment
Operating System: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

Mailspring Version: Mailspring 1.16.0-5339a49f

Proton Bridge Version: Proton Mail Bridge v3.21.2 (br-215)

Installation Method: .deb package

31

This issue still occurs in 2026!

Many people using ProtonMail would like to embrace Mailspring because honestly, itā€™s the most good-looking and simple email client on Linux, period. But the emails disappearing and appearing is really a serious issue that need to be addressed.

Sometimes, even the Sent folder is empty while on the ProtonMail server and other email client like Thunderbird, emails still exist!

Isnā€™t there really a solution for ProtonMail users? The issue has been there for many years, and it looks like nothing is being done!

Iā€™m not a developer, so I understand that it can be challenging to fix issues. But can we have hope that the issue will be fixed one day? Because I badly need to stick with Mailspring as my main and only email client.

And just for info, with the version 1.19.0, no way to put custom port for IMAP and SMTP.