You've got your brand new iPhone all configured, you're taking selfies, ready to take over the world! Then you remember that you need to reply to an email from about a week and a half ago. No problem, you've configured your email account onto the phone, so it'll be there....right? Well, that depends.

Apple's iOS actually allows you to choose (from a list of options) how much of your mailbox you'd like to sync, so it's not uncommon for new iPhone users, or users with new iPhones to not see any more mail than what is defaulted (1 week) during the initial email account setup.

If this happens to you, plus or minus the selfie scenario, follow the quick steps below and you should see your older email begin to populate:

1. Choose Settings from your iPhone's Home screen.
2. Select the Mail category that you'll see in your list of settings.
3. Choose Accounts.
4. Within your list of email accounts, choose the account you're having trouble with.
5. Once you're into your account, you'll see an option for Mail Days to Sync, which you can change to allow more of your email to sync onto your phone.

Here are a few helpful things to think about:

1. The above steps are accurate for iOS 10 and later, the only difference for iOS 9 and earlier being that the Mail settings will be labeled Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
2. Choosing the amount of email to sync onto your phone is available for Exchange accounts only as of the date of this article.
3. While it may be tempting to select the No Limit option, you'll certainly want to consider the capacity of your iPhone versus the size of your email account. Apple's upgrade of storage on the iPhone 7 line helps keep this from being an issue, but again, it's worth thinking through.