Theorietically, if I gave police consent search/analyze my…

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This is the modern day version of the "plain view" rule. The 4th Amendment says that if you are legally where you are, anything that you see that you have probable cause to believe is subject to seizure, i.e., "contraband," may legally be seized. Generally four types of evidence are considered "contraband:"

1) Items which by their nature are illegal to possess, such as drugs, child porn, etc.

2) Fruits of a crime, such as the money stolen in a robbery;

3) Instrumentalities of a crime, the things used to commit a crime, such as the gun used to shoot someone or the car used to make a getaway; and

4) Mere evidence, such as the clothing a robber wore that would assist in identifying him or her, a written confession or admission such as you might find in a text message or email on your phone, a photo, etc.

If you give the police consent to examine your phone, then they are "legally where they are" and may legally observe and seize anything they see that they have probable cause to believe is contraband.

Now...if you tell the police "here's my phone, it's open to my personal e-mail account, and you can look at that but nothing else," then, if they violate the scope of the consent, it's an illegal search. What they're supposed to do is, if they see something in the email that you gave them permission to examine that provides probable cause, they can get a search warrant for the rest of the phone's memory.

So, "what happens?" They'll seize the phone because they searched it with your consent. Consent is one of the exceptions to the warrant requirement. But note that probable cause is always required to seize something that's in plain sight. They can't just seize something because they're curious about it. They have to articulate why "a person of ordinary caution would entertain a strong suspicion that the property is contraband."

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