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Suppose you quit doing something but have never told your partner the real reason. One day, you want to talk about it and confess,

...(the fact you quit) I never did tell you why.

I know that 'do' can be emphatic, but have never seen it used in a negative case, at least not that I can remember. So, I wonder if the expression 'never did do something' is idiomatic.

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Yes, an expression such as :

I never did tell you why I quit.

is natural, and might well be used by a fluent speaker. It carries much the same meaning as:

I never told you why I quit.

but with more emphasis, I think.

Similar expressions using different verbs can also be natural. For example:

He advised me to go to the gym, but I never did go there.

However, the form suggested in the question title "never did do {something}" is not common, and I find it hard to construct a natural sentence using it. Perhaps:

I never did do the job properly when I was employed at Acme.

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    I'm not completely sure, but I think it's not just emphasis, but rather it carries a connotation of "I intended to do it but didn't." If you say "I never did tell you why", it sort of means "I thought a lot about telling you why some time, but I never did."
    – N. Virgo
    Commented Dec 18, 2022 at 11:28
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    I don't think the OP meant "do" literally in the title, "do something" is just a placeholder for some verb phrase, as in the example "tell you why".
    – Barmar
    Commented Dec 18, 2022 at 14:43
  • @N.Virgo Is correct. At least for the dialects I’m used to dealing with, ‘I never did X’ pretty consistently indicates that I intended to do X, but simply did not for some reason (usually the implication is that I either forgot, or something else came up when I was about to do it that prevented me from doing it).
    – Austin Hemmelgarn
    Commented Dec 18, 2022 at 14:55
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    @N. Virgo I disagree. Such a construction can be, and perhaps often is, used when the speaker had intended to do something but did not, in fact, do it But it need not imply that. It might imply, instead, that the speaker thinks, after the fact, that s/he should have done it. It might imply that some other person thanks that the speaker should have done it. Or it might imply that the speaker is casting his or her mind back, and now realizes that the thing was not done. In any case such implications are often not to be relied on.
    – David Siegel
    Commented Dec 18, 2022 at 18:13
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    I agree @DavidSiegel. Whenever I hear that phrase, there's always an air of subdued contemplation after it is spoken. Like the speaker is wondering if they should or shouldn't have done something.
    – Cave Johnson
    Commented Dec 18, 2022 at 18:34

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