Definition
💡 Deleted email recovery lets you retrieve messages that you’ve accidentally deleted. In most cases, you can easily recover them via your trash folder.
When is it possible to recover deleted emails?
When you delete an email, it goes straight to your Trash folder. You can immediately retrieve your deleted messages from the said folder.
How long the email stays in your trash folder will depend on your email service provider. Some have a seven-day window (Yahoo Mail), while others have a 30-day recovery deadline (Outlook and Gmail). Once you’ve missed your ESP’s recovery deadline, deleted emails are permanently erased. This makes recovery almost impossible.
Instead of deleting important emails, consider archiving them instead. Major ESPs like Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo have this feature. It allows you to move older messages to the Archive folder. Archiving emails has several uses:
- It lets you protect important messages and restore them at a later time.
- Reduce clutter while keeping all your emails.
How can you recover emails from trash?
How you recover deleted emails from the trash folder will vary slightly, depending on the email provider you’re using.
Gmail
- Go to Gmail and select Trash.
- Select the email you want to recover.
- Click the Move to icon and select the destination where you’d want to transfer the deleted email.
Outlook
- Open your Outlook account and go to the Deleted Items folder.
- Select the messages you want to recover and click Restore.
- You can check if the messages have been restored successfully by going to your inbox.
Yahoo Mail
- Open your Yahoo Mail account and open your Trash folder.
- Select the messages you want to recover.
- Click the Move icon and select the destination where you want to move the deleted email.
- You can also select the Restore to Inbox option to move the messages back to your inbox.
How can you recover emails that were erased from the trash?
The process for recovering emails deleted from your Trash folder will vary depending on your email provider.
Gmail
Gmail has a Message Recovery Tool that lets you quickly recover permanently deleted messages. You can also try reaching out to the Gmail support team for help with recovery. Alternatively, you can try using the Advanced Search feature in your Gmail search bar. Include relevant information and click Search.
Outlook
If you can’t find a deleted email in your Deleted Items folder, check your Recoverable Items folder instead. Recovered items will go straight to their original folders. Note that you can’t access this folder if you’re using a mobile browser. If you’re still unable to see the deleted item, it’s likely been permanently removed.
Yahoo Mail
There are two ways to recover messages deleted from your Yahoo Mail Trash folder. You can either send an email restore request or contact Yahoo Mail support. Even after sending a restore request, there’s no guarantee that the restoration will be successful.
