How To Recover Deleted Emails in Outlook?

How to Retrieve Deleted Emails?

How many emails did you receive every day? 10, 25, or more than 50?

If you are an active user and use to subscribe to multiple websites or newsletters, you won’t resist the flow of emails in your inbox.

You can organize emails in folders smartly, but still, there are tons of useless emails grabbing space in your inbox.

Deleting those emails manually one by one or at once is familiar to everybody, have you ever accidentally deleted an email thinking it was useless when it was something you needed to reference weeks later?

Under this Guide, we have covered “How to recover permanently deleted Emails in Outlook”. This information applies to Outlook for Microsoft 365, Outlook 2019, Outlook 2016, Outlook 2013, Outlook 2010, and Outlook Web/PWA.

Where Did you find your Deleted Emails?

Once you delete the email from your inbox or any other folder your email lands somewhere hidden for at least a few weeks.

Deleted emails are found in these locations:

  • The Deleted Items folder (in Outlook or your email account).
  • Under Recoverable Items (with Exchange and Microsoft 365 accounts).
  • In a backup location (on your computer, in the cloud, or with your email provider).

Recover Deleted Emails from the Trash Folder

The very first place you should look for a deleted email is in your Deleted Items or Trash folder; you can retrieve deleted emails easily.

They remain there until being permanently deleted after a particular period, you can reverse the action and recover the email.

trash folder

So, reversing the damage, opening the Trash folder, and selecting the email you deleted accidentally, you can apply the traditional method by dragging back to the original folder (like Inbox).

Drag deleted folder in inbox

Second method:

  • Select the email (you can also select using the Ctrl key or Ctrl-A for the complete list) right-click on it, click move, and select the folder (inbox, archive, etc).
outlook recover deleted items

Right-click the emails and highlight “Move To,” then send them to the Inbox or another folder of your choice.

Sometimes you just deleted the email and you have not performed any other action, you can simply updo press Ctrl+Z (Windows), The message returns to its original folder.

Note: Once you permanently delete your messages from the Deleted Items folder, you can’t recover the emails in any condition.

How To Recover Permanently Deleted Emails in Outlook (with Exchange and Microsoft 365 accounts)?

If you are using Exchange Online in Office 365 exchange, permanently deleted emails are also recoverable, that is the beauty of Exchange.

Note: Outlook emails deleted from the Deleted Items folder can be recovered for up to 30 days period only using the Recover Deleted Items option in the Folder tab.

Once you permanently delete the items from the deleted folder, they are moved to a hidden “Recoverable Items” folder.

To retrieve deleted or sent messages in Outlook, you can follow these steps:

To access the Recoverable Items folder:

  1. Open the Outlook exchange account, Click on Deleted Items.
  2. From there, you should have an option in the navigation bar, “Recover Deleted Items from Server”.
recover deleted items from server
  • Recover deleted items dialog box appears, you will find the list of emails which was deleted earlier, and the removal dates are also mentioned, you can select the email or click select all for multiple emails, press and hold Ctrl then select the messages to restore and click “Restore Selected Items.”
recover deleted items
  • Finally, Click OK, Outlook will automatically restore emails and save them in the “Deleted Items folder”. Once the items are restored, you can move them to Inbox again.

Steps to Recover Deleted Email in Outlook web app

Recover email that is no longer in an Exchange account’s Deleted Items folder using the Outlook web application, you need to restore the permanent delete email.

  • Log in to your Outlook.com account.
  • Click on Deleted Items folder to recover the deleted email.
  • Select the email and click restore to recover the email to the original location.
Click restore
  • In case you need permanently deleted emails from a deleted folder too, you can also recover those emails.
  • Click Delete folder >> Click Restore items from this folder.
  • You will find the list of emails which was permanently removed from the deleted folder, due to 30 days methodology or removed intentionally.
  • Select your required email and click restore from the above options.
  • Your email will move to deleted folder, and you can further recover using the restore option from deleted folder.
recover from recoverable folder

There is multiple paid software online/market that also helps you out recovering deleted email in Outlook.

If you’re only missing one or two messages, ask the sender to send you another copy. They may have the email within easy reach in their Sent folder.

Final Words

In summary, Outlook has a range of security features. You can access Outlook, even if you’re not using Outlook.

Outlook can display data in multiple ways, and you can view each message quickly without printing or digging through folders. But these features may not be enough.

In some cases, Outlook may not delete your messages. If you’re using Outlook, be careful what you delete. If you delete an email by mistake, or if it’s deleted by the email server, retrieve it.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

How to Undelete a Message Quickly in Outlook Email?

  • Press Ctrl+Z quickly after you delete an email to recover/undelete it.
  • Restore previously deleted emails Open the Deleted Items folder. Then, right-click the message you want to restore and select Move >> Inbox.

How long does Outlook Keep Deleted Emails?

Deleted folder keeps all the emails up to 30 days, which falls under Outlook policy, this means that after 30 days, an item is automatically moved to the Deletions folder. You can recover the deleted emails from the Outlook database.

How to Recover Deleted Folders in Outlook Office 365?

You can easily restore deleted folders in Outlook 365 deleted folder, the only condition is your folder would be available in the delete folder and you’re connected to your mail server.

Right-click on that deleted folder >> Select move to from the expended list >> Select the location you need to restore and that’s it.

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