Can I get my deleted emails back?

Deleted Emails

Yes! There's a good possibility that you can recover your emails, especially if you use an email client such as Outlook or Windows Live Mail rather than a Web-based email program. This is because email clients store the messages locally on your computer's hard drive where you may be able to perform a data recovery. If you are using a Web-based email program, recovering deleted emails is limited to checking the Deleted Items or Trash folders.

Recover Deleted Emails

Let's start with the basics for recovery deleted emails. When you delete an email message from within the email program, the message is sent to the Deleted Items folder where it will remain until you (or the email program) empty that folder. Depending on the email program's settings, the Deleted Items folder may be set to empty itself every time you close the program. If so, you may not be able to find your deleted emails here. It's worth checking though, so click on the Deleted Items folder and see if you can find the messages that you want to restore. Once found, simply drag the messages into the Inbox.

Data Recovery Software

If it's too late and your Deleted Items folder has been emptied, another option exists: data recovery software. Data recovery software can recover files that have been deleted or even wiped clean from formatting because when a file is deleted or the drive formatted, the file hasn't really been deleted and the formatting doesn't actually erase data. Instead, deletions and formatting cause changes to the master file system index. When a file is deleted, the index is modified so that the file no longer is displayed. The space that the file occupies is then marked as "free space" which can later be overwritten. Formatting makes similar changes though on a much larger scale.

Data recovery software ignores the index and looks for the actual file. If found, you can easily recover it. Not that not just any data recovery utility will do. Email files are complex with different recovery processes than standard files. Use a product specifically designed to recover email files. We recommend Data Recovery Pro which is capable of recovering Outlook and Outlook Express files. Try the free download first to see if the emails are good candidates for recovery. If so, you will need to purchase the full version in order to extract the messages.

Celeste Stewart | December 10th, 2009
Tags: Data Recovery, email recovery, recover deleted emails
Categories: Data Recovery

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