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My emails have been deleted by Hotmail/Outlook

Anonymous
2025-01-03T20:19:05+00:00

Hello,

I logged into my email account today and noticed that all emails prior to August of 2024 have been deleted! I did not initiate this request, and I am reading about several other people who have experienced the same online. I need these email back. I've had this account for two decades and have extremely important information on those emails.

Can you tell me what happened and how they can be retrieved.

Outlook | Web | Outlook.com | Contacts

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  1. Anonymous
    2025-01-04T06:01:48+00:00

    Dear Desiree Butz

    Thank you for posting to Microsoft Community

    I realize that all of your emails prior to August 2024 have been deleted, and I understand your anxiety very well, and I'm going to do everything I can to help you.

    Let's do some troubleshooting:

    1. check email filters and folders: make sure there are no filters hiding your emails. Check folders that have automatically categorized your emails, such as Spam, Junk, or other custom folders.
    2. Check your archive folder.
    3. Recover deleted emails: If emails have been accidentally deleted, you can recover them from the Deleted Items or Junk folder.

    For Microsoft mailboxes, we recommend you to check your mailbox at outlook.live.com.

    If you cannot find an item in the Deleted Messages folder, the next place to look is the Recoverable Messages folder. 

    1. In the left pane, select the Deleted Messages folder. 
    2. At the top of the message list, select Recover items deleted from this folder. 
    3. Select the items you want to restore, and then select Restore.

    For more information, please refer to this website.

    Recover and restore deleted items in Outlook - Microsoft Support

    If you are sure you can't find your email, please contact the Outlook.com team for email recovery as the Community team does not handle email recovery. I apologize for this.

    You can contact the Outlook.com team by following these steps. 

    1. Go to outlook.live.com and sign in to your account. 
    2. Click the Help tab. 
    3. Select Help on the ribbon. 
    4. In the Help pane to the right of the search box, type Contact Support. 
    5. Click the Yes button under the prompt “Still need help?
    6. Click the Chat with a support representative option and follow the on-screen instructions.

    Thanks again for your patience and understanding.

    I wish you all the best

    Linda.W-MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

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