Summary: When an email gets deleted from Outlook, you may find it in the ‘Deleted Items’ folder. But, how would you restore the emails if the ‘Deleted Items’ folder is emptied? Here, we’ve shared Microsoft-suggested and our in-house tested methods to recover deleted emails in Outlook on Windows 10/11.
Microsoft Outlook is one of the most used email clients, with a user base of approximately 400 million. Apart from sending and receiving emails, it offers several other features, such as calendaring, task managing, contact managing, note-taking, journal logging, and web browsing.
It has been observed that sometimes Outlook users mistakenly delete important emails. We’ve encountered several users’ queries about mistakenly deleting Outlook emails. Refer to the following user queries:
I accidentally deleted all emails from the Inbox folder and am trying to recover them from the original folder from the Deleted Items folder. I see an option to recover in the Deleted Items folder, but this doesn’t move back emails to the Inbox (original) folder. Could someone please help?
“I accidentally permanently deleted several important emails. Is there any way I can contact Outlook support and talk to a person to see if I can recover them?”
Irrespective of ‘when’ and ‘how’ you ended up deleting Outlook emails, the DIY methods shared in this blog will help you restore them easily. Let’s proceed without any further ado.
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First, try out the Microsoft-suggested methods. If you’re not able to get back your emails using them, use our in-house DIY fixes.
Before you proceed with the below methods, there are a few things you need to keep in mind:
When you mistakenly delete any of your Outlook emails, they reach the ‘Deleted Items’ or ‘Junk Email’ folder. However, you can easily restore them using the following steps:
You can also select the emails you want to retrieve and move them to the desired folder with the following steps:
Note: You can also select all the emails using CTRL + A from this folder and drag and drop them to the desired folder.
If you can’t find the emails in Deleted Items folder, look for them in the Recoverable Items folder. It is a hidden folder. Emails are stored in this folder when,
To recover emails from the Recoverable Items folder, follow the given steps:
| Note: If you don’t see the ‘Deleted Items’ folder but instead see the ‘Trash’ folder, it means that your account doesn’t support recovering email that’s not available in Deleted Items folder. |
There may be a situation when you mistakenly end up removing your Outlook file offline. Refer to the following query for example:
“I have accidentally deleted my Outlook data file (.pst) file, which was saved on my Desktop. Unfortunately, it’s not in the trash and I think it’s permanently gone. Can anyone help as all my work emails have been there for the last three years and I need them?”
If you delete the offline Outlook Data File located at drive: C \Users\user\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook, don’t worry! Most data remains on the server and gets synced automatically when you get online. Furthermore, if you’re using an Outlook account with Exchange Server in Cached Exchange Mode, you can try the following steps for recovery:
| Note: If you’ve already tried using Update Folder and still can’t get back your files, it means your offline items were no longer on your Exchange Server and can’t be synced to the local file. |
If the above method fails to perform offline Outlook items recovery, you can proceed with our in-house solution, i.e., Stellar Data Recovery for Windows. It is a DIY data recovery tool that can recover deleted emails, documents, files, folders, photos, videos, and more. Follow the given steps:
Always choose a different location or an external storage drive to save the recoverable files. It will prevent data overwriting.
So, these are some tried-and-tested methods to recover deleted emails from Outlook on Windows 10/11. You can try the solutions as per the situation and restore your emails quickly. Let us know if you have any queries or suggestions in the comments section below.
1. Can I recover permanently deleted emails from Outlook?
Usually, the emails are stored on the server. Hence, you can try recovering through Deleted Items or Recoverable Items folder. However, if these folders are empty or you deleted the emails with the Shift + Del keys, the recovery may not be feasible.
2. How do I restore a deleted Outlook account?
If you have deleted or removed your email account from Outlook, you won’t be able to restore it. Instead, you’ll need to reconfigure the account in Outlook to access it. Learn more…
Mansi Verma is a Technology Writer at Stellar®. She is a Tech enthusiast, holding over 7 years of experience in Data Recovery, IoT, Artificial Intelligence, and the Robotics technology domain. She loves researching and providing DIY solutions and tips & tricks to solve Windows technical issues. In her spare time, she likes reading novels, and poetry. She also enjoys traveling and trekking.
I tried and tested all these methods to recover deleted emails from Outlook on Windows 10/11. Thanks for sharing such an wonderful article