How to Restore My Email

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Restoring your email is important to finding lost documents and emails.

If your email disappears, whether because of a user error, a power surge, a scam artist or a virus, you'll need to restore it to retrieve the lost information. Depending on the type of email account you have and on the reasons for the email disappearing, there are several processes that you can follow to restore your email.

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Step 1

Look in the trash can in your email program. The first place any disappearing or deleted emails go is the trash can. Sometimes, you can find them there. If you see any emails you'd like to restore, check mark them and select "Restore" or "Undelete" or "Move to inbox."

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Step 2

Look in your computer's recycling bin. Sometimes, emails deleted from your email program end up in your computer's recycling bin. Search through the bin. If you find email messages, either copy and paste them into files to save or click "restore" to restore them to their original location.

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Step 3

Open up the "Find" program on your computer by going to the Start menu and clicking "Find Files or Folders." Search for keywords in the emails that you'd like to restore. Your computer might have made a backup copy of the emails and sent the copies to your Temporary Internet Files or to any number of locations. If you find copies during the search, you can restore them.

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Step 4

Speak to the help desk or tech center in charge of your email account. It can attempt to restore the emails for you.

Step 5

Download an email restoration program to restore the emails yourself.

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