Recovering Deleted Items in Microsoft Outlook

You may be able to recover deleted email even after emptying your Deleted Items folder in Outlook. Follow the steps below to recover this email up to 30 days after deleting it.

1) Open up Microsoft Outlook

2) Click on the Deleted Items folder.
(If you can't see the list of folders, select Folder List under the View menu.)

Click on Deleted Items

3) Click on the Tools menu, and then choose Recover Deleted Items.

Click on Tools --> Recover Deleted Items

4) In the window that pops up, click on the message(s) you want to recover.
(You can sort the messages by clicking on Subject, Deleted On, From, and Received. Note that the date next to each message subject is the date you deleted the message. To look at the date you actually received the message, you may have to scroll over or enlarge the pop-up window to see the Received column.)

Click on the message(s) you want to restore and then click on Recover Selected Items

5) When you have finished selecting the message(s) you want to recover, click on the Recover Selected Items button (this is the middle button on the top left of the pop-up window).

6) To force your recovered message(s) to come through right away, click on the Send/Receive button.

Click on Send/Receive

7) Now your message has been recovered.

recovered message (move to another folder if you want to keep it)

(Please note: You will want to move any messages you want to keep into another folder, such as the Inbox.)

Important Notes

  • This feature works for any of your email folders that are on the server. It will not work for any email that is stored in your personal (local) folders.
  • You may repeat the steps above with other folders (such as Sent Items), but most of the time the messages you want to recover were already in the Deleted Items folder to begin with.
  • Messages deleted more than 30 days ago are not recoverable.

If you have any further questions, please contact the Service Desk.