help! my emails have all disappeared!

[Duncan]

Hey,

I just opened Outlook 2010 beta and all of my emails that were there have disappeared! Earlier on I had an email from my webhost saying that my disk space was exceeded. So I tried to find the option in account settings that outlook used to have called 'leave a copy on the server' in order to uncheck it so that all the messages wouldn't keep getting left on the server and taking up so much space. However It doesn't seem to be there in outlook 2010beta anymore, and I don't think I changed any other settings so I don't see why all my emails have gone. once I realised that the option to stop mail from being left on the server was gone I went onto my mail server and deleted all the mail from the server to create space. But surely that shouldn't have deleted them from my computer as well,, surely emails that outlook has downloaded should be saved in outlook!! Can you help tell me what might have gone wrong and if i can get my emails back??


Thanks, Duncan.

 

[richc46]

Duncan, can you try backup and restore? That may return your email.

Hopefully you were making backup on a regular basis.

 

[garysgold]

That check box is here: Email accounts/change/More settings/Advanced Tab.

Hope that's what your looking for.

 

[Duncan]

Duncan, can you try backup and restore? That may return your email.

Hopefully you were making backup on a regular basis.

Thanks richc46 I've only just built my pc a month ago and I haven't set up my backup yet because I am having a problem partitioning my hard drive I haven't resolved yet. Do you mean a system restore?

Also I tried opening my archieve to see if they had ended up there but that seems to be completely empty also eventhough it should have stuff I've archieved from my previous comp and I then copied the archieve to my new comp.

garysgold


I have looked at Email accounts/change/More settings/Advanced Tab and it just isn't there. It isn't there in 2010 beta, I've seen other people on the net with the same problem of it not being there.

 

[Kari]

I have looked at Email accounts/change/More settings/Advanced Tab and it just isn't there. It isn't there in 2010 beta, I've seen other people on the net with the same problem of it not being there.

It is there if the account is POP account. For IMAP accounts it does not exist.

Check your email provider's support if you can use POP / SMTP instead of IMAP.

This screenshot from my Office 2010 Beta:



Kari

 

[richc46]

Duncan, can you try backup and restore? That may return your email.

Hopefully you were making backup on a regular basis.

Thanks richc46 I've only just built my pc a month ago and I haven't set up my backup yet because I am having a problem partitioning my hard drive I haven't resolved yet. Do you mean a system restore?

Also I tried opening my archieve to see if they had ended up there but that seems to be completely empty also eventhough it should have stuff I've archieved from my previous comp and I then copied the archieve to my new comp.

garysgold



I have looked at Email accounts/change/More settings/Advanced Tab and it just isn't there. It isn't there in 2010 beta, I've seen other people on the net with the same problem of it not being there.

Sorry, system restore will not return mail.

 

[Kari]

Please check the folder C:\Users\Your_Username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook. Are your PST-files (Outlook Data Files) still there? Outlook.pst is for your POP account(s) mail, calendar, tasks and contacts. Files named as [email protected] (or .net.pst etc.) are for your IMAP accounts.

If these PST-files still exist, we can do something.

Kari

 

[Duncan]

I have looked at Email accounts/change/More settings/Advanced Tab and it just isn't there. It isn't there in 2010 beta, I've seen other people on the net with the same problem of it not being there.

It is there if the account is POP account. For IMAP accounts it does not exist.

Check your email provider's support if you can use POP / SMTP instead of IMAP.

This screenshot from my Office 2010 Beta:

View attachment 51950

Kari

Thanks Kari, it looks like my account is an IMAP and it was definately POP3 in my old outlook on my old comp. But the 'account type' setting in account settings > advanced is set to IMAP and greyed out. I think this new outlook 2010 beta just found my email address and set it up automatically without asking me to choose any settings so how do I fix it?

thanks,

richc46 thanks for your help I only lost a few invoices, order confirmations and a returns notification. Don't think I should need any of it anymore it's just nice to have the record.

 

[Duncan]

Please check the folder C:\Users\Your_Username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook. Are your PST-files (Outlook Data Files) still there? Outlook.pst is for your POP account(s) mail, calendar, tasks and contacts. Files named as [email protected] (or .net.pst etc.) are for your IMAP accounts.

If these PST-files still exist, we can do something.

Kari

Thanks Kari,

I don't seem to have this location or an AppData folder. I do have this location though: C:\Users\Duncan\MyDocuments\OutlookFiles\Outlook.pst and I tried to open the file but it seems to be empty and there are no [email protected]files in this directory. I guess we're probably at a dead end now?

 

[Kari]

AppData is a hidden folder. To see it, go to Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization > Folder Options, click the View tab and choose Show hidden files, folders and drives.

Kari

 

[Duncan]

Kari, richc46 thanks very much for your help.

I'll forget about the lost emails it's not the end of the world. I've deleted my email acounts in outlook because It wouldn't repair them so I've set them up afresh as pop3s and sorted the problem of mail getting left on the server.

Thanks very much for the help.

richc46 It won't let me give u anymore rep, says I have to spread it around...

 

[fseal]

Ugh, sorry to hear that.

Sounds like Outlook was in "live web" mode and all your email was on the server only, never DLed.

As the lines blur between what is on your machine and what is on the web (or the "Cloud" soon) it's going to be more and more confusing as to where your data REALLY is.

I hope that in the future there would be more of an indication that X is stored locally and Y is stored on someone's server. But I expect this kind of thing to become more and more common (and more important to watch out for) as we get hit by all the grand new ideas about web enabled everything in the near future

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
Outlook 2010 especially with IMAP has a few problems -- what I suggest you do is find another computer that has OUTLOOK 2007 or earlier and logon to your email account again.

You'll probably find ALL your email is still on the server -- the delete function doesn't actually work properly in Outlook 2010 -- it appears stuff has gone but it's still left on the server. You can't actually see it again in Outlook 2010 but it will be visible again in 2007 / earlier.

This is how your mailbox can get full even when you think you've deleted stuff.

BTW if you do logon again with outlook 2007 / earlier you can download a little program from Microsoft called pfbackup.exe which backs up your OUTLOOK folders to ANY directory you care to use -- you can then re-open these if you re-install office / windows etc etc.

I had to give up with Outlook 2010 -- however the rest of the office 2010 suite looks fine.

BTW I was running the 64 bit version of Office 2010 on W7 x-64 enterprise, and using IMAP.

Cheers

jimbo

 

[richc46]

Kari, richc46 thanks very much for your help.

I'll forget about the lost emails it's not the end of the world. I've deleted my email acounts in outlook because It wouldn't repair them so I've set them up afresh as pop3s and sorted the problem of mail getting left on the server.

Thanks very much for the help.

richc46 It won't let me give u anymore rep, says I have to spread it around...

Your verbal gratitude is worth much more than rep. I know that you truly appreciate the efforts of everyone at the Forum.