Many people believe that once they delete an email from their "Deleted Items" folder in Outlook or empty their "Deleted Items" folder that those emails are gone forever. Well if you used Outlook on a POP account that statement would be true. Since most of us used Outlook on POP accounts for so long many of us who are now on a Microsoft Exchange server don't even know it has a handy feature called "Recover Deleted Items."

Before I go into how to use this very simple feature of Exchange and Outlook let me state that each exchange server can have a different policy set-up for how long the server will keep the items you removed from your "Deleted Items" folder. Currently the servers at Link2Exchange retain them for our customers for a period of 72 hours. Other hosted exchange providers or in-house IT departments will have different policies for how long they retain those messages for you.

Now on to the fun part.. how can I get back that important email I lost when I emptied my "Deleted Items" folder?

First you need to open Outlook. Then click on you deleted items folder. Then click on the "Tools" menu and select "Recover Deleted Items" from the menu. Below is a screen shot of this step. 

The next screen that pops up will show all the items that have been deleted that you can "Recover." You will notice that you can sort the messages by "Subject", "Deleted On", "From" or "Received" fields. This can make it easier to find the message you are looking for. There is also a button at the top to "Select All" the messages and a button to "Recover Selected Items." so the next step to recover your important email is to find the email and select it then click the "Recover Selected Items" button at the top. 

Next navigate to your deleted items and look for the email you just recovered...pretty sweet huh? I bet quite a few business people have thanked the Microsoft Gods for adding that handy feature.

If you are not already an Exchange user I encourage you to give one of our Hosted Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes a try - we offer a 30 Day Free Trial.

(: Just can't resist a little guiltless self promotion once in a while :)