Getting a deleted email back
Bring back a message you deleted, up to about a month afterwards.
Pressing Delete does not destroy anything. It moves the message to the Trash, where it sits for about thirty days before anything final happens to it.
Key points
- Bring a deleted message back from the Trash in three presses
- Search every folder at once when something is not where you expected
- Know that thirty days is the real deadline, and that most "deleted" messages were only archived
What to remember
- The Trash is a waiting room with a thirty-day clock, and anything in it comes back in one press.
- Trash first, then search everything. Only after both is it worth troubling the sender.
- Search with All mail chosen looks in every folder there is, including the Trash and the Archive.
Try this
Open your own Trash and read down the list. Nearly everybody finds one thing in there they did not mean to throw away — and now you know how to put it back.
Practice: Getting a deleted email back. Your first lesson is free, with no account or card; the rest are part of a Lantern plan. Interactive lessons require JavaScript.