How can you recover deleted Outlook emails in Microsoft 365?

How to recover deleted Outlook emails if you don’t have a backup?

How to recover deleted Outlook emails if you have a backup?

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Recovering deleted emails in Office 365 can be done through the Deleted Items folder or the Recoverable Items folder:

Emails deleted from the Deleted Items folder can be restored within 14 days (or up to 30 days if configured) from the Recoverable Items folder. 

After this period, emails are permanently deleted and typically cannot be recovered through standard Office 365 tools.

What is the solution? 

Use SysCloud's backup solution to automatically back up your emails, ensuring they can be easily recovered even after being permanently deleted.

Losing an important email can be frustrating, but Microsoft 365 offers multiple ways to recover deleted emails, whether they were accidentally deleted or removed as part of an email management policy.

In this guide, we’ll cover all the available recovery options, from native tools within Microsoft 365 to third-party apps.

Recovering deleted emails in Outlook depends on two factors:

Take a look at this flow chart to find the most suitable way to recover your deleted Outlook emails.

If you don’t have a backup of your deleted Outlook emails, you can recover them from one of the following options:

Recover deleted Outlook emails from the Deleted Items folder.

Recently deleted Outlook emails can be recovered from the “Deleted Items” folder. Deleted emails and email folders are stored in the “Deleted Items” folder for 30 days. After 30 days, the emails will be permanently deleted from this folder.

Follow these steps to recover deleted Outlook emails from Deleted Items folder:

Step 2: Navigate to the “Deleted Items” folder on the left pane.

Step 3: Select the email that you want to restore.

Step 4: Click on “Recover” on the menu bar.

Now the deleted email is recovered back to the inbox.

Note: Step 4 can also be carried out by right-clicking the desired email and selecting the “Restore” option.

Recovering a deleted email folder is very similar to recovering deleted emails from the “Deleted Items” folder.

The deleted folder will appear as a subfolder in the “Deleted Items” folder.

Step 1: Navigate to the left pane to the “Deleted Items” folder.

Step 2: Click on the drop-down menu next to the folder.

This will show all the folders that were deleted

Step 3: Right-click on the folder you want to recover and select the “move” option.

Step 4: Select a folder to which you want to restore or create a subfolder in an existing folder.

If an email is permanently deleted from the “Deleted Items” folder, it can be restored from the “Recoverable Items” folder. This second stage recycle bin retains permanently deleted emails in Outlook for 30 days from the day of deletion. 

Follow these steps to restore an email that was deleted from the Deleted Items folder: 

Step 1: Navigate to the “Deleted Items” folder on the left pane of the screen.

Step 2: Click on the link “Recover items recently deleted from this folder” on the top of the list.

This will take you to the Recoverable Items folder.

Note: The “Recoverable Items” folder cannot be directly accessed. It can only be accessed through the “Deleted Items” folder.

Step 3: Select the email to be recovered, and click on the button “Restore”.

This will restore the email back to its original folder.

Users can recover deleted Outlook emails long after losing them provided there is a backup of the emails.

3. Third-party backup tools like SysCloud

The Outlook desktop client has an “AutoArchive” feature that will retain the emails depending on the retention settings that was given. The deleted emails will then be available in the “Archive” folder even if it was deleted from the mailbox. 

Click here to read our in-depth article about archiving Outlook emails as a data retention solution. 

Follow these steps to recover deleted emails from the Outlook Archive folder: 

Step 1: Open your Outlook desktop client and navigate to the “Archive” option on the left pane.

Step 2: Right-click on the desired email and select the “Move to” option from the drop-down menu and select the option “New folder”.

Step 3: Choose a folder to which you want to restore the email and click “Ok”.

The emails will be restored to the specified folder.

The eDiscovery tool is used to identify and collect electronically stored data that is to be produced as evidence during litigation or other government investigations. 

Using eDiscovery, the administrator can search for the held Outlook data even after user deletions or modifications. 

The native eDiscovery feature of Microsoft 365 helps in identifying and preserving the data, but it does not serve as a backup solution. It is only meant for archiving and retrieving business data. 

Step 1: Log into the Microsoft 365 Admin Center, navigate to the Microsoft Purview Compliance portal (formerly called Compliance Center).

Step 2: In the left-hand menu, under "Solutions", expand "Content search" (or "eDiscovery" > "Core" depending on the specific setup).

Step 3: In the "Content Search" tab, click "New search" from the top menu.

Step 4: Enter a name for your search (this is mandatory) and a description (optional) for future reference. Click "Next".

Step 5: Choose the content locations you want to search, such as "Exchange mailboxes", "SharePoint sites", "Teams", or "OneDrive accounts". You can select specific locations or search across all locations within the organization. Click "Next".

Step 6: Add any necessary conditions for the search, such as "keywords", "date ranges", "senders/recipients", or other search criteria to refine the results. Click "Next".

Step 7: Review your search settings and click "Submit" to start the search.

Step 8: Once the search is complete, you will see the results. From there, you can "Edit", "Rerun", or "Delete" the search. You can also "Export results" by clicking the export option, which will allow you to download the search results as a "CSV" or "PST" file, or in a compressed ".zip" file format.

Caution: Users cannot restore emails using the eDiscovery module. Deleted or lost emails can only be exported.

Click here to read our in-depth article on eDiscovery to know more.

Third-party backup solutions like SysCloud offer an easier and reliable way to back up and restore your data effortlessly. 

SysCloud is a third-party tool that offers a fully automated cloud-to-cloud backup and restore service. It uses the top trusted cloud storage solutions like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform to store the backed-up data. 

Using SysCloud, IT administrators can back up and restore data in just a few clicks. 

Follow these steps to restore your data using SysCloud. 

Step 1: Log in to the SysCloud application using your admin credentials.

Step 2: Navigate to the “Archives” in the menu bar and select the user account from the user archives whose data you want to recover.

Step 3: Click on the Outlook icon next to the user's name to navigate to the app archives.

Step 4: Select the required emails and click on “Restore."

Step 5: Your deleted Outlook emails are now restored with all the sharing permissions and folder structure intact.

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How to Recover Deleted Outlook Emails in Microsoft 365?

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Here are all the different ways in which you can recover permanently deleted files from Outlook, both with and without having a backup.

How to Recover Deleted Outlook Emails in Office 365? (With Screenshots)

An in-depth article on how admins can recover permanently deleted files from Outlook, both with and without having a backup.

How to Recover Deleted Outlook Emails in Microsoft 365?

Introduction

How can you recover deleted Outlook emails in Microsoft 365?

How to recover deleted Outlook emails if you don’t have a backup?

Recovering deleted Outlook emails from Deleted Items folder

How to recover deleted Outlook email folder?

Recovering permanently deleted files from Recoverable Items folder

How to recover deleted Outlook emails if you have a backup?

Recover deleted Outlook emails from the Archive folder

Recover permanently deleted Outlook emails using eDiscovery

Recover deleted Outlook emails using third-party tools