When you accidentally delete an item from your Outlook mailbox, you can often recover it. The first place to look is the Deleted Items or Trash folder. Search for the item you want, then right-click it and select Move > Other Folder. If you can't find it there, the next steps depend on what type of email account you have in Outlook.
Need to recover a deleted folder in Outlook 2013, Outlook 2016, or Outlook for Office 365? You can recover a deleted folder (with all of its messages) if it's still in your Deleted Items folder--See How. Unfortunately, you can't recover a folder that's been permanently deleted. But you can use the steps in this topic to recover messages from the from the folder you deleted.
Recover an item that's no longer in your Deleted Items folder
If you can't find an item in the Deleted Items folder, the next place to look is the Recoverable Items folder. This is a hidden folder, and it's the place where items are moved when you do one of the following things:
- Delete an item from the Deleted Items folder.
- Empty the Deleted Items folder.
- Permanently delete an item from the inbox or from another folder by selecting it and pressing Shift+Delete.
Watch the video or follow the steps listed below the video to recover items from the Recoverable Items folder.
- In Outlook, go to your email folder list, and then click Deleted Items.Important: If you don't see the Deleted Items folder, but instead see the Trash folder, then your account doesn't support recovering an item that's no longer in your Deleted Items folder.
- On the Home menu, select Recover Deleted Items From Server.Important: If Recover Deleted Items From Server isn't there, your account doesn't support recovering an item that's no longer in your Deleted Items folder.
- Select the item or items you want to recover, click Restore Selected Items, and then click OK.
Where do recovered items go? When you recover items from the Recoverable Items folder, they are moved to the Deleted Items folder. So after you recover an item, you can find it in your Deleted Items folder and then move it to another folder.
Tips and troubleshooting
- To help you find a specific item in the Recover Deleted Items window, click the Subject, Deleted On, or From column header to sort items by that column.Note that the Deleted On date specifies when items were permanently deleted (by using Shift + Delete) or removed from the Deleted Items folder.
- All items in the Recoverable Items folder—including contacts, calendar items, and tasks—are represented by the same envelope icon.
- If you're looking for a contact, sort by the Subject column and look for the name of the person. You can also sort by the From column and look for blank entries because contacts don't have a From field.
- If you're looking for a calendar appointment or a task, sort by the From column and look for your name.
- To recover multiple items, press CTRL as you click each item, then select Restore Selected Items. You can also recover multiple adjacent items by clicking the first item, holding down the Shift key, and then clicking the last item you want to recover.
- Your admin may have specified how long items in the Recoverable Items folder are available for recovery. For example, there may be a policy that deletes anything that’s been in your Deleted Items folder for 30 days, and another policy that lets you recover items in the Recoverable Items folder for up to another 14 days. After this 14 days, your admin may still be able to recover an item. If you can't find an item in the Recoverable Items folder, ask your admin if they can recover it.Unfortunately, if you or your admin can't find an item in the Recoverable Items folder, it's probably been permanently deleted from your mailbox and can't be recovered.
Do you need instructions for another version of Outlook?
This article is for Outlook for Office 365, Outlook 2016, Outlook 2013, and 2010 for Windows. Using something else? Try Outlook.com | Outlook on the web | Outlook Web App |
How to Recover Deleted Files
- Stop using your computer! Aside from the specific tasks outlined below, the smartest thing you can do is to stop writing data to the drive that contained the deleted file.As I mentioned above, files that are deleted are actually just hidden. The only way the file you want to recover disappears completely is if the same physical space it occupied on the drive is overwritten. So... don't do anything that might cause that to happen.Most 'write heavy' tasks are things like installing software, downloading or streaming music or videos, etc. Doing those things won't necessarily overwrite your file but the chances go up the more you do them.
- Restore the deleted files from the Recycle Bin. You've probably already looked in the Recycle Bin, but if not, do so now. If you're lucky enough to have not emptied it since you deleted the file, it might be here and in perfect working order.Files you delete from media cards, USB-based drives, external hard drives of any kind, and network shares will almost never be stored in the Recycle Bin. The same goes, more obviously, for things like your smartphone. Very large files from any source are also often deleted outright, skipping the Recycle Bin.
- Download a free file recovery program and use it to search for and recover your deleted files. If the files you're looking for have already been emptied from the Recycle Bin, a file recovery tool can help.Recuva is our top pick in that list, but if you don't like it for some reason, or if you try it and it doesn't find the file you need to recover, by all means, work down the list.We highly recommend downloading the 'portable' version of Recuva, or whatever file recovery program you choose, directly to a flash drive or some drive other than the one with the missing file(s) on it.
- Extract the portable version of the file recovery tool you chose. Portable programs usually come in ZIP format which Windows natively supports (i.e. unzipping is easy in Windows).If you downloaded it to a flash drive, extracting it right there onto the flash drive is great.If you had no choice but to use your hard drive, extract it there. If you had to use your hard drive and choose an installable version of a file recovery tool, go ahead and install it as directed.
- Use the file recovery tool to scan for files that can be recovered, a process that could take a few seconds to several minutes or longer depending on how large the drive is.The exact procedure differs from program to program but this typically involves choosing the drive you want to scan for deleted files on and then tapping or clicking a Scan button.
- Once the scan is complete, locate the file from the list of recoverable files, select it, and then choose to Restore it.Again, the details on recovering files you want to recover are specific to the tool you chose to use in Step 3 above.While you hopefully found the file you needed to recover from this list, it's possible you didn't. See Will a Data Recovery Program Undelete Anything Ever Deleted? and Why Are Some Deleted Files Not 100% Recoverable? for more on why this may have happened.
- You should now have access to your recoverable files.
More Help Recovering Deleted Files
- The Recycle Bin should be the first place you look to recover deleted files. If you skipped Step 2 above because you 'know' it's not there, just humor us and check again. You never know!
- Recovering files from devices like smartphones, music players, flash drives, and network drives are possible but can sometimes require some extra steps. See Can I Recover Files From SD Cards, Flash Drives, Etc.? and Do File Recovery Tools Support Network Drives? for more.
- You do not need to have a data recovery software program installed before you delete the file to use one, which is great news. See Can I Undelete a File If I Don't Already Have a File Recovery Tool? for more, including why this is the case.
- A dead hard drive, or a non-working computer, presents an extra layer of trouble when you need to recover a file. While this is possible in most cases, see Can I Recover Files From a Dead Hard Drive? for more on figuring out what to do.
- Are you sure the file has actually been deleted? It may have been moved to a different folder that you've since forgotten about, or maybe you copied it to a flash drive or other device no longer attached to your computer. Use a file search tool like Everything to comb through your whole computer for the file.