How to Retrieve Email When Deleted From Trash

When emails are deleted from a folder they usually go to the "Trash Bin" and can be restored to their original location. Emails erased from "Trash" are considered permanently deleted by all email programs. Unfortunately, there are neither general nor easy ways to retrieve emails deleted permanently. The usual strategy is to relay on a backup of the mailbox. Some web based mail services allow you to successfully retrieve deleted mailbox content because, for limited time, they keep backups. The Yahoo Mail can do a rollback of a mailbox to the time specified by the user.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Open the web browser and navigate to Yahoo Mail.

2. Login to the Yahoo account by providing Yahoo ID/password information.

3. Decide on the account rollback time that should be about 1 hour earlier than the incident time . Example: if a email was deleted from Trash at 5:15 p.m. choose the mailbox reset time for 4:15 p.m.

4. Save, print or forward to another account all messages received after the time selected in the step 3.

5. Open another instance of the web browser and navigate to the Yahoo! Mail Restore Help Form.

6. 
    

   Under "Mailbox recovery information" select Month, date and time (15-minute increments) chosen in the step 3. Make sure to fill out the time zone field and specify an alternative email account to receive a confirmation email.

7. Click "Submit" on the bottom of the page.

8. Continue monitoring the mailbox and keep backing up all incoming messages (see step 4).

9. The confirmation email from Yahoo mail customer care usually arrives in 6 to 8 hours and the mailbox should be restored as it was on or around the time entered in the step 6.

Tips & Warnings

• Act quickly and within 24 hours after incident.
• Not only "Trash" but also all folders in the mailbox are affected by the recovery procedure. Avoid choosing an exact time when an email was deleted (step 3) since the mailbox could be restored at the point when the email is already gone.

References

• "The Internet: The Missing Manual", J. D. Biersdorfer, D. Pogue, 2006.

Resources

• Yahoo Mail