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Summary: Once messages are permanently deleted on HotMail they're gone. If you've lost important messages that were deleted on HotMail, or any webmail service, you need to rethink your approach to email. I forgot to login to my HotMail account for a while, and today when I logged in it was suspended for lack of use. I re-opened it, but this means I've lost all my previous mails which included some really important ones. Is there any way to get them back? In particular there was a folder which contained very important mails. No. I know of no way to get your messages (or any contacts) back once they have been permanently deleted from HotMail. Whether it's you deleting them accidentally, or HotMail clearing the account for lack of use, permanent is permanent. The messages are gone. Here's what I recommend you do ... • This will sound harsh, but you need to learn from this lesson. Stop using HotMail. I'm serious. Stop using HotMail, or for that matter any web-based email service for anything that you would consider to be "important". If your email and your contacts are truly important, if losing them would be a serious problem for you, as it apparently has, then invest in a 'real' POP3 email account from an email service provider or from your ISP. Then use a 'real' email program like Outlook, or Eudora, or Thunderbird or any of a number of other good email programs that run on your machine to manage your email. Then make sure to back up. Regularly. Take control, and more importantly, take responsibility, for the safety of your email. If it's really that important, then relying on a third party like HotMail to "do the right thing" or even just to always be there is simply asking for trouble. Don't get me wrong - services like HotMail have their place - they're useful tools when used for the right jobs. I have Hotmail and Yahoo accounts myself. But they're not appropriate for anything you would consider to be important. I hear too many reports every day of people that have lost their email, their contacts, or even access to the account for me to put it any other way. Now, there is currently one alternative that's what you might call the best of both worlds: Google's GMail. It's a free web-based mail service that includes POP3 and SMTP mail download and send. It's a fine service to use as long as you make sure to download to your own mail client, on your own machine, and then back up regularly. Leaving all your information on Google's server is convenient and fast and all that, but if it's the only place you leave it, then when (not if) there's ever a problem you're back were you started - you're still screwed. "Take control, and more importantly, take
responsibility, for the safety of your email."
If it seems like I'm coming down hard on free email services - I am. Or rather, I'm coming down hard on people that rely on them too heavily. If it seems like a pet peeve of mine - it is. I've written on it before. It's not some random opinion or a prejudice I walked in with. I've come to this conclusion by the sheer number of people who ask similar questions: they've lost important emails, contact lists, or more - simply because there was a problem with their free web based email account. And I get these reports every single day. Folks, "free" just isn't worth it if what you're dealing with is important to you or to your business. Email and contacts: own it, download it, and back it up. Related:
• Recent Comments
Hello Leo, my husband deleted his windows hotmail by mistake with important mail on there is there any way possible to retrieve his hotmail? Posted by: susan at November 24, 2007 06:30 PMi have read your site about deleted messages and inactivity and not being to retreive them. But i hear that all emails are kept on a adatabase by law for 1 year is this true? Does that mean the police can retreive emails even if the account was deleted say back in april 07? Posted by: tonyknight123 at November 30, 2007 06:39 AMI'm a paying hotmail customer. Yesterday a day and a half of both my inbox and outbox disappeared. I contacted customer support and they are giving me the excuse that an "unauthorized person" accessed my account and did this. Do I have any hope of retrieving these messages from them? Thanks Posted by: kwh at December 14, 2007 09:13 AMLeo, i left my msn messnger running and someone deleted my important contacts. they were email adds of people who live very far away and all i had to contact them were their email adds.is there anyway of getting those deleted adds back or seeing what contacts got deleted? please help.i am really upset.they were all childhood friends. Posted by: Gohar at December 31, 2007 02:05 PMAmongst its numerous weaknesses relative to MSN hotmail, Windows Live has a very nasty habit of incinerating newly prepared emails when the send button is hit. No confirmation is given of to whom the email is going, AND no email appears on sent list. It just evaporates and I know of no way of retrieving the carefully prepared text. Can you tell me how and why this occurrs and is there any action one can take to retrieve lost email or to avoid its loss. Copying the text prior to hitting the send key is a solution but easily forgotten and cumbersome. How can Microsoft produce such crap product. MSN never had this type of fault. Why go backwards in product development??? Appreciate your thoughts and help on this one. Posted by: John Reid at January 15, 2008 10:49 AMI just don't get it. I received ALL my bills on hotmail; sentimental documents; business; personal; and so forth...no more hotmail. What is that. Shouldn't they give a warning to copy or delete our files. Now I don't know what to do. Everything is lost...Thanks Leo. Posted by: josephine at March 11, 2008 06:49 PMleo my email is not opening ??? Posted by: reem at July 22, 2008 03:08 AMI deleted an important email the other day that i recently found out that i need. I deleted it originally and then it went into the deleted folder and then i deleted the "deleted" folder. Is there anyway to recover the emails i deleted out of the deleted folder? Posted by: Amber at August 15, 2008 12:12 PMPost a comment on "Messages deleted on HotMail: can I get them back somehow?":
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