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 ...
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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.
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:
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Ask Leo! - Are free email services worth it?
Article C2762 - August 20, 2006
I can't believe you're suggesting to store important e-mail on your physical hard drive. I agree that hotmail is not reliable, but gmail (and others tell me yahoo) is perfectly reliable and allows you to take backup copies or any other information whenever you want.
I say always leave it on hardware that has redundancy and backup built in, not on an inexpensive personal computer hard drive.
If you keep it on GMail (or Hotmail, or Yahoo or whatever), and you lose your account for any reason - then everything is gone. Period. You might get lucky and regain access, but from what I hear from people in this position that is by far the exception, not the rule. Most people lose everything. Gone. Period.
I agree that leaving it only on your own hard drive is just as bad. You must backup. The point is that by taking responsibility for your own email and your own backups on your own hardware, you can back up, and you can restore from account loss or other problems that may occur on a "free" web-based service.
27-Nov-2008
Is there a way where I can setup in hotmail, if I accidentally delete my messages from the "DELETED" file, that I could retrive it back?
10-Dec-2008
i want my contact list back i have use my acount for over 2 years and now when i opened it again its all gone... how can i get it back i have important contacts in there
Posted by: Dan at December 10, 2008 6:44 AMAltho I now know that deleted emails cannot be retrieved, when I looked in my recyle bin and found a .bak file which I think contained the deleted (desperately important) hotmail draft. I restored it but don't know where it went if it worked. A complete and onerous search of the computer comes up with nothing.
Is there a chance it could be "hiding" somewhere on my computer? (MSN support has been of no help)
Thanks.....Barb
Posted by: B. Lacy at February 8, 2009 1:25 PMPS I did read your article, but still wonder.....
Hi,
I have "lost" an email of mine....it has just dissapeared, I know it sounds really strange, but I cannot find it anywhere and I definately did not delete it. I did all the relevant searches..
Surely that cannot just happen??
Confused...
Posted by: Anonymous at February 24, 2009 6:04 AMI just logged into my Hotmail after not accessing it for about six months and everything is gone... my emails, my archives, my contacts... everything. I am astonished and upset. How could this have happened? Is it the new Windows Live interface that did this?? So many years of valuable information is gone it appears... HELP!!!!!!!!!
10-Mar-2009
I thought I lost mine too because I did the same thing. I deleted some emails and folders that I was sorry I did. I was suprised to find out though, that when I went to my email through Windows Live (that you can open up through the email tab in msn messenger) they were still there! So if you have msn messenger, try to open up your email icon on that and you might just find a nice suprise.
Posted by: Sheryl Spencer at August 19, 2009 12:42 AMyes! you might be able to recover some of your deleted messages on the windowslive help team. Here you have to create an account and you will be able to post your problem and they will try to help you.
the link is: www.windowslivehelp.com
Posted by: kat at August 28, 2009 4:14 PM:)
Leo's got it all wrong, as commenter above posted, you can get deleted messages back if you ask the help team fast enough, before the messages are purged from the servers. no idea how long that takes, but i got mine back bcause i asked thm 24 hours after I had deleted everything.
12-Sep-2009
Posted by: Trish at September 8, 2009 7:42 PM
Please advice, i received and email im my hotmail inbox, i clicked on it to open and a message came up "can not be opened" and the email disappeared, why ? what happened hear?, can i get this email back?
Posted by: Matt at November 13, 2009 2:59 PM