Can you retrieve deleted items in MS Outlook

WingaWinga MrSouth Africa Icrontian
edited November 2006 in Science & Tech
I highlighted a whole lot of e-mails in my Deleted folder for deletion, leaving the non highlighted ones for archiving. I obviously had a bit of finger trouble, 'coz when I looked again I had wiped out the entire contents in the deleted folder. :bawling:

Is there any way of retreiving that data without going to extremes. :-/

Comments

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited November 2006
    Not really, sir. :( Delete from the deleted folder is like a hard delete in Windows.
  • WingaWinga Mr South Africa Icrontian
    edited November 2006
    I was afraid of that answer.
    Thank you sir, for the promp response and for preventing a prolonged agony in expectation of that answer.

    Now I'll just crawl into a hole and die!!
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited November 2006
    Having made a similar mistake years ago, I started the following practices to help prevent a repeat performance. I know it won't help you now, but may at least make you feel a little more secure in the future.

    1) I make extensive use of the Rules Wizard and have different items sorted to different subfolders. For example, all my updated thread notices from SM get sorted to their own little folder apart from the Inbox. This keeps my Inbox relatively "clean", meaning that important personal email doesn't get mixed in with other stuff.

    2) I also make subfolders for items which need to be followed up on. If an email may be needed for future reference it gets dragged to the SM-Followup subfolder, providing another layer of protection. Nothing gets moved to the Deleted Items folder until I am absolutely sure that I am through with it.

    3) Extremely critical email gets saved as a text file in My Documents, which is backed up daily to a different computer and burned to DVD monthly

    4) I set the Auto Archive feature for my subfolders so that stuff is not automatically archived, since I've seen too many archives suffer corruption.
  • MissilemanMissileman Orlando, Florida Icrontian
    edited November 2006
    I use this : http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=8B081F3A-B7D0-4B16-B8AF-5A6322F4FD01&displaylang=en

    Automatically backs up all my outlook folders to a Network storage drive everyday.

    At least that way I can always get most everything back.
  • DanGDanG I AM CANADIAN Icrontian
    edited November 2006
    Depending on how you deleted them, you may or may not be able to get them back. If you hit shift-delete, then they're gone, if you just did a right click and hit empty deleted items, you may still be able to open the deleted items folder and under tools, you should have an option for recover deleted items. It keeps them in there for a couple of days.
  • KentigernKentigern Milton Keynes UK
    edited November 2006
    i used a little program called ufixdemo which i found through google got my deleted stuff back even after a week or so. hope this helps :)
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited November 2006
    Winga, it sounds like there may still be hope.

    I can tell you this, your dilemma has helped me to learn a great deal which I wouldn't have learned otherwise. :)
  • WingaWinga Mr South Africa Icrontian
    edited November 2006
    ahhh thanks Prof I'm glad my misery has been able to benefit someone else :vimp:
    However if there is any lesson to be learned it is this: What damn idiot uses his Deleted Items folder as a storage medium for e-mails that still hold a lot of importance. :dunce:

    Winga mails in for his STUPID sign
  • WingaWinga Mr South Africa Icrontian
    edited November 2006
    Kentigern wrote:
    i used a little program called ufixdemo which i found through google got my deleted stuff back even after a week or so. hope this helps :)

    Thanks for the download tip :thumbsup: There may still be hope!!
    I will have to get permission to put this utility on our server at work.
    I'll let you know how it goes.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited November 2006
    on our server at work
    Oh noooo, you mean you deleted business email?
  • WingaWinga Mr South Africa Icrontian
    edited November 2006
    Leonardo wrote:
    Oh noooo, you mean you deleted business email?
    Yip :D
    And lots of them. I'm sitting with over 500 business related e-mails in my inbox and am trying to get rid of as many as I can before I wrap up the year and go on vacation.
    My methods of doing so however leave something to be desired :banghead:
  • mtroxmtrox Minnesota
    edited November 2006
    Winga wrote:
    What damn idiot uses his Deleted Items folder as a storage medium for e-mails that still hold a lot of importance. :dunce:

    Winga mails in for his STUPID sign
    Winga wrote:
    My methods of doing so however leave something to be desired :banghead:

    Winga another thought while you beat yourself up.....do you backup your .pst? ntbackup with do it using shadow copy so you don't even have to take Outlook down. Just make a folder on your server for every day of the week...then run a separate command line ntbackup in Scheduled Tasks saving to each folder. That has saved me a few times when I've done something equally dumb.
  • WingaWinga Mr South Africa Icrontian
    edited November 2006
    I'll definitely look into that mtrox.
    BTW I haven't forgotten about my other problem. Still waiting for answers...
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