The deleted emails are not in the deleted items - Recovering deleted emails

Question

Hello,

Please i need your help on this issue.

We need help recovering deleted emails from a user. The deleted emails are not in the deleted items folder and have been deleted from Outlook. We would like the emails delivered in a separate file.

We can see that a lot of emails are deleted July 5_th_ 2024.

We can see a lot of files, but we still think there is missing some emails.

We believe the emails are deleted from a desktop client, and we don’t have access to the desktop. We have access to Outlook on web.

We only use Microsoft Office Exchange hosted Microsoft.

I have admin access to the user’s mailbox to perform recovery actions?

At that time, we didn’t have a backup solutions in place that might have a copy of the deleted emails. We have one now.

Answer 1

Hi, @Iniobong Nkanga

Based on your description, I understand that you want to recover deleted messages.

1.Messages are not deleted immediately after they are removed from the deleted folder, and you can view the Recoverable Items folder.

2.If you want to store messages in a separate folder, you can try using transport rules to manage them. For details, please refer to it

Manage mail flow rules in Exchange Online | Microsoft Learn

3.Considering that you can view emails deleted on July 5, the time period has exceeded the default retention time of 14 days, so you may have modified the retention time of deleted emails. You can use the following command to view the retention time, after which the client cannot view and cannot recover the deleted files.

Get-Mailbox -Identity "******@domain.com" | Select-Object -ExpandProperty RetainDeletedItemsFor

4.Admins can recover deleted emails in a user's mailbox.

More information can be found Recover deleted messages in a user's mailbox in Exchange Online | Microsoft Learn

Recover and restore deleted items in Outlook - Microsoft Support

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Answer 2

Try following

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/recipients-in-exchange-online/manage-user-mailboxes/recover-deleted-messages