4 Years & 4GB of Hotmails missing

Question

Hi, I recently looked for an older email and discovered that most of my emails between 2019-2023 are missing. I've tried all the recovery advice, checking filters, hidden folders, asked for advice on forums, but they are gone gone. My account storage is now at 1GB - I did a big purge last year when I was notified my account was over the limit and those emails were there after the purge. I've received no such notification since and have been diligent about keeping it within 5GB limit. There's no way I would have wiped out this many emails accidentally because I usually check my emails on my phone and have it set to 1 week of emails to save on storage on my phone.

Please help - I'm desperate! I have many emails I need as proof for legal reasons.

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Answer 1

Hi Sasha, I’m really sorry you’re going through this losing years worth of Hotmail messages especially when they’re needed for legal proof is incredibly stressful and disheartening.

Search all folders on Outlook.com set to All folders and“All time turn off any risky Rules/Sweep and remove strange forwarding try restoring from Deleted Items then Recoverable Items confirm no POP device is deleting mail from the server and check PCs for local PST/Archive files and if the emails were purged long ago be aware Outlook.com can’t restore beyond its retention window.

On which device and email app did you primarily access Hotmail between 2019 to 2023 and was any account set up as POP with delete from server after X days enabled?

Best regards

Lucky Charm