I can not find anywhere in my deleted folders or recently deleted items calendar events

Question

Where can I find/retrieve deleted calendar events? I outlook on my Mac and utilize my schedule/calendar with it. I need to recover a deleted event, but nowhere can I find deleted calendar events of any kind. I have looked under the deleted items folder and even the recover the recent deleted option. I delete calendar items all of the time and I don't see any calendar events at all showing up under the deleted items folder. Where do they go?!

Answer 1

Hi @Matt Osada,

Thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A Forum.

On Outlook for Mac, deleted calendar items often do NOT visibly appear in the Deleted Items / Trash folder, even though deleted emails do. This is a platform limitation and differs from Outlook for Windows.

If your calendar is synced to Microsoft 365, Exchange, or Outlook.com, deleted calendar events are retained on the server. However, Outlook for Mac may not display these items, even though they still exist. In many cases, the deleted events are visible and recoverable through Outlook on the web instead.

What you can try:

1. Sign in to Outlook on the Web
2. Open Calendar
3. Navigate to Deleted Items
4. Locate the event and restore it

The web version of Outlook often shows recoverable calendar items that are not visible in Outlook for Mac.

However, if your calendar is stored locally, this means the calendar was not synced to an online account, then:

• Events are stored only on your Mac
• Outlook for Mac does not maintain a recoverable items folder for local calendars
• Once deleted, the event cannot be restored from Outlook itself.

Outlook for Mac stores local calendar data (especially “On My Computer” items) in a database. When macOS updates, sometimes this database can be affected. Here’s how to check for previous versions:

• Close Outlook completely
• Open Finder, then go to: ~/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/Outlook/Outlook 15 Profiles/Main Profile/Data/  
• Look for files like Outlook.sqlite or Calendar.sqlite.
• Check if there are any backup copies, or use Time Machine, if enabled, to restore a version from before the OS update. (Note: If Time Machine is enabled on your Mac, this is the best chance to recover the lost data.)

Since this limitation clearly impacts your workflow, I highly recommend submitting a feature suggestion directly to the Outlook team through the Feedback Hub in Outlook (go to Help > Feedback) or you can submit your feedback directly to Outlook · Community, where our product development team can know your requirements and ideas for product improvements. The team actively monitors user input, and many improvements have been made based on community suggestions.

Note: As Microsoft Community moderators, please note that we are not involved in product design decisions and do not have direct access to the development roadmap, we want to assure you that your feedback has been acknowledged and is valued.  

In the meantime, if you see my replies bring helpful information, please kindly accept it as an answer and vote it up by your original account, which raised this question. Once marked, it will automatically pin to top. As other users will also search information in this community, your valuable vote up will definitely also help other users who have similar queries easily to find the correct channel and useful information more quickly.   

I hope this provides enough clarity and helps you stay inform with your current situation.

Thank you for your patience and your understanding. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please feel free to share them in the comments on this post so I can continue to support you.    

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Answer 2

In Outlook, deleted calendar events are treated like other mailbox items and normally go to Deleted Items first, then (after permanent deletion) to the Recoverable Items area. Where they appear and whether they are recoverable depends on how the account and client are configured.

Key points based on Outlook behavior:

1. Deleted calendar events normally go to Deleted Items
   • When a calendar appointment or meeting is deleted, it is stored in the mailbox and should appear in the Deleted Items folder, just like email.
   • If Deleted Items is being emptied automatically (by policy or sign‑out setting in Outlook on the web), items may leave Deleted Items quickly and move to the Recoverable Items area.
2. If not in Deleted Items, check Recoverable Items
   • Once an item is removed from Deleted Items (emptied folder, or Shift+Delete from another folder), it is moved to the hidden Recoverable Items folder.
   • Recovery is done via the “Recover items deleted from this folder” / “Recover Deleted Items From Server” command, depending on the Outlook client.
   • In supported Outlook clients, calendar items recovered from Recoverable Items are restored to the Calendar folder.
3. Recovery limits and admin policies
   • An administrator can set retention policies that control how long items remain in Deleted Items and Recoverable Items.
   • After the configured recovery period expires, items are permanently removed from the mailbox and cannot be recovered by the user. In that case, only the Exchange/tenant administrator may still be able to recover them, and only within any additional server‑side retention window.
4. When recovery options are missing
   • If the account type or folder does not support recovery from Recoverable Items, the “Recover Deleted Items” command will not appear.
   • For non‑mail public folders (for example, public calendar or contacts folders), Outlook does not show “Recover Deleted Items” at all; this is by design.

Given that no calendar items appear in Deleted Items and the “recover recently deleted” option has already been checked:

• The calendar events may have already moved out of Deleted Items into Recoverable Items and then aged out per policy, or
• The calendar is in a folder type or account configuration that does not expose Recoverable Items to the client.

In this situation, the only remaining path is to contact the organization’s Exchange or Microsoft 365 administrator and ask them to attempt a server‑side recovery of the deleted calendar event, if still within the retention window.

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References:

• Recover and restore deleted items in Outlook
• You can't recover deleted items from a non-mail public folder in Outlook 2016