My inbox is empty

Question

Dear sir madam,

Greetings!

kindly, I am fall in a problem in my hotmail email account ( [Moderator note: PII removed]@hotmail.com ), my email account was hacked and I found rules there but I delete the rules and change my password email account , my problem I found there is no emails in my inbox (the Inbox is empty ).

Kindly, I will be appropriate if you can help me to recover my inbox emails and sent emails.

Regards

[Moderator note: PII removed]

Answer 1

Hi Maher Al-khateeb,

Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A forum. I understand how alarming it can be to open your mailbox and find your inbox empty, especially after your account was compromised.

I see there is already a Q&A Assist answer in the thread, and the guidance provided there is appropriate for an Outlook.com mailbox that suddenly appears empty. Before I add more information, may I confirm whether you had a chance to go through those checks, particularly reviewing the Deleted Items folder and confirming there are no remaining rules or filters affecting message delivery?

To add some important context, once an Outlook.com account is accessed by an unauthorized party, emails are often deleted intentionally. If messages were removed from the Inbox and then also deleted from the Deleted Items folder, Outlook.com can only retain them for a limited time. Emails that have been permanently deleted or removed beyond the recovery window cannot be restored.

Please note that from the forum side, we do not have access to user mailboxes or backend recovery tools, so we can only guide you based on the available recovery options and official support paths. At this stage, the most important actions are:

• Ensure the account is fully secured so no further changes occur.
• Confirm whether any messages still exist in Deleted Items or Recoverable folders, as those are the only locations from which recovery is possible.
• Accept that if the messages are no longer present in those locations, recovery is unfortunately not possible.

If you have not already done so, reviewing your recent sign‑in activity and updating your security information (password, recovery email, and two‑step verification) is strongly recommended to prevent this from happening again. Reference: What is the Recent activity page? - Microsoft Support and How to help keep your Microsoft account secure - Microsoft Support

If the Q&A Assist steps did not help locate any remaining messages, you may contact Outlook.com support for confirmation of the mailbox state. Support can verify whether any recovery options remain, but they will not be able to restore emails that are already permanently deleted.

1. Go to Outlook.com and sign in.  
2. Click the Help icon (question mark) in the top right corner.  
3. In the Help pane that opens, type a brief description of your issue (e.g., "email management"), then press Enter.   
4. Scroll down the page until you see "Still need help?", click Yes.   
5. Select "Chat with a support agent in your web browser."  
6. Review the description of your issue and confirm your email address (ensure it's an email you can access).  
7. Click Confirm to create the service request and then Start chat to connect with an agent.  

I hope this clarifies the situation.

Answer 2

For an Outlook.com/Hotmail inbox that is suddenly empty after a hack, the following checks and recovery options are available:

1. Check Junk Email and Archive folders

• Go to the Junk Email folder and look for the missing messages. If messages are there, select them and choose Not junk > Not junk (or Move to Inbox in the mobile apps).
• Go to the Archive folder and look for the missing messages. If found, select them and choose Move to > Inbox (or Move to folder > Inbox in the mobile apps).

2. Check Filter and Rules

• At the top of the message list, select Filter and make sure All is selected so no messages are hidden by filters.
• On a computer, open Rules settings and verify there are no Inbox or Sweep rules still moving messages to other folders. Edit or delete any rules that might redirect or delete mail.

3. Check Deleted Items and automatic emptying

• Look in Deleted Items to see if the inbox messages were deleted. If present, move them back to Inbox.
• If Outlook is configured to empty Deleted Items on sign-out, turn this off so further recovery is not lost:
  1. Select Settings (gear icon).
  2. Select Message handling.
  3. Under When signing out, clear Empty my deleted items folder.

4. Check account activity and security

• Visit the Recent activity page for the Microsoft account to review sign-ins and confirm that no one else is still accessing the account. Follow the guidance there to secure a compromised account if needed.

5. If messages were permanently deleted

• Messages automatically removed from Junk Email after 30 days are not recoverable.
• If the mailbox was closed due to long-term inactivity (no sign-in for a year), all email is deleted and cannot be restored.

6. If more help is needed

• Use Help in Outlook.com or the support links in the referenced articles to contact Outlook.com support if self-service steps do not resolve the issue.

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References:

• Email is missing from your Outlook.com inbox
• Recover and restore deleted items in Outlook
• Emails deleted from Outlook.com are reverting back to the Inbox