Mailbox compromised - over 15 years of emails missing and outlook continously creates phantom draft massages

Question

Hello Microsoft Support,

I am writing because I am extremely disappointed and deeply concerned about what has happened to my Microsoft account.

I have been using this Hotmail account for more than 15 years. Throughout this time, it has become my primary email account and contains an important part of my personal and digital history, including account registrations, purchase confirmations, financial records, family communications, password recovery emails, and many other important messages accumulated over the years.

A few days ago, my account was compromised.

As soon as I realized what had happened, I immediately followed every security recommendation provided by Microsoft.

I changed my password to a new and unique one, reviewed my recent sign-in activity, signed out of all devices, removed suspicious connected applications, verified that there were no malicious inbox rules, confirmed that email forwarding was disabled, and reviewed my aliases and security information.

I also secured every other online account that had been using the same password, including Instagram and Facebook.

After completing all these steps, there are no suspicious sign-ins remaining on my Microsoft account, which indicates that the attacker no longer has access.

Unfortunately, even after securing the account, two very serious problems remain.

1. Outlook continuously creates phantom draft messages

Every few seconds, Outlook automatically creates a draft message that immediately disappears.

The characteristics are always the same:

• It appears as ”[Draft] [Unknown]”.
• It contains a sextortion scam message.
• It has no sender, recipient or subject.
• It disappears before I can interact with it.
• This happens on both my computer and my mobile phone, proving that the issue is server-side and not related to a specific device.

2. My mailbox history appears to have disappeared

This is the issue that worries me the most.

After recovering my account, I noticed that my mailbox is almost empty.

An account that has been actively used for over fifteen years now contains only a few recent emails.

I checked Recover Deleted Items, expecting to find my deleted emails, but I found only:

• the automatically generated draft messages;
• the recent password recovery emails that I created myself while recovering access to my other accounts.

None of my historical emails are available.

Losing more than fifteen years of emails is devastating.

Those emails were not simply messages. They represented years of personal history, important records, purchases, account registrations, conversations, and documents that I trusted Microsoft to keep safe.

I honestly feel extremely disappointed because I have trusted Microsoft with my data for many years, and after suffering a compromise, it appears that almost my entire mailbox history has disappeared.

At this point I do not know whether:

• the attacker permanently deleted my mailbox;
• the mailbox became corrupted;
• or another server-side issue occurred after the compromise.

I respectfully ask Microsoft to perform a complete investigation of my mailbox.

Specifically, I would appreciate if Microsoft could investigate:

• Whether my mailbox has suffered corruption or another integrity issue.
• Whether my historical emails still exist on Microsoft’s servers and can be recovered.
• Why Outlook continues creating and deleting phantom draft messages after the account has already been secured.
• Whether any hidden server-side configuration remains from the compromise.
• Whether there is any recovery process available for restoring my mailbox history.

I sincerely hope Microsoft can help me understand what happened and, if possible, recover my mailbox.

Answer 1

Hello mtak,

I understand how concerning it is to lose many years of important email after an account compromise, especially while suspicious drafts continue to appear.

Please note that this is a user-to-user forum, so contributors cannot access your mailbox, examine mailbox-side activity, or restore messages.

You have already completed the appropriate account-security checks and searched Recover items deleted from this folder, but the historical messages were not available. Because the “[Draft] [Unknown]” scam messages also appear and disappear on both your computer and phone, this requires review by Outlook.com Support rather than repeating recovery or device-level troubleshooting.

As one final isolation check, close Outlook on your computer and phone, then sign in to Outlook.com through an InPrivate or Incognito browser window. If the drafts continue there, mention this result in your support request.

To contact Outlook.com Support:

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., "account 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.  

8, This screen indicates that your request has been submitted and the system is connecting you to Outlook.com live chat support, which may take a moment to load.

Outlook.com Support is the appropriate channel to review the available mailbox information and clarify whether any further recovery option remains. Messages that are no longer shown in the recoverable-items area may have been permanently removed, so recovery cannot be guaranteed.

I hope Outlook.com Support can clarify the available recovery options and investigate the continuing draft activity.