How to recover deleted emails in Outlook

Accidentally deleted an important email? In most cases you can get it back yourself, depending on how long ago it was deleted and where it ended up.

Step 1: Check the Deleted Items folder

When you delete an email, it moves to your Deleted Items folder first. If it’s still there, right-click the message and select Move > Inbox (or whichever folder you want to move it to).

Step 2: Recover items purged from Deleted Items

If you’ve emptied your Deleted Items folder, or the email has been automatically cleared, you can still recover it for up to 30 days.

Outlook on the web

Go to your Deleted Items folder.
At the top of the folder, click Recover items deleted from this folder.
Select the emails you want to recover.
Click Restore. The emails will be moved back to your Deleted Items folder, so move them to your Inbox or another folder from there.

Outlook on Windows

Select the Deleted Items folder in the left pane.
In the ribbon, go to Folder > Recover Deleted Items (or Home > Recover Deleted Items in newer versions).
Select the items you want to recover.
Click Recover Selected Items, then OK.

Recovered items return to the Deleted Items folder. Move them to where you need them.

Outlook on Mac

Select the Deleted Items folder.
In the ribbon, click Recover Deleted Items (under the Organise tab).
Select the emails and click Recover.

What if the email is older than 30 days?

After 30 days, deleted emails are permanently removed and can’t be recovered through Outlook. If you urgently need a message older than 30 days, raise a support ticket as soon as possible. Depending on your organisation’s retention policies, we may be able to recover it from a compliance search, but this isn’t guaranteed.

Avoiding accidental deletion

If you regularly archive rather than delete emails, they stay searchable in your Archive folder without cluttering your Inbox. To archive an email, select it and press Backspace (Windows) or Delete (Mac) in Outlook, or use the Archive button in Outlook on the web. Archiving is always safer than deleting if you think you might need the email later.

Need help recovering an email? Raise a support ticket and let us know roughly when the email was sent or received, and who it was from. The more detail you give us, the faster we can find it.