How to Recover a Deleted Outlook Folder
In order to manage space in MS Outlook application, many users regularly delete unwanted emails from the application. This not only helps to improve Outlook application performance, but also stops the Outlook storage file from being prone to corruption. You too might have done this, and later realized that unfortunately you have deleted some crucial emails. This might have also urged you to search for methods to get back the deleted email items.
Outlook experts distinguish the types of deletion and coined them with the given terms:
Type of Deletion in Outlook:
- Soft Deletion : In soft deletion, all deleted mails are just moved to "Deleted Items Folder" and such kind of deletion can simply take place, when a user press "Delete" button to perform deletion or apply a deletion via using right clicks.
- Hard Deletion : A very leading issue for most of the Microsoft Outlook users that they usually lost their emails, whenever they press "Shift+Delete" button or it could be a miss-judge of emails. In simple terms, Hard Deletion has direct relation with the "Shift+Delete" button and in Windows OS it's a unique way to vanish things permanently.
Get Back Your Soft Deleted Items:
Reverting back the "Soft Delete Items" which even exists after soft deletion in the "Deleted Items Folder" is so simple, just go to the "Deleted Items Folder" and move back the email to the required folder.
Recover Hard Deleted Items in Outlook:
Hard deletion is quite different from soft deletion, the restoration of "Hard Deleted Items" in MS-Outlook is impossible because in such kind of deletion, emails are eradicated forever and not available in Deleted Items Folder.
The truth is that Microsoft Outlook does not restore the hard deleted emails. But, if your MS Outlook is connected to Microsoft Exchange server, you can restore those permanently deleted emails that have been accidentally deleted from your Outlook or from Deleted Items folder.
Some steps are mentioned below to restore Deleted Outlook items:
Step-1 : In the MS Outlook Navigation pane available at left pane, select "Deleted Items Folder".
Step-2 : Now click on "Folder tab" available in the Menu Bar.
Step-3 : Expand Folder tab and click "Recover Deleted Items" button.
Step-4 : Here select those email item(s) which you want to recover.
Step-5 : Click on "Recover Selected Items" button this will restore all items to MS Outlook default folder.
Note : MS Outlook configuration can be done with IMAP/POP3/any other protocol in such situation PST file is created. When configured with Exchange account OST file is created. The steps mentioned above will not be applicable to PST file, it works only when MS Outlook application is configured with Exchange profile. In case you are not connected to Exchange server, "Recover Deleted Items" option appears to be inactive or grayed-out.
What Should I do? If "Recover Deleted Items" is Grayed-Out/ Inactive in My applications
If your Exchange Server is connected and still this "Recover Deleted Item" option is not available, then you will have to enable this option. You can follow the below mentioned steps to enable it:
Step-1 : This is done using Windows registry editor; open it and right-click on Windows icon or you can directly press "window button + R" and then type "Regedit" in it.
Step-2 : Backup the registry by selecting My Computer, then open the "File" menu and select "Export". Select a location for the backup file.
Step-3 : Go to the given path:
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Exchange\Client\Options
Step-4 : Then create new DWord value for "Dumpster Always On". Go to "Edit" menu and then select "New". Right-click it and on the DWORD value and set it to "1".
How to Recover Outlook File Data Configured With IMAP or POP3?
The above mentioned process works fine with the Outlook storage file when it is configured with the Exchange profile account i.e. OST file. In other case where the Outlook application profile is configured with other than Exchange application, PST file is created and it is quite difficult to recover the permanently deleted email items. In that case, you can opt for PST File Repair Tool to recover accidentally emails as well as other hard deleted Outlook items.