Number 295 - December 2007
How I Find My "Deleted" EMails
by Tom Thiel, President, Lake-Sumter Computer Society


   Old Emails are one of my most frequent retrievals from my backed-up files.

   My current rate of email accumulation is about 20-30 a day. I've forced myself to maintain my accumulated emails in my Inbox and Sent Emails folders to a maximum of not more than 1,000 each. So periodically I just arbitrarily "lope off" the oldest one-half to one month or so of emails. I try to manage some of these by placing them into other folders but that isn't very effective for me.

   What this procedure means is that frequently I find myself wishing I still had that old "deleted" email. (The latest one was the Acoustica email sending us Spin it Again software.)

   How do I retrieve that email after I've "deleted" it from my Inbox or Sent Items? Here is how I do it with Internet Explorer 6.

   Sometime ago I found out where IE stores my emails. What I did then was to move the place where my emails are stored by default to a folder named "Toms emails" in my "My Documents" folder. (How to do this is briefly outlined in the addendum at the end of this article.)

   My basic backup procedure is to frequently, at least once a week but usually more frequently, and usually daily with very active folders, copy the contents of my My Documents folder to an external USB connected 300 GB Maxtor drive and to other similar portable USB drives (a 100 GB SimpleTec, and a 40 GB Pocketec hard drive) that are stored away from my computer.

   When I do this of course I am backing up the current contents of all my emails at the moment the My Documents backup is performed. (Actually, any true backup procedure will work.)

   So, when I want one of those old emails that had been arbitrarily "loped" (sic) off the tail end, I do the following:
   
  • Open Outlook Express and set it to Work Offline so that new emails are not loaded in with old ones (only needed if you are continuously on-line). You may set IE to Work Offline as follows: With IE open select File, and then check Work Offline. No new emails can come in under this mode.

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  • Now close OE.

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  • With Windows Explorer I find the folder "Toms emails" in My Documents and rename it to "Toms emails Today"

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  • Then I try to guess what backup might have the particular email I'm looking for from among the various backups I have on the external USB drives.

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  • With Windows Explorer I find the folder "Toms emails" on that external backup copy.

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  • Then I Copy that folder and Paste it into my current My Documents folder.

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  • I now see two email folders in My Documents; "Toms emails" which just was Pasted from the backup copy and the folder "Toms emails Today" which had been renamed earlier.

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  • Next I open IE again.

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  • It asks me "Do you want to work online?"

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  • Be sure to say NO!

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  • I then try to locate the desired email; sometimes I use IE's Find capability to do this. Hopefully, I have guessed correctly and I find the desired email the first guess.

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  • I open it and then copy it to my Desktop by choosing File and then Save As and Save To Desktop.

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  • Now I close IE and with Windows Explorer find the folder "Toms emails", the one I just loaded from the backup, and from which I retrieved the desired email, and I delete it.

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  • Next I rename "Toms emails Today" back to "Toms emails"

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  • Then I open IE and say Yes I want to Work Online.

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  • I find the email that I had copied to my desktop and double-click on it to open in IE. I can then save it back into my current emails and do whatever I wanted to do with it.


    •    And that what I do to find that old "deleted" email! Of course it only works for so long as you maintain those backup copies--in my case about six months.

       Addendum: How you may change the default location where your e-mails are stored in Outlook Express.

       In OE, first select the Tools menu, and then Options tab. On the pop-up screen, click the Maintenance tab, then click the Store Folder button.

       Outlook Express will show you where it is currently keeping your e-mail files.

       You may then select Change and a Browse window will appear where you may chose to indicate the new place you wish to store your emails.

       This article has been provided to APCUG by the author solely for publication by APCUG member groups. All other uses require the permission of the author (tthiel5(at)Comcast.net)

       Copyright (C) 2002-2007 Interactive Computer Owners Network All Rights Reserved
      Number 295 - December 2007