Recover Deleted Messages from OUTLOOK

The following article explains how to recover deleted items in Outlook. When an item is deleted, it typically is moved to the Deleted Items folder. If messages are then deleted from this folder, or if you held the Shift key down when you originally pressed the delete key, the messages are gone. These messages are recoverable for a period of two days, after which they are gone forever.

To recover deleted items in Outlook, please follow these steps:

1. In Outlook, go to the Tools menu and click on Recover Deleted Items.
2. Highlight the items you wish to recover.
3. Click the Recover Selected Items icon.

To recover deleted items in Outlook Web Access, please follow these steps:

1. In the browser, right-click the folder you wish to restore items from and select Open in New Window.
2. Update the URL in the browser, changing "/?Cmd=contents" at the end to "/?Cmd=showdeleted"
3. Select the messages you wish to recover.
4. Click Recover.

The following method works only on PSTs, when it works.

Things to remember:

1. This works under very limited circumstances
2. If the PST has begun compacting, it will likely fail
3. You're better off NOT emptying the deleted folder until you are sure you won't need the messages
4. Don't store messages in the folder unless you are sure the messages are trash

A PST is a database. Items are records within the database and there is an index that points to each item. When you empty the Deleted Items folder, Outlook doesn't actually delete the items, it just deletes the items' listings from the index. The item is still in the PST, but unrecoverable because Outlook has no idea where it is without the pointer in the index. The space the item takes up is called "whitespace".

When you Compact a PST, the item is finally removed permanently and the whitespace is recovered, often shrinking the PST by many megabytes. Once the PST has 20% "whitespace", Outlook begins compacting the PST. If the Deleted Items folder contained a lot of messages, Outlook may begin compacting the PST immediately and the items will be deleted forever within a few minutes.

To recover the items which are no longer in the index you need to force Outlook to rebuild the index by causing corruption. You can cause corruption by using a Hex editor to delete some characters from the beginning of the PST file. If you delete the wrong ones you'll cause corruption but not in the index and Outlook won't rebuild the index.

Recover the Deleted Items

If you don't know what a Hex editor is, you probably shouldn't be hex editing anything, but if you want to try, Google for "hex editor" - UltraEdit is probably the best and easiest one to use. Before doing anything to the PST with a Hex Editor, make a copy of the PST, or you may end up losing all of your e-mail.

1. Open the PST in the Hex editor.
2. Delete positions 7 through 13 with the spacebar. Since you're using hexadecimal numbering, this actually clears 13 characters in the following positions:
   00007, 00008, 00009, 0000a, 0000b, 0000c, 0000d
   0000e, 0000f, 00010, 00011, 00012, 00013
   As you clear the characters, the editor displays the code “20” in their position.

1. Save the PST, it is now corrupted.
2. Run the Inbox Repair Tool, SCANPST.exe, to recover the file. Use Windows Search utility to find it. For additional information on the Inbox Repair Tool, see KB article 287497
3. The Inbox Repair Tool creates a backup and repairs the damage and recreates the PST.

Open the new PST in Outlook. The Deleted Items folder should now contain the deleted messages, unless Outlook has already deleted them for good by compacting the PST.

If you are using a Microsoft Exchange Server e-mail account try this method

By default, to use the Recover Deleted Items command on the Tools menu, you must be viewing the Deleted Items folder. By modifying the registry, this command is available regardless of which Outlook folder that you are viewing. You can view and recover deleted items, including those items that were permanently deleted by using SHIFT+DELETE, for the folder that you are viewing.

Note  If you deleted an item and emptied the Deleted Items folder, click Deleted Items to use Recovered Deleted Items. Only items that you permanently deleted with SHIFT+DELETE or SHIFT+ are available in folders other than Deleted Items.

Caution  If you use the registry editor incorrectly, you might cause serious problems that might require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using the registry editor incorrectly. Use the registry editor at your own risk.

1. Exit Outlook.
2. Open the Windows registry editor.
3. Browse to My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Exchange\Client\Options.
4. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
5. Type the name DumpsterAlwaysOn.

   Note  Do not type any spaces in the name.

6. Set the DWORD value to 1.
7. Restart Outlook.

The Tools menu now has the Recover Deleted Items command for every Outlook folder.

Screencast: How to Recover "Hard" deleted items from Microsoft Outlook folders?  here

Further Reading:Microsoft Article KB 287497

Softwares:RecoverMyfile Read Blog ; R-Mail for Outlook

Category: EMail, Recovery, Tutorial