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Are Deleted Items gone forever in Outlook?

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› Outlook › Are Deleted Items gone forever in Outlook?

Last reviewed on February 15, 2021     55 Comments

Applies to: Outlook 2010, Outlook 2007, Exchange Server

I had questions recently inquiring about recovering deleted email. The questions weren't from users who wanted to recover accidentally deleted email, but from users who receive sensitive information by email, including personal information and credit card numbers, and need to comply with laws addressing the security of personal information in the event of a data breach. They are aware that forensic methods exist that can recover deleted files from a hard drive but wanted to know if an average (or above average) user or a hacker could recover messages after the Deleted items folder is emptied.

To find specific items in the Deleted Items folder of an Exchange mailbox when you know approximately when you deleted them, close the reading pane, add the Modified date field to the view and sort by it. Find the approximate date you deleted the items. To find deleted appointments or contacts, sort by the icon field. Note that this will not work with .pst files, you'll need to find the deleted items yourself.

If you use a POP3 account, no, a hacker can't easily recover your deleted items - and neither can you. If you use IMAP or MSN, deleted items can't easily be recovered from the local store, but you'll need to verify they were deleted from your mailbox online. If you use Exchange mailbox, its possible the messages are stored on the server for a period of time before they are permanently deleted. If so, they will be easily recovered by anyone with access to your mailbox.

When Outlook is configured to use a PST and you use Shift+Delete (recommended for messages you don't want recovered) or Delete then empty the Deleted items folder, someone would need to use a third party application to have any chance of recovering the messages. As time passes and new mail arrives or after the PST is compacted, the ability to recover deleted messages go down dramatically. Compacting the data file after emptying the Deleted items folder will eliminate the ability to recover deleted items.

Recovering Deleted items in Exchange accounts

Items deleted from Outlook and Exchange server mailboxes complicates matters and it's more likely you'll be able to recover the deleted items. If the network is secure, the data will be secure but there are more places where the messages may be stored. If the user deleted the items using Shift+Delete, they may look deleted but will be accessible in Recover Deleted Items when the DumpsterAlwaysOn key is enabled.

recovered deleted items

Deleted items may be covered by a Deleted Item Retention policy in Exchange, preventing the user from deleting the messages from Recover Deleted Items. If the organization archives messages as they arrive they could be somewhere in the network. So many places to look, but with proper network security, the data will be secure and users will be compliant with existing laws.

DumpsterAlwaysOn

This key is valid in all versions of Outlook when used with Exchange server mailboxes. In Outlook 2007 and newer, you do not need to add the key to the registry in order to be able to recover data from any folder in the default mailbox.

Setting this value in Outlook 2007 and up enables deleted items recovery for shared mailboxes.

With this value set to 1, you can use the recover deleted items while viewing any folder. Set the value to 0 to disable it for folders other than the Deleted items folder.

To set the DumpsterAlwaysOn key, open the registry editor and browse to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Exchange\Client\Options
DWORD: DumpsterAlwaysOn
Value: 1

If you don't want to edit the registry, you can use this file to set it: DumpsterAlwaysOn registry file.

Because this registry key is in the Local Machine hive, you'll need to save the file then run it from your hard drive. Right click on it and choose Save target as... then use Open folder and double click on the downloaded file.

Restart Outlook and you'll be able to recover newly deleted items from any folder in Outlook.

DumpsterControl

Use DumpsterControl to remove the Recover Deleted Items command on the Tools menu by adding the DWORD value "DumpsterControl" to the registry and setting its value to 0.

Browse to the following registry key using regedit:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange\Client\Options
DWORD: DumpsterControl
Value: valid numbers are 0, 1, 2, or 3

Valid Value data are:

0 - Off for Exchange mailbox folders, for PST folders, and for public folders.
1 - On for Exchange mailbox folders, for PST folders, and for public folders.
2 - On for Exchange mailbox folders and for public folders. Off for PST folders.
3 - On for the "Deleted Items" folder in a Microsoft Exchange mailbox and for public folders. Off for all other folders in an Exchange mailbox and for PST folders.

If you don't want to edit the registry, you can use this file to set the value to 0: DumpsterControl. Note: Because this registry key is in the Local Machine hive, you'll need to save the file then run it from your hard drive. Right click on it and choose Save target as... then use Open folder and double click on the downloaded file. You can edit the file using notepad before running if you want to use a different data value.

Note: I'm not sure why PST files are included in the menu settings as you cannot recover deleted items from a .pst file because the "Dumpster" is an Exchange feature.

If you use Outlook 2007 SP2 or later, you just need to set the registry value; if you use a pre-SP2 build, you will need the hotfix described in The "Recover Deleted Items" option in Outlook 2007 is still available after you set the DumpsterAlwaysOn registry entry to 0.

OWA

In Exchange 2010, you can items deleted using Shift+Delete by right clicking on the Deleted Items folder and choosing Recover Deleted items.

In Exchange 2007, go to Options, Deleted items to view your deleted items that are available for recovery.

In Exchange 2003, add cmd=showdeleted to your OWA url to access deleted items recovery.

More Information

How to Recover a Deleted Item- Exchange 2007 Help (TechNet)
Understanding Recoverable Items Exchange 2010 (TechNet)
The "Recover Deleted Items" option in Outlook 2007 is still available after you set the DumpsterAlwaysOn registry entry to 0 (MSKB)
Recover Deleted Messages from .pst files (For POP3; Outlook-tips.net)

Are Deleted Items gone forever in Outlook? was last modified: February 15th, 2021 by Diane Poremsky
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About Diane Poremsky

A Microsoft Outlook Most Valuable Professional (MVP) since 1999, Diane is the author of several books, including Outlook 2013 Absolute Beginners Book. She also created video training CDs and online training classes for Microsoft Outlook. You can find her helping people online in Outlook Forums as well as in the Microsoft Answers and TechNet forums.

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Chris (@guest_217395)
December 31, 2020 2:11 pm
#217395

Is there any way to recover the original version of a modified contact record?

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wayne (@guest_211663)
August 8, 2018 3:16 pm
#211663

I wish you could just get rid of the deleted items folder altogether. Once I delete something I never have any reason to want it back again.

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Diane Poremsky(@diane-poremsky)
Author
Reply to  wayne
August 9, 2018 12:52 am
#211666

That will never happen - but get in the habit of using Shift+Delete to get rid of everything for good.

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MikeG (@guest_209187)
November 3, 2017 4:00 am
#209187

I had a problem with my PC and had to Reinstall the operating system. When I opened Outlook 2010 about 250 of the oldest e-mails in my Inbox had gone. Some of these dated back two or three years. All I had were e-mails that had arrived since 4 October 2017. Can I get these old e-mails that were in my Inbox back?

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Diane Poremsky(@diane-poremsky)
Author
Reply to  MikeG
November 3, 2017 10:27 am
#209192

What type of email account is it? Are you using the same account type as before? If you had pop3 and deleted from the server and now use imap, the behavior is expected. If this is what happened, did you just reinstall/repair or reformat? If reformat, do you have data backed up?

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MikeG (@guest_209215)
Reply to  Diane Poremsky
November 6, 2017 3:11 pm
#209215

I'm afraid that I am very much a novice when it comes to technology. I believe I am using the same account type as before which I think is pop3. I just did a reinstall as far as I know.

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Diane Poremsky(@diane-poremsky)
Author
Reply to  MikeG
November 8, 2017 12:40 am
#209242

if you were deleting mail from the server, the behavior would be the same... but you need the old data file you used before you reset the computer. Did you reinstall and choose the option to save the data?

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Mike Greenwood (@guest_209259)
Reply to  Diane Poremsky
November 10, 2017 2:42 am
#209259

I can't remember seeing that option being available. Does this mean the data wasn't saved and so is lost for ever?

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Diane Poremsky(@diane-poremsky)
Author
Reply to  Mike Greenwood
November 19, 2017 11:31 pm
#209385

if you can't find a pst or ost file and the mail wasn't left on the server, it's lost. Sorry.

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Cssy R (@guest_204151)
January 27, 2017 10:28 am
#204151

THANK YOU! all of my emails recovered

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Bill (@guest_199978)
July 13, 2016 10:02 am
#199978

With the new Outlook.com...recovery of deleted items is a security issue more than anything. It gets old manually purging items that were already deleted.

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Reply
Diane Poremsky(@diane-poremsky)
Author
Reply to  Bill
July 13, 2016 12:37 pm
#199979

They should be auto-purged - i thought it was 14 days but it might be 30 days (from the date the deleted folder was emptied). (The old outlook.com has the same feature.)

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Meeee (@guest_199908)
July 11, 2016 6:33 am
#199908

On outlook.com deleted email and when wanted to recover it hit "Purge" by mistake. Any chance of ever recovering it? It could save me a few weeks of work. Outlook privacy mentions up to 30 days before deletion but does purging means gone, gone gone?

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Diane Poremsky(@diane-poremsky)
Author
Reply to  Meeee
July 12, 2016 12:47 am
#199943

If you emptied the deleted items recovery, it's gone. Are you on the old server or the new server?

recover deleted new outlook.com

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VanguardLH (@guest_199905)
July 11, 2016 1:56 am
#199905

Using EAS to a Hotmail account in Outlook 2016 (part of Office 365). Create and then delete a test contact. Deleted contact is NOT in the Deleted Items folder. There is no "Recover Deleted Items" menu selection (I'm using EAS, not Exchange). The deleted contact is not in the Recycle Bin. This makes the Del key extremely dangerous. There is no safety prompt to ensure the user wanted to delete a contact (they may have accidentally hit the Del key or they thought the preview pane on the right was editable and hit delete to erase a selected field (and then write new data in there). There is no undelete: the deleted item does not go into the Deleted Items folder and Recover Deleted Items is only available when connected to a full Exchange server (not when using EAS - and my Hotmail account has not yet migrated from EAS to Exchange).

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Diane Poremsky(@diane-poremsky)
Author
Reply to  VanguardLH
August 17, 2016 11:39 am
#200787

On the old server, contacts are recoverable in the outlook.com web interface... hopefully, your account is moved or will be soon, and then contacts will be in the deleted items folder for sure. (They should be on the old server too, but you need to sort by icon or use search. I'm not sure if i have any accounts still on the old server to double check.)

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Stacey Dalman (@guest_199265)
June 10, 2016 7:35 am
#199265

When I delete a message in outlook then go to the recover deleted item & delete again there is there still a way that someone could read the message even though it has been deleted from the recover deleted items folder?

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Diane Poremsky(@diane-poremsky)
Author
Reply to  Stacey Dalman
August 17, 2016 11:30 am
#200785

If it was deleted from deleted items recovery aka "dumpster", people with access to your mailbox would not be able to recover the mail. It would require heroic action by the admin to recover it but it's a lot of work to restore the backup to a temp server.

When you have a consumer account on Outlook.com or a business account with Office 365 Exchange Online, it is not recoverable at all, even by the admin.

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