Can I recover a permanently deleted email from Gmail?

I have been using Gmail for many years now. But recently, due to some issues with the service, my account got locked out. And there wasn't any option in settings that would allow me to regain access back into my account. So, what was left was to delete everything under "All Mail" folder. Luckily, I had backed up all of my mails before deleting them. Otherwise, it's possible that nothing could be recovered at all.

But then, I came across an article by TechRadar which mentioned about recovering permanently deleted emails from your Gmail. The article suggested that if you are sure you want to recover those lost messages, then go ahead and try one or two things first. In case they don’t work, you may need to consider hiring professional help.

So here is the full step-by-step process that helped me get back all my permanently deleted Gmail mails within minutes! This method won't only retrieve your old mails but can even restore other accounts like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc too.

This guide explains how to use Gmail Message Recovery Tool (GMRT) to permanently recover your deleted mails. You just need to follow these steps carefully to see the magic happen.

Note: Before going through each step, make sure that you have already gone through our previous articles explaining how to create a new Gmail account, how to sync multiple devices to Gmail, and how to set up Google Calendar on iPhone/iPad.

Also note that we'll be discussing different methods for recovering permanently deleted mails. Here are the top three options discussed below:

1. How to Recover Deleted Emails From Your Gmail Account After 1 Year

2. Can You Recover a Permanently Deleted Gmail Account?

3. How Do I Recover a Deleted Gmail Account After 3 Years?

Can I recover deleted Gmail account after 1 year?

If you know exactly when your Gmail account was created, you can easily check whether it has been accessed since its creation date. If yes, then go ahead and follow the next few instructions.

Here's how to find the exact date of birth of your Gmail account:

Go to Settings & Privacy section. Then click Advanced Settings button. Now scroll down until you reach Birthday field. On the right side, you should see a dropdown menu containing Birth Date. Clicking on that will take you to another page where you can enter the accurate birthday date. Once done, save the changes and close the window.

Now let us move onto retrieving your lost Gmail messages. Go to My Activity tab, then select All Messages box. Next, choose the search bar and type “birthday” followed by space and the actual day. For example, if you wanted to recover the missing mail sent on January 20th, 2018, then simply type “20 Jan 2018”.

Once you hit Enter key, you will notice several results come up. These include all the messages sent on the same day, which matches the inputted text. However, you might not want to view those messages because they contain sensitive information such as bank details, passwords, social security numbers etc. To avoid that, uncheck the Show Unread Messages box.

Next thing you need to do is to mark the entire conversation thread as read so that it doesn't appear again. To do that, hover over a particular message and press Ctrl + F5. This will open the Mark As Read dialog box, where you can decide whether to keep the message as is, forward it to someone else, archive it, or delete it entirely.

You can either choose Keep selected item(s), Archive Selected Items, Forward Selected Item(s), Delete Selected Item(s). Make sure you tick the Archive selected items in order to prevent future retrieval of the messages.

Click OK once done to confirm your choice.

Then repeat the above procedure till you're able to find the rest of the messages. Remember that if you haven't used your Gmail account for more than 365 days, then chances are high that all your messages were deleted forever.

Can you recover a permanently deleted Gmail account?

Yes, you can definitely recover permanently deleted Gmail account. It depends upon the level of data loss you experience. If the deletion happened accidentally while moving files away without backing up your Gmail, then the chances are very low that you'd ever be able to retrieve them. Even if you did manage to locate the file location, it wouldn't matter much unless you have the original password.

However, if you've experienced data loss caused by hacking, virus attack, ransomware infection, system failure, theft, accidental formatting or hard drive crash, then you can still attempt to retrieve your lost messages. First, head to the Support Center and select Data Loss FAQs. Scroll down and click on Email.

On the following screen, you will need to provide additional details related to the issue. Provide your name, phone number, reason for contacting support, operating system version installed on your computer, time zone setting, language preference, browser version, and Internet connection speed.

After submitting this form, you will receive further instructions via email regarding retrieving deleted Gmail account. Also, there is always a chance that your account gets restored automatically depending upon the severity of the problem.

How do I recover a deleted Gmail account after 3 years?

The third way to recover permanently deleted Gmail account is to contact customer care team directly. Here's how you can proceed:

Head to Gmail Help Center. Select Contact Us link located at bottom-right corner.

Enter the subject line along with your primary email address. Include the date and time of the incident in the body of the message. Explain briefly why you believe your account has been compromised. Add any relevant links in the signature area of the email.

Finally, send your request via email.

Remember that sometimes, customers who have contacted the company for assistance often end up being offered a temporary solution instead of their desired permanent one. Hence, it is best to wait for a couple of weeks before sending off your second round of emails. The response time varies based on the nature of the issue.

If you wish to learn more about recovering permanently deleted emails from Gmail, visit our previous blog posts:

How to Create New Gmail Accounts Using Old Passwords

How to Sync Multiple Devices With Gmail on Android

How to Set Up Google Calendars on iOS

How to Use Gmail Offline

How to Restore Deleted Mails Outlook 2019

How to Find Lost Password for Gmail Account

How to Fix Gmail Login Error Code 635

How to Recover Deleted Gmails After Deleting Them Forever

How to Reset Forgotten Gmail Password

How to Get Back Deleted Photos From Gmail

How to Reclaim Deleted Images From Gmail

How to Resolve Gmail Login Issues

How to Recover Deleted Mails on Windows 10

How to Recover Deleted Mails on Mac OS X

How to Recuperate Deleted E-Mails on Chrome Browser

How to Retrieve Deleted Mails on Firefox

How to Access Deleted Gmail Contacts

I have been using Gmail for many years. I love the simplicity of it, but in recent times, my emails are getting spammed by unknown senders with dubious links that lead me nowhere. For example, there was an e-mail about some free health insurance plan that promised "100% money back guarantee". It had no link or any other way to contact them so I closed the window without giving much thought. And then came another one which said something like "You could be among those who receive $1,000 per month if you click here now" -- again, not even an address. This is when I realized that these types of spam messages were coming into my inbox every day and it was affecting my productivity. So I decided to check out what exactly happens behind the scenes before deleting such mails.

So far, all I found online was either a general explanation of why we should delete unwanted emails (like here) or specific instructions on how to do so. But none of them answered the question: How can I actually get back permanently deleted emails from Gmail after they've passed their expiration date?  As it turns out, you cannot! You might try asking your friends on Facebook or Twitter, but most likely, they won't know anything because nobody has ever asked about this.

Luckily, I stumbled upon a very interesting post on Quora. In fact, the answer to the abovementioned question was already posted at the time I wrote this article. The author's name is Alok Singh, and he claims to be a Google employee. Although his credentials aren't verified yet, I'm willing to take him seriously because he gave several solid reasons why we shouldn't trust third party tools to perform data recovery operations. Also, he used to work for Google itself and knows its inner workings better than anybody else. Moreover, he seems extremely knowledgeable about information security and privacy issues.

If you're interested in learning more about the topic, please read through the following sections carefully. Otherwise, skip ahead to the conclusion where we'll discuss our own method for recovering permanently deleted emails from Gmail.

How can I see older deleted emails?

Before we go further, let us first look at what exactly happens to your old mail once you hit the mailbox limit of 50MB. If you want to see an overview of all your recently deleted emails, simply open the Trash folder located next to Sent Items. From here you can select each individual file individually and view its details. Alternatively you can use the search box to find them easily.

As you can clearly see, only files whose labels say 'Deleted' remain in your trash until you empty it manually. All others disappear immediately. That means that if you don't want to lose any important correspondence, make sure to keep your Deleted label clean.

Can you recover permanently deleted emails on Iphone?

Unfortunately, there isn't really a reliable way of retrieving permanently deleted emails stored locally on your iPhone. Even though Apple does offer its users the option to restore content from iCloud backups, there is no direct connection between the two services. Therefore, it would require restoring everything separately from both locations. There is no easy way around this.

Can I recover permanently deleted emails from Outlook?

Outlook offers a robust feature called Data Recovery Wizard that allows you to retrieve lost items including photos, documents, contacts, calendar events, etc. However, this wizard only works on Microsoft Exchange servers. Since your Gmail account doesn't support Microsoft Exchange, it remains inaccessible to Data Recovery Wizard.

Can I retrieve a permanently deleted email?

Sadly, it looks like permanently deleted emails are gone forever and never come back. They just vanish off the face of the earth. If you still need access to the original message, you can always request a copy of it via the Help Center. Please note however that this may cause additional problems since the sender's IP address will appear in the body text.

Conclusion

In summary, it appears that there is no real solution for retrieving permanently deleted emails from Gmail. We hope that this article helped you decide whether you really need to preserve those emails. After all, it's quite possible that you didn't create them in the first place.

How do I delete an email in Gmail

To delete an existing message in your Gmail account, follow the steps below.

Open Gmail on your computer browser.

Go To Settings → General tab → Select Trash icon (the trash can) at the bottom of the page.

Select Show all items under the Trash button.

Choose the desired mail item and select Delete Mail.

Gmail automatically deletes the selected mail item after confirming deletion.

If you want to restore the deleted email, simply go through the same process.

The above method works both ways. You can also use the following methods to get rid of unwanted emails from your Gmail inbox.

Click File → Label Messages....

Click Add label...

Type the name of the label and click OK.

Now, whenever you see a new email containing inappropriate content, just add the label to it and it will be immediately moved to the corresponding folder.

Click More Options → Customize labels... → Uncheck the box next to each label.

Delete all remaining emails having the same label.

Method 2: How to remove specific sender from Gmail?

In case you don't know when the sender has sent the email to you, you can always disable their access to your inbox. Follow the instructions given below to block certain senders from accessing your inbox.

Log into your Gmail account.

On the left side menu bar, choose Settings → Accounts & Import/Export → Blocked Senders.

Scroll down till you find the option labeled 'Add blocked sender' and select it.

Enter the email address of the person whose email you wish to block.

After adding the email address, hit Save Changes.

That's it! Your inbox should no longer contain emails from that particular sender.

Recovering the Deleted Email Using IMAP

IMAP allows us to access our mailboxes on multiple devices at home (desktop/laptop) and work place (mobile). You can read more about IMAP here.

If we delete an email from our mailbox, it gets stored locally on your device until your next login session where you need to manually move it to trash bin or archive folder. But if we use IMAP, we don't lose the message completely because it's still available online till the end of time! The only thing you'll do is disable it from showing up in your inbox.

First, log onto Gmail through IMAP.

Go to Settings > Accounts & Importance and select More options under IMPORTANCE settings section.

Click Turn On next to Always Sync Contacts and Calendars.

Select Delete All Folders When Deleting Account option from the dropdown menu.

Close all windows and close browser tab.

Now let's go ahead and try recovering a deleted email!

How to Recover a Deleted Email From Gmail With IMAP

Here is how you can recover a deleted email from Gmail with IMAP.

Open your web browser and navigate to https://webapps.google.com/gmail/.

Log in to your account.

When prompted, choose Sign In button.

Once logged in, open the left panel navigation bar and click on Settings button.

Scroll down to POP/IMAP Options.

Under Enable POP/IMAP, uncheck Allow less secure apps to access your email box.

Choose Save Changes.

Return to main screen and click Logout button.

From the new popup dialog, choose Close Window.

In case you are already signed out, sign in again.

To confirm, click on OK.

Deleting Emails Manually

The method above uses the auto sync feature wherein deleted items get moved to Trash automatically once they reach 5 days old. If you want to delete an item immediately, follow the steps below:

Search for your missing message using search query “inbox”.

Right-click your selected message and click Move To.

A pop-up dialogue would appear asking if you wish to delete the message permanently. Click Yes.

Confirm with Enter.

Your message has been successfully recovered!

Do you ever get an urgent request for information that is no longer available in your inbox? Or do you want to retrieve the contents of an old email but don't remember where it was stored or what its subject line was? If so, you might find yourself asking whether you can actually restore emails that have been deleted.

There are quite a few reasons why someone would delete their mailbox's content permanently rather than temporarily. Whether they were just moving onto another device with a new email address, had mistakenly hit "delete" instead of "archive," or needed to free up space for something else, there are several ways to bring back some lost data. In fact, if you're looking for more tips about recovering deleted files and folders elsewhere (like Windows), check out our article here.

One thing we can confirm is that deleting messages from your Gmail accounts doesn’t count as permanent deletion by default. Instead, these messages are set aside for 30 days, at which point they become non-searchable unless you take further steps. After that time period, all traces of them disappear completely -- even from backups! But while that may seem like a long wait to try to recover messages, it does give us plenty of time to think.

So let's dive into the details. We'll start by outlining exactly what happens when you delete a message from any IMAP client, including Gmail. Then we'll walk through the process for restoring those messages to your inbox using third-party tools. Finally, we'll explore how Gmail users can permanently erase messages that are already missing from their inboxes. If you'd prefer to read about other methods for retrieving lost data, see below.

Can permanently deleted emails be recovered?

The short answer is yes, though not always easily. While there are options to help you search for and recover permanently deleted emails, most require specialized software or advanced knowledge. However, once you've found one that works for you, you should be able to access the original text without much trouble.

Let's look first at the technical aspects of permanently deleting messages in Gmail. Since IMAP stores the entire history of every message sent and received, deletions are recorded in each folder's metadata file. This means that even if you accidentally empty your trash bin, Gmail still has the record of your decision. That said, you can still safely remove individual mailboxes' contents from your main profile folder if you choose.

To view deleted emails, simply click on the three dots next to Trash within your Gmail interface. From here, select Show Deleted Messages before choosing Delete All Selected Mailbox Folders. As soon as you complete this step, any remaining emails will vanish from your inbox and are inaccessible again until you perform another operation.

While this isn't ideal, it does allow you to regain control over certain types of sensitive documents. For example, you could wipe all of your personal correspondence with a former employer or partner who left under less than amicable circumstances. You can then use these same techniques to remove the same information from your current contacts list.

However, it's important to note that Gmail makes no guarantees regarding the safety of such actions. The company states that it never intentionally removes any messages, nor does it provide any way to recover them via automated processes. It's therefore best to approach this method cautiously, especially if you plan on sending anything sensitive across public networks.

That being said, there are some solutions that can help you locate lost or deleted messages quickly. And if you decide to pursue one of these options, keep reading to learn how to revive Gmail emails after 30 days.

Are permanently deleted emails gone forever?

As mentioned above, Gmail keeps track of all deleted items for 30 days before permanently removing them. So if you need the content of a particular message right now, you'll probably need to contact customer support. They can help you obtain a copy directly from your backup system. Note that this may only work if you created automatic backups of your inbox regularly, since many companies make changes to their terms of service that prevent customers from accessing previous versions of their primary online storage.

This option is often limited to specific business situations, however, and there are usually better alternatives. Most people opt to go back to the source itself to recover the desired material. There are two possibilities for doing so. First, you can log into the website associated with your account and download the archive manually. Second, you can ask your provider to send you a link to the original email. Both approaches will likely work fine depending on your relationship with the organization involved.

For instance, if you recently worked for a large corporation, chances are good that you still maintain an active connection with the HR department. Their employees may well know enough about your situation to assist you in finding the necessary materials. On the flip side, if you recently quit your job, you might consider contacting your previous boss directly. Many organizations offer this sort of assistance to former staff members, either for free or for a nominal fee.

Keep in mind that both of these options rely heavily upon human intervention. Some businesses will refuse to grant permission, and others won't realize that they have the proper documentation required. To avoid this problem entirely, you might consider creating copies of your own archives and storing them offsite. You can then share these backups with trusted friends and family members whenever you run into trouble.

You can also create a second archive locally using your preferred archiving program. Once you have a duplicate, you can save the original document somewhere safe, such as a flash drive, external hard drive, or cloud storage platform like Dropbox. When you need the original file, you can open the secondary version and paste it back into your inbox.

It's worth noting that neither solution involves downloading additional software beyond what comes installed with your operating system. This makes them easy to implement, especially for Mac or Linux users. However, if you're using Microsoft Office 365, you may face challenges getting past any security restrictions imposed by your provider.

Another potential issue arises if you're trying to retrieve a single email from multiple accounts. Each individual account generally maintains separate databases, meaning that you cannot simply export everything from one place and import it into another. Fortunately, you can sometimes overcome this limitation by combining multiple searches into a single result.

Lastly, if you're unable to uncover the information you seek because your original e-mails have disappeared from your inbox, you might consider filing a complaint against your ISP. Your provider almost certainly offers free services to anyone who needs legal assistance. Just be sure to explain your case clearly and include proof of ownership if you feel compelled to do so.

How can I recover permanently deleted Gmail after 1 year?

Even if you manage to salvage a piece of information from your inbox, it's unlikely that you'll be allowed to keep it indefinitely. Depending on what type of data you're dealing with, your provider might restrict access to the item for various lengths of time. This is true regardless of whether you used a private or shared server during your tenure.

Most ISPs will limit access to deleted emails for 90 days after removal. Other providers will impose similar rules. However, if you believe that you deserve special treatment, you may be able to appeal this decision. Keep in mind that you must submit official evidence demonstrating that the content belongs to you personally, and that it hasn't been previously distributed publicly.

After 90 days, users lose full access to their deleted accounts. At that point, you can attempt to reestablish communication with your former colleagues, but you will receive no updates or notifications.

Some ISPs extend this restriction to 180 days, although they typically reserve the right to change this policy unilaterally. During this time frame, users can continue to browse the records contained within their archived mailboxes. However, they will no longer be able to retrieve deleted messages from inside the interface themselves.

Finally, some ISPs prohibit access altogether. These policies apply to all users, regardless of their level of membership. Even if you paid for your subscription, you won't be granted access once your term expires.

Unfortunately, there's no simple way around this rule. Users attempting to circumvent it risk violating copyright laws and receiving hefty fines. Those who wish to retain the ability to communicate with their exes despite the presence of this clause should contact their ISP directly.

Gmail users can recover permanently deleted emails on iPhone too

Many iPhone owners also suffer from the inability to recall passwords, names, or other valuable pieces of information that have been forgotten. Thankfully, Apple provides a variety of features designed to combat this particular issue. One of these includes iCloud Backup, which allows users to store selected portions of their phone's memory on a remote server.