How To Recover Deleted Gmail Emails

It is quite common for people to accidentally delete emails in their Gmail account. If you have accidentally deleted an important email, then the hope may not be lost yet. When you click on the “Delete forever” button to delete emails, the emails are permanently deleted and there is no way to recover them. However, you may still be able to recover deleted emails in Gmail if the right conditions are met. Below we have listed a few ways you may be able to recover deleted Gmail emails.

Check the Trash

Not trying to be captain obvious here, but there are still many people who don’t know that all the deleted emails are moved to trash and not actually deleted. You can easily restore Gmail emails from the trash within 30 days of time when the email was deleted. If you haven’t deleted the emails from the “Trash” label, then click on the “More” button on the left side and select “Trash” from it.

Now you will see all the emails that you have deleted in the last 30 days. Look for the emails you want to recover and check the checkbox next to them to select them. Once selected, click on the “Move to” button at the top and select “Inbox” (or select the right label) from the drop-down list. The deleted emails will be recovered to your Inbox.

Are You Using POP3 or IMAP?

If you are using POP3 or IMAP to receive Gmail emails in another Gmail account or view them in your favorite desktop email client, then you can recover permanently deleted Gmail emails from there. Deleting emails in your Gmail account will not delete them from other email services or clients. You can simply go to the service you are using and view the emails from there and even move them back to your actual Gmail account.

Gmail Accounts for Work and School can Still Recover Deleted Emails

If you have Google Apps Domain for Work and School, then you can recover permanently deleted emails in the last 25 days. As multiple users are using Google Apps, there is a chance any user may accidentally delete data. So Google retains the data for 25 days even if you permanently delete it, including your emails in Gmail.

Here is an article by Google to restore user data in Google Drive or Gmail. You can follow the steps listed here to recover emails for individual and multiple Google Apps user accounts.

Use the “Gmail Messages Missing” Help Form

Gmail has a help form to help you recover deleted Gmail emails due to unauthorized access or a bug. Unfortunately, the Gmail team will not help you if you have deleted emails on purpose and now you are looking to recover them. However, it is still worth a shot and the Gmail team may be able to help you recover deleted emails if you tell them the right reason.

Go to the Gmail Messages Missing help form and provide your Gmail account and the date you deleted your email. They will ask you to tell everything about the event and how your messages have gone missing. Here you should not tell them that you have deleted your emails on purpose, otherwise, they will simply ignore your plea for help. I will recommend you tell them that someone gained unauthorized access to your PC and deleted the emails.

I am sure you are wondering how permanently deleted messages can be recovered if they are even deleted from Gmail servers. Well, not all of the emails are deleted immediately when you click on the “Delete forever” button. Google keeps an offline backup of emails and sometimes it could take over 60 days to delete an email permanently. If you are lucky enough, the Gmail team may be able to recover your emails from this backup.

Did You Manage to Recover Deleted Gmail Emails?

If you have permanently deleted emails in Gmail, then it can become quite difficult to recover them. I will recommend you keep an offline backup of all your important emails on your PC. You should not depend on a cloud service for your important stuff, you never know when an error or accident may lead to losing important emails. Do let us know in the comments if you managed to recover your emails in Gmail.