topic Re: All email gone in Email

All email gone

MikeBz — Sat, 27 Jan 2024 17:54:07 GMT

About an hour ago the contents of all my email folders disappeared. This is not good!!!! It's the same whether I log in to WebMail, or use iOS mail app, or Thunderbird on Windows (using imap). Please someone at PN tell me this is temporary glitch and all my mail will appear again soon.

Re: All email gone

jab1 — Sat, 27 Jan 2024 17:58:09 GMT

@MikeBz Are you using POP or IMAP?

Re: All email gone

MikeBz — Sat, 27 Jan 2024 18:08:38 GMT

IMAP.

Re: All email gone

jab1 — Sat, 27 Jan 2024 18:12:40 GMT

As I suspected. I wonder if you have exceeded the the 1GB storage allowance, although I understand you receive at least three warning emails, commencing on you hitting 75%?

Re: All email gone

MikeBz — Sat, 27 Jan 2024 18:32:09 GMT

I had a warning many months ago and then had a big clearout. No way was I anywhere near the limit today.

Re: All email gone

jab1 — Sat, 27 Jan 2024 18:41:34 GMT

As I use, and have always used, POP for my PN email account, I am not conversant with the niceties of IMAP, but you did empty all the folders - including the 'deleted' one at your last clear-out?

I suggest you put a request in this topic : https://community.plus.net/t5/Email/Archived-mailbox-Request-for-it-to-be-unarchived-here-Part-2/m-p/1926770#M43721 to request restoration of your mailbox(es), although I doubt it will be picked up until Monday.

I will tag @Townman / @MisterW , as they know much more than me in this area, in case they can offer further advice.

Re: All email gone

MikeBz — Sat, 27 Jan 2024 18:52:36 GMT

At the last clearout, some time last year, I did purge a couple of very large folders but not everything. It was only earlier this afternoon that all emails disappeared (folders are still there, just all empty apart from the few emails which have come in since). There was nothing in deleted as I recall.

Re: All email gone

jab1 — Sat, 27 Jan 2024 18:56:37 GMT

Then, unless someone proves me wrong, I suspect you have again exceeded the storage limit, and either have not seen, or exceeded the warning emails. My advice FWIW, is to move anything you wish to keep to local storage, and leave the server storage level as low as possible.

Re: All email gone

MikeBz — Sat, 27 Jan 2024 19:03:28 GMT

No way have I built up the number/amount of emails to where it was when I had a clearout, and I’ve had no warnings since then. I’ve posted in that other thread as you suggested.

Re: All email gone

jab1 — Sat, 27 Jan 2024 19:05:46 GMT

Fair enough - I'm afraid I have no further advice to give, but what has happened is totally consistent with you having exceeded the allowance.

Re: All email gone

Townman — Sat, 27 Jan 2024 19:29:58 GMT

Did you clear out the trash folder having deleted emails you do not want? Whilst still in the trash folder, they count towards your fair usage.

Try raising a restore request on the the unarchive thread.

Re: All email gone

jab1 — Sat, 27 Jan 2024 19:36:40 GMT

Think I may have sugested this, @Townman 😉

Re: All email gone

MikeBz — Sat, 27 Jan 2024 19:40:51 GMT

I’m pretty sure deleting in Thunderbird doesn’t move things to Trash - maybe I’m wrong, I will check that out. I was only just at 75% at the time and wouldn’t have accumulated much since then, and had no further warnings. I have raised a restore request anyway so we shall see.

Re: All email gone

MisterW — Sat, 27 Jan 2024 20:36:17 GMT

I’m pretty sure deleting in Thunderbird doesn’t move things to Trash -

im afraid it does!

Re: All email gone

MikeBz — Sat, 27 Jan 2024 20:56:46 GMT

OK thanks! I still don’t understand how I’ve ended up over quota since then (I’m gradually moving over to use GMail more and more), and why I didn’t get any more warnings. I also haven’t had an email telling me it’s been archived which apparently should happen. I seriously hope I’m wrong and it has been archived! I’ll see what happens with my unarchive request and if it successfully reinstates everything I’ll run a mailbox size check - I don’t like not understanding what’s going on.

Re: All email gone

MikeBz — Sun, 28 Jan 2024 13:47:33 GMT

I’ve had a reply from the help team on the archived mail thread saying they can’t see any evidence of it being archived but they can see that it’s all gone. It’s been raised with the mail team.

Re: All email gone

MikeBz — Fri, 02 Feb 2024 11:44:03 GMT

Latest update is that they have not been archived but they are still investigating why they have disappeared. The only folder which didn’t get emptied is Sent items.

Re: All email gone

Townman — Fri, 02 Feb 2024 13:44:30 GMT

Oh Dear!!

What folders were there other than sent items?

If only the inbox, then one should consider the possibility of a rouge POP3 email client having emptied the mailbox. In short, is there a possibility that your mail account has been hacked?

POP3 clients only look at the inbox folder and by default, they remove the content of the folder after downloading the emails.

Try sending yourself an email watch for it appearing using webmail. If it then disappears, suspect that there is a POP3 client somewhere. If you have not set up the dame, change your password immediately.

If you have used the same email address and password combination elsewhere (Amazon, Netflix, etc) then change the passwords there as well.

Re: All email gone

MikeBz — Fri, 02 Feb 2024 14:13:46 GMT

Thanks for your further thoughts @Townman.

I have various folders for categorising emails, both in my main <username> account and the catchall+<username> account. On both accounts all folders except Sent ended up empty. If it were a POP3 client which downloaded all the mails then (a) it would have to have been set up to access both email accounts, and (b) I would have thought that a POP3 client would have emptied Sent as well? My PN password is unique to those accounts, not used anywhere else. Since the event mails have been accumulating in both accounts, nothing has disappeared since so it was a one-off event (so far!). I’ve tried Googling to see if any other Thunderbird users have had a similar experience but not come up with anything.

Re: All email gone

Townman — Fri, 02 Feb 2024 15:00:27 GMT

For sure, POP3 does not touch the sent folder. Least not when I last tested it.