All my sent emails have been deleted from Webmail and Outlook

[#1]

Hi there.  I realised a week ago that all my sent emails in Outlook 2016 had disappeared.  I checked my Plusnet Webmail and again, all the sent emails had gone. My inbox was ok in both Outlook and Webmail.  I rang Plusnet and they told me that:

On review of your account I am unable to locate any notification we have sent to confirm your sent box has been archived. We have also checked our server storage and can not locate any mail in your sent items folder. If you are missing emails from your mailbox then this is usually due to you the account being set up on a third party client as POP3 which then deletes emails from our server after a period of time (usually 30 days). 

I haven't deleted them from Outlook or Plusnet Webmail. However, Plusnet consider that I have deleted them and they cannot recover them.  I'm really frustrated about this.  Surely Plusnet take backups of emails in case of such an issue?

Any help/advice gratefully received as really need my sent items.

[#2]

@YorkshireRobb 

You have not addressed the point whether you had set up an IMAP or POP3 account in Outlook.

Unless it was IMAP then Plusnet are not responsible for their retention on their system. 

[#3]

Hi Baldrick1

I have POP3 on Outlook.  Why are they responsible for IMAP but not POP3 please?

Cheers

[#4]

@YorkshireRobb 

Put simply with POP3 the emails are retained on the sending/receiving computer. With IMAP they are kept on a central server at Plusnet so that they can be synchronised across multiple user devices.

It sounds like you have had a glitch on your computer and that is why you have lost them. Both IMAP and POP3 options are available in Outlook.

Personally for privacy purposes I use POP3 but I also keep my computer regularly backed up.

[#5]

Mixing POP3 and IMAP clients is never a good idea.  Remember that Webamil is an IMAP client.

IMAP clients store everything on teh server - including SENT items.

POP3 clients store everything on the POP3 device, removing everything from the server.  There are fudges to alter the delete from server characteristics but it is still a cludge.

What I suspect you have done here is to set up a new POP3 client and had it grab mail from the server without having first set the loeave on server settings.  If a POP3 client connects to a mailbox which has been operated with an IMAP client, all of the sent items will be in the server until the POP3 client deletes them after down loading.

The approach should be simple only ever use IMAP - then if you want to store your emails locally (for example as an archive) manually copy them to a local storage folder ... in most good quality clients such can be automated using mailbox rules.