Emails disappeared from Inbox

[#1]

Yesterday evening I realised that all my emails up to and including December 2021 had disappeared from my webmail inbox. Have they been archived? I was not notified of my space quota being used up. Can they be restored, please? How do you know if emails have been archived? My sent items are all still there.

[#2]

Exactly what do you mean by "disappeared from my webmail inbox"?

Are you using "webmail" as a generic term for email or do you mean specifically "accessing your mailbox via the web browser interface"?

The fact that the sent items folder still has content somewhat suggests that the emails have not been archived.

If you are referring to accessing email via the web browser, you need to be aware that sometimes the performance can be poor and the inbox does not get populated ... and there is no error message.  That is not the same as the mailbox being empty.  You might fare better using a proper email client on a PC / Phone / Tablet.  Using IMAP you can configure an email client on multiple devices and get a consistent view of your mail box on all devices.

There is also the possibility that your have a POP3 email client configured somewhere to access the inbox and that has emptied the inbox (that is the way POP3 is supposed to work).  POP3 clients do not use server side folders, so it will not have touched the sent items folder.

[#3]

Hi - thanks for replying. I mean that the e-mails have disappeared from the inbox on the Plusnet webmail web page, and also from my inbox in Office Outlook that I download my e-mails into. I have the account configured as an IMAP account in order that the messages remain on the Plusnet server as well as offline in my Office Outlook inbox, which has always been fine before.

I am in the process of transferring data onto a new hard drive that has just been installed in my laptop. I had exported all my e-mail messages from Office Outlook up to 30th  November 2021 so that I would be able to import them back into Office Outlook when I had installed the app, and also to make sure that I did not run out of space in my Plusnet quota while I was waiting for the hard drive to be sorted. The importing all worked fine (into "This computer only" folders), but I realised last night that the ordinary "live" inbox both in Office Outlook and on the Plusnet webmail webpage only went back as far as 1st January 2022, ie that December 2021 was missing. 

Any ideas, please?

[#4]

If your Outlook was running in IMAP mode, there was no need to export / import the email in Outlook.  You should have just reconfigured Outlook on the new drive and it would have self populated from the server.

I would be looking at how you have Outlook configured.  It somewhat sounds as though Outlook has removed the inbox content from the server.

[#5]

The e-mails I export/imported are older ones that I took off the Plusnet server to make room, and imported into "This computer only" folders in Office Outlook because I wanted to keep them. The ones that have disappeared are ones that were on the Plusnet server when I reinstalled Office Outlook and, as you say, the messages self-populated from the server - then one month's worth, December's, disappeared...

Can you suggest what configuration of Outlook would have removed the inbox content - and only part of it at that? All of January 2022's messages are still there.

[#6]

Did you set up the new Outlook configuration more than once - possibly initially as POP3?

[#7]

No, I checked before I set it up as to which sort of account it was. I do have another e-mail account, an Outlook.com e-mail account, which is a separate Microsoft Exchange account. It appears in Office Outlook in a separate folder, but then sync'ed itself and now has my Plusnet e-mail address as the folder name, although it is still listed in Office Outlook Account settings as a separate account. I have attached a screenshot of what the Office Outlook screen looks like. The top " [Removed]" account is the Plusnet one, and the address for the bottom one is actually "n. [Removed]@outlook.com". First of all it set it up with the right address, then when I set the folders to sync it changed to a random strong of numbers and letters, then to the Plusnet address! 

Moderators Note: Personal information removed

[#8]

Hello @NickyOver

Have you cleared through your inbox since 09/12/2021? As per this ticket, you were advised that you had used 75% of your storage space, so if you haven't, I'd be inclined to think that your emails have been archived, despite no email confirmation on the account. If this is the case, I'll be more than happy to have them unarchived, giving you time to sort through your emails.

[#9]

That would be great - thanks very much. I have been having computer problems (hence the new hard drive I am sorting out at the moment) so I might have missed the message. If they can be un-archived I will sort through them and make space ASAP!

[#10]

FUP usage emails go to the default email account. Is that being monitored?

It’s in fathomable that the inbox would have been archived and not the sent items folder if this was a FUP issue. FUP usage needs to go from 75% grow to reach over 100% then go unaddressed for 4 weeks before the archive process bites. Every FUP action generates a ticket so take a good review of your ticket history. See the link below.

If this is not a FUP archive matter, there is a slim chance that the lost email might be recoverable from the weekly systems back up cycle … but that would be a big ask!!!

[#11]

I see that there is a ticket relating to exceeding 75% of mailbox capacity. I don't know how I missed that...

Could I ask adam945 are there any of my e-mails archived, and can they be un-archived for me to sort through? And if not, do you have any idea what could have happened? What about Townman's suggestion of recovering them from the backup cycle?

[#12]

Hi @NickyOver,

I'm sorry to see that the emails have disappeared. As @Townman has suggested, multiple tickets will be logged onto the account leading up to an archival and one will also generate once an archive has been carried out to confirm which contents have been affected. As such, I cannot guarantee that this request will either be accepted or work in this scenario, but I'd be happy to raise to the Net Ops Team regardless. I'll keep an eye on the request and let you know once we have an update, but it may be worth looking into other potential reasons this may have occurred in the meantime.

[#13]

Thanks for your post, and your offer to raise the request.

Can you suggest any other potential reasons why this happened that I could look into, please? I have no ideas at all.

[#14]

No worries @NickyOlvier, I raised it earlier this morning There's no set timeframe for when we'll hear back, but I'm keeping an eye on it and will drop you another message once the request has been picked up.

[#15]

Thanks so much for your help! (PS - In case it mattes, it's actually NickyOver ...!)