Entire Inbox deleted !

[#1]

About 10 days or so ago I checked my emails just before I went to bed and my entire Inbox was empty. Probably well over 1000 emails going back to at least 2024 and beyond.

I raised a Ticket with Greenby immediately.

To cut a long story short, a day or so later I was told they had managed to restore my emails  -  except for those between Dec 25th 2025 and 17th May 2026. I subsequently discovered that a whole load of emails are missing from my Sent Items as well.

I raised the issue as politely as I could and was told that it had been escalated to seniour engineers and that I should allow 5 days for them to investigate and restore the remaining emails.

I have asked how it could have happened in the first place, what caused it, did the issue affect any other users etc. I have no answers as yet other than that it appears to be associated with my account only.

I have just sent them another message asking for an update on progress and reminding them that I also have the option of submitting a formal complaint. If they can restore emails prior to 25th Dec 2025, then surely they can restore emails between then and 17th May!

I'll keep people posted.

[#2]

Have you inspected the mail box using Greenby web mail https://webmail.greenby.com/
just to make sure this in not an IMAP client or IMAP folder mapping issue ?

[#3]

Yes. So far it's been nearly two weeks and they have not resolved it. The current system is working but I just need those missing emails tfrom between 25th Dec 2025 and 19th May 2026.. They have also rejected my formal complaint on the grounds that what has happened does not breach their Terms of Service !!!

[#4]

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@rogermhunt wrote:

The current system is working but I just need those missing emails tfrom between 25th Dec 2025 and 19th May 2026.. They have also rejected my formal complaint on the grounds that what has happened does not breach their Terms of Service !!!

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Have been puzzled there hasn't been more response on this thread - usually something as potentially devastating as five months' worth of e-mails going missing, would generate lots of response from various quarters.

The supposed "No breach of Terms of Service" sounded rather strange and at odds with what I'd thought had been assured with regard to the ongoing safety of e-mails.  So I went looking.

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https://www.plus.net/help/email-account-changes/

Will I lose any emails I have stored?
All email, folders, contacts, and any additional settings will be copied and transferred to Greenby.

What happens to my personal data?
We’ll transfer the contents of your mailbox to Greenby, along with your contacts, mailbox and webmail settings.

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… on same page:
Who is the new supplier and what services will they provide?
We’re pleased to confirm that the new supplier is Greenby, and they’ll provide you with your Email, domain and webspace service.

To find out more about the new supplier and what they offer, visit the Greenby website
... link to https://greenby.com/ .

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... which links to https://greenby.com/support/knowledgebase/faqs
What exactly will Greenby do for me?
As the new owners of your email service, Greenby will maintain your email service, allowing you to send and receive email as before. We’ve increased your mailbox size from 1GB to 2GB, wih options to upgrade in the future. We’ll also provide your webspace hosting, domain management, and DNS services. If you have any queries regarding Greenby services, we are on-hand to support you every step of the way.

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What happens if I don’t upgrade?
No worries. We will continue to receive and store emails for 2 years. You can upgrade anytime during this period to regain full access to your account, past emails and any new ones too.

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… from further down page:
We understand that many people rely on email addresses they've used for years, and it’s important that those who want to keep using the service can do so with confidence in its reliability.

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Those assurances sound pretty unequivocal, so one might query any assertion that Terms of Service have not been breached if five months' worth of inbox e-mails have gone missing along with 'Sent' e-mails as per the first post above.

@rogermhunt   All this sounds pretty devastating so I hope that somehow you get things resolved.

... One thing did occur to me, though - that first quote from the PN page:

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https://www.plus.net/help/email-account-changes/

Will I lose any emails I have stored?
All email, folders, contacts, and any additional settings will be copied and transferred to Greenby.

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If PlusNet made a copy of it, one might hope that (somewhere) they still have that copy (?)

... no idea *when* your transfer from PN to Greenby took place, of course, and it might well have been as early as December last year.

... which of course might then possibly explain how Greenby were able to restore e-mails up to that date, if they were able to ask PN to re-transfer your data.

Mislaying over 1000 e-mails from 25/12/25 to 19/05/26 is quite another matter.

If you could clarify *when* you were transferred to Greenby, the overall picture might perhaps become a little clearer.

In the meantime - if the transfer was some time during 2026 - perhaps @plusnettony could discover if PN still have copies of at least some of the missing e-mails (?)

.

[#5]

Looks like this was after migration  - we only had up to migration date.

[#6]

Sorry everyone, I started a new post about this in error, so here's what I've just posted (and have deleted the other post) . . . . .

"Goodbye Greenby"

A few weeks ago I checked my emails before going to bed one evening, only to find the entire contants of my Inbox missing. After some back and fore with the AI chatbot and then Support, I was initially told the following day that they had managed to recover them. Unfortunately only emails prior to 25th December were recovered, and only then those that went back to July 2025. A similar problem as regards the Sent emails too! After a lot of two-way discussion with Support, I also put a formal complaint in, which was rejected because Greenby said that they hadn't breached their Terms of Service! To cut a long story short, they are unable to recover any of my emails from between Dec 25th 2025 and May 19th 2026 (the day I discovered the problem). I was migrated from Plusnet on 17th Dec 2025 and so everything since then has been running on the Greenby servers. They have been unable to identify how the issue arose or what might have caused it.

Unlike many other email service providers, who keep deleted emails for 30 days before final deletion, Greenby told me they didn't keep deleted emails in any location once they'd been deleted by the user.

I've had my email address with Plusnet since around 1998 and have bitten the bullet and set up a new email address with a more reputable provider. For the last week or so, I've contacted every company, organisation, individuals and online accounts who have my old email address and updated them with my new one. It's taken very many hours over several days.

Since using Greenby I'd several issues which they have had to sort out. The worst of which is Junk/Spam emails. I never had such issues on Plusnet but have been regularly getting between one and two hundred every day since being with Greenby. Their spam filters, both at the high level and customised low level are pretty ineffective.

I'm gutted to have to lose my old email address, but pleased I've now been able to start afresh with a more robust and (so far) spam-free service provider.

I know I'm not the only one who has experienced many issues since being migrated from Plusnet and I think the whole debacle has been very stressful. If you're having or have had similar issues then you could end up making the choice that I've made.

Good luck !

[#7]

I was migrated on 17th December 2025. 

Nothing explains why the entire contents of my Inbox disappeared on May 19th 2026, sometime between 5.30pm and 10.30pm. When they did a forced re-migration it would have only recovered those email prior to Dec 1th 2025. They have not been able to explain why all those emails on their server between Dec 25th 2025 and 5.30pm May 19th have been lost! 

I've spent a stressul couple of weeks going back and forth with them but now glad I've made the decision to jump ship. My blood pressure couldn't take any more to be honest.

[#8]

True, that's what I figured in the end  👍

[#9]

This is why I have always used a mail client to download my emails. I'm not with Greenby, I use Gmail, but I would never rely on any web based email service to look after my emails.

I use Thunderbird to download my emails onto my pc using POP, while leaving the original on the server. Should the server crash or throw a wobbly & delete all my emails, then I still have a local copy of all my emails on my pc.

[#10]

@RadioFox 

Be careful about false hope / wisdom your suggestion infers.

POP3 does not look at all the folders on a mail server, just the inbox.

Your strategy would not save sent, draft, trash folder or other personal folder contents.  The right solution is to use a proper archiving strategy with an IMAP client which does see all of the folders.

[#11]

@Townman 

I'm not sure what you mean about looking at other folders. All of my emails go into the Gmail Inbox. There are no other folders for them to go into. I have even set up a filter to direct spam to my inbox, as I'm paranoid about missing emails that Gmail suspects of being spam.

As for sent emails, they are sent using Thunderbird, so I immediately have a copy saved to my hard drive, as well as it appearing in Gmail's "sent" folder.

I've been using it this way for 16 years now. I set it up using POP & it's worked fine ever since, so see no reason to change to IMAP.

I can't comment on any other email providers, only Gmail.

[#12]

@RadioFox

By default on greenby (and PN) there are a default set of folders including inbox, spam, deleted, archive.

When you connect via imap (which is what webmail uses) you see a live view of each of these folders. Any changes made (deleting, moving emails between folders, etc) are to this live view.

If you connect via pop3 only the inbox is downloaded into the client's (gmail in your case) inbox. Whilst there are equivalent folders for spam, deleted etc in client these are not updated with the content held on greenby, equally the content of these folders is not transferred back to the greenby set of folders.

Where this might matter is when greenby have received emails, applied spam filtering and moved emails into the spam folder held on their servers. The next time you log in as these emails are already in the greenby spam folder, when gmail connects and only downloads the content of greenby inbox via pop3 you will not see these emails located in the greenby spam folder. Fine if greenby spam filtering is accurate but no spam filtering is totally foolproof so may inadvertantly id a legit email as spam. I believe spam folder only keeps a certain number of days) so potentially if not logging into webmail and periodically checking greenby (or PN for those who havent migrated) spam folder, items may get moved there and emptied before they are even seen

As to the gmail spam folder, its possible that as gmail downloads the contents of the inbox, its applying its own spam filtering and moving items into its spam folder.

[#13]

@njay 

I understand that the other folders are not mirrored in Thunderbird, but then (in my case), I don't want them to be because they are always empty. I do check my Gmail spam folder once a month & it's always empty because I've set up a filter to never send anything to spam. Any emails which Gmail would have sent to the spam folder are sent to the inbox instead.

I'm a simple user. Everything sent to my Gmail inbox is downloaded every 5 minutes to my Thunderbird inbox. Everything sent by Thunderbird is saved on the pc & also sent to the Gmail sent folder. That's all I need. A copy of every received email on my pc & server, and a copy of every sent email on my pc & server.

As I say, I can only speak for what I can do with Gmail. I know that Yahoo mail doesn't have the same facility to filter spam into the inbox. Perhaps Greenby is the same.

The point of my original post was to highlight the disaster that could, and has, occurred by relying on the server only to store emails. Whether using POP or IMAP is best, the point was to use a client to store emails locally in case of disasters. I know it's too late for the OP, but for anyone else reading, do not rely on any provider's servers only.