Finding back Recovered Deleted Items
I’ve recently deleted a couple of emails too many but as I’m using an Exchange account, I should be able to recover them via the Recover Deleted Items feature.
However, due to the amount of spam, the Social Connector and a plethora of other messages I’ve deleted it is almost impossible to find back the messages that I want to restore.
Is there a more convenient way to find back my deleted items?
Also, once recovered, which folder does it go to?
The Recover Deleted Items dialog of Outlook indeed is very primitive and doesn’t offer any control over which folder the recovered item will be restored to. In most cases this is the Deleted Items folder but it could also be the original folder it got deleted from or the Inbox folder.
A better way to recover your Deleted Items would be to use Outlook Web App (OWA) instead of Outlook. It offers a search feature and control over which folder an item gets restored to.
Locating the OWA URL
If you do not know the URL for OWA, contact your Exchange administrator.
When you use Outlook 2010 or Outlook 2013, you’ll find the URL for OWA in the following location as well:
File-> Info-> Account Settings
Note: This URL is the external URL for OWA. Depending on your corporate network infrastructure, the internal URL may be different. Contact your Exchange administrator if the link doesn’t work for you.
Recover Deleted Items via OWA 2007
Once logged on to OWA, click the Options button in the top right corner and in the Options screen choose “Deleted Items”.
While there isn’t a real search feature, you can use the search feature of your browser to search for specific words in the subject.
Recovered items are always recovered to the Deleted Items folder. Once recovered, you can find the item by looking at the Received date or by using Instant Search.
Recover Deleted Items via OWA 2010 or OWA 2013
Once logged on to OWA, right click on your Deleted Items folder and choose “Recover Deleted Items”.
At the top there is a Search field to find your deleted item. This searches the entire message content and not just the subject field.
You can also use the “Arrange by” link at the top to change the sorting order. By default your list is sorted by “Deleted On” but you can also sort by From, To, Size, Subject, Type and Attachments.
When pressing the Recover Selected Items button, a dialog will pop-up which allows you to select a folder to recover the items to or even create a new folder to recover to.
Recovering Deleted Items is much more convenient in
OWA than in Outlook. Outlook, are you paying attention?
