Decluttering your Spam folder and deleting unimportant Emails on Gmail keeps your Inbox organized. However, while you’ll save time looking for important Emails later, you also risk deleting important ones through the rush. I’ll teach you how to recover deleted Emails from Gmail Trash, Vault, and Workspace in this article.
If you’ve nicked an Email from your boss and it’s now too embarrassing to ask to resend the same mail, you might want to try your luck with one of the following deleted email recovery methods.
Also, I’ve covered how to recover deleted Gmail emails by asking Google Support for help. So, stay tuned till the end, and you might retrieve the email you’re looking for.
How to Recover Deleted Emails from Gmail Trash?
When you delete an email from your Gmail inbox, it is automatically sent to the Trash folder. But, of course, that is if you haven’t permanently deleted the email. In which case, it is unrecoverable!
Gmail keeps your deleted email in the Trash folder for up to 30 days. If it has been longer than that, the email is automatically deleted permanently. However, if you’ve neither permanently deleted your email from Gmail nor has it been 30 days since your last action, the following method should then let you recover a deleted email.
To recover deleted emails from the Gmail Trash folder:
- Log into your Gmail account and navigate to the main Inbox page.
- Once on the main page, expand “More” from the left side of the screen.
- Scroll down and select “Bin” from the expanded menu.
- Search for the email you want to recover and check the “Select” box to the left of the mail.
- Click on “Move To” from the toolbar under the search bar and select Inbox.
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Using Gmail’s Search Tool
Sometimes when you’ve got too many emails in the Trash/Bin folder, it’s not that easy to spot the one you’re looking for. Fortunately, you can use Gmail’s advanced search tools to specify your search.
To use Gmail’s search tool for the recovery of a deleted email:
- Navigate to the Trash/Bin folder as guided above.
- Click on the icon with an arrow pointing downwards on the right of the search bar.
- Fill in as many details as you can remember about the email. I.e., Sender’s Info, Subject, Dates of deletion, or even some words included in the email. Then click Search from the bottom-right of the search menu.
This should narrow down your search and help you find the intended email for recovery. Once you’ve found the deleted email, check the box on the left of the mail. Next, click Move To from near the top of the and select Inbox.
How to Recover Deleted Emails from Google Workspace
If you’re a basic Gmail user, you may not have many hopes of recovering a deleted email if it’s not in your Trash/Bin folder. However, using the Google Workspace plan gives you a window of 25 days extra on top of the 30 days for the basic Gmail account.
To recover a deleted email using the Gmail Workspace account, you need to log in to your Admin Console. If you’re not the admin, you might as well request the admin to run the recovery process for you. To recover a deleted email using Gmail Workspace:
- Search for the concerned user using your Admin Console.
- From the “Details” page for the user, expand the options to the left of the screen by clicking on “More.”
- Click on “Restore Data” from the drop-down list.
- Choose the Date boundaries for email restoration.
- From the “Application” list, select Gmail as your option.
- Click Restore to recover the deleted email to the user’s Gmail account.
How to Recover Deleted Emails from Google Vault?
Google Vault is an Add-on that can be added to your Workspace Basic account. But it is available as a stock tool for Business and Enterprise accounts. Google Vault archives your Workspace data depending on the rules you set up for it.
However, it is important to note that the emails that are already deleted when setting up Google Vault’s retention settings cannot be recovered using the tool. You can only recover the emails backed by the Vault or deleted after you set the retention rules.
To recover a deleted email using Google Vault:
- Log in to your Google Vault Account and click on “Search” from the menu to the left of the screen.
- Fill up the search criteria. I.e., Account info, Date (From-To).
- Enter “label:^deleted” under the “Terms” box and click the “Search” button.
- From the list of email that matches your search criteria, select either all emails or the one you specifically want to export. Once selected, click on “Export Results” from the top of the page.
Send the Deleted Email to the User’s Inbox
You need to name your export file, select data region (not necessary), and format it before Google Vault exports your data. Once you’ve filled these out:
- Click on the “Start Export” button from the popup menu on your Vault account.
- Download the Mbox file.
Note: If you fail to download the export file within 15 days of starting it, it will be deleted permanently.
- Unzip the downloaded file and extract the PST document.
You can now send the PST document directly to the user’s Inbox using Google Workspace Migration.
How to Recover Permanently Deleted Emails from Gmail?
There are three ways you can permanently delete an email from your Gmail account.
- By Emptying the Trash/Bin folder.
- Email automatically deleted after 30 days in Trash/Bin folder.
- By selecting the “Delete Forever” option from the Trash/Bin folder for the email.
If you happen to have permanently deleted an email, all hope is still not lost. Though there is a slight chance of success in asking Google Support for help, it is not a certain possibility. Some permanently deleted emails may be retained on Google servers for a while. And if that’s the case with your email, you’re in luck!
To recover a permanently deleted email ask Google Support for help:
- Log in to the Gmail Message Recovery Tool using the email you want to recover the email for.
- Confirm your account and click “Continue.”
You should now get the results for recoverable deleted emails and can retrieve the ones you need. But if Google could not find any deleted emails for your account on their servers either, you get a message saying they were permanently deleted and can’t be recovered.
Conclusion
You have learned how to recover deleted emails from Gmail Trash/Bin, Workspace, Vault, and asked Google Support for help so far. And these should be enough to help you recover a deleted email if it is still recoverable.
Do leave a comment below if I’ve helped you recover an important email. Or if you’re stuck at a step and need some quick guidance.
