Outlook emails are getting deleted after three months

Question

I have a problem with my Outlook. My mails are getting deleted after 3 months. I am not able to get back those if required. Because of this I am losing some important emails in Outlook. How can I get back these emails?

Solution

Outlook has a function called 'auto archive'. You can use this to move 3 month old mails to an archive folder before they are deleted.

If this is already turned on and the archive folder is not connected in your list of mailboxes then this might also be what is causing your mails to go missing. In which case it will be easily rectified on most outlooks installs via 'file' 'open' outlook datafile' (browse to file). In Outlook 2012 seems to lack this option and forces you do to the same thing via the control panel.

Comments

[Sun]

What version of Outlook are you using? Windows or Mac? When you right-click on [email protected] > Data File Properties > Policy -- do you see any details about Retention Policy? This is assuming you have Office 365.

[Tubii]

I tried as per your sugession. But the file is containing empty. No mails are archived. :(

[Ramhound]

@mdhar9e - They were not deleted. They were archived. Now if the archive file was deleted that is a seperate story. If you cannot find the archive file it means the emails are likely lost. I would suggest you request IT support at your company and ask how to prevent this from happening in the future.

[ganesh]

Nods. if this in a company then ask your IT support. They may have a setting where they move old mail from the exchange server. There are performance and storage reasons to do this. If not I assume default outlook settings. I have no outlook next to me (at home atm), but I remember the 3 months as the default archive time in outlook 2003 and outlook 2007.

[DavidPostill]

This is not an answer to the original question. If you have a new question please ask your own question (referencing this one for context if it helps).

[Sun]

Some bozo in IT can also set the Retention Policy to Delete after 90 days. With that kind of policy, your old emails are gone.