It’s easy to delete an email or text by accident, but you can usually get it back. Wayne Williams explains how to restore messages you thought you’d lost forever
EMAILS
Always check the Trash folder
It sounds obvious, but in the blind panic that ensues when you accidentally delete an important message, you might forget to look in the place it’s most likely to be. All Desktop email clients and webmail services store deleted messages in a dedicated folder – usually called Trash, Bin or Deleted Items – the contents of which are usually stored for at least a month, or until you delete the items permanently. If you find your missing message there, all you need to do is select it, move it back to your inbox and enjoy a deep sigh of relief. If you’ve only just lost that email, you may be able to retrieve it by simply pressing Ctrl+Z (Undo).
Restore deleted Gmail messages
Any messages you delete in Gmail are sent to the Bin folder where they are held for 30 days and are easily recoverable (if you can’t see the Bin folder, click the More option at the bottom of the left-hand panel). Once you’ve found the email you want to restore, either open the message and click the ‘Bin’ label to remove it or manually drag the message back to your Inbox.
If you wait too long, or inadvertently empty the Bin, then sadly your messages will be gone for good. However, if someone else accessed your account and deleted emails without your permission, it’s possible that Google will be able to restore them for you. You will need to fill in a report at bit.ly/gmailreport390.
Restore deleted Outlook.com messages
Outlook.com’s Deleted folder doesn’t at first glance appear to contain anything. However, if you click the ‘Recover Deleted Messages’ link at the bottom of the page, a number of removed messages (as many as can be found) will magically reappear.
If you find your message there, move it to your Inbox as soon as you can because the Deleted folder is periodically cleared out.
Restore deleted Yahoo Mail messages
As always, look in the Trash folder first for your deleted messages. If they don’t appear there, you can ask Yahoo to try and restore them for you, although the company can only recover messages that were deleted in the past seven days. When you submit your request, Yahoo will roll back your email account to a specified point in time. Although this will bring back deleted messages, it will also have the effect of wiping any messages received after that date. For this reason, you should back up your inbox using the free MailStore Home (www.mailstore.com) before submitting your recovery request.
If you’re certain you want Yahoo to roll back your inbox (be warned that requests can’t be cancelled once made), go to bit.ly/yahoorequest390 and click the ‘Send a Restore Request’ button. Choose a reason (such as your account was hacked or mail was accidentally deleted), enter the date when you last saw the missing messages and then create your request.
Use a recovery tool
Desktop email clients such as Thunderbird save deleted messages to the Trash folder, but if you empty the bin then they get deleted for real. However, as with everything you delete on your computer, only the reference to it is actually removed – the data itself remains on the drive and can be recovered if you act quickly enough. Recuva (www.piriform.com/recuva) is a free download that can recover all your deleted messages, provided they haven’t been overwritten. It doesn’t only restore database files, but also individual messages in EML format. This is the format that all Desktop email clients use and, once recovered, you can import the messages directly into your chosen program.
TEXTS
Restore deleted texts on iPhone
Don’t panic if you’ve accidentally deleted a text message from your iPhone because it may well have been backed up to iCloud before you erased it. Open a browser on your computer and go to icloud.com, then log in using your Apple ID. If you see a Text Messages button, your texts have been backed up; no button means they haven’t. Search to see if you can find the deleted texts. If you can, go back to your iPhone and go to Settings, iCloud. Turn off ‘Text Messages’ and, in the pop up that appears, select ‘Keep on my iPhone’. Turn ‘Text Messages’ back on and tap Merge. The deleted messages should be restored.
If that didn’t work, try to restore a backup through iTunes. Connect your iPhone to your PC, select the device in iTunes and select ‘Restore backup’. Hopefully, the messages will appear.
Finally, you can try a data-recovery tool such as Tenorshare iPhone Data Recovery (bit.ly/iphonerecover390). This costs a whopping £46, but there is a free trial version available that will show you found messages, although it won’t recover them.
Restore deleted texts on Android
Tenorshare Android Data Recovery (bit.ly/androidrecover390) and Wondershare Dr Fone for Android (bit .ly/wondershare390) can both recover Android messages. They cost £37 and £33 respectively, and there are free trials of both so you can check first to see if your message can be found.
To avoid losing your messages in future, you should back them up using SMS Backup & Restore (bit.ly/smsbackup390). This is free but ad-supported. There’s an ad-free version available for £3.
CHATS
Recover WhatsApp chats
The Android version of WhatsApp automatically backs up your chats every night, and you can retrieve your messages by uninstalling and reinstalling the app, then clicking Restore to load the backup. The process is similar on iPhone, but you need to have made a backup beforehand. This is done by going to WhatsApp Settings, Chats, Chat Backup, and tapping Back Up Now. There’s also the option for scheduled and automatic backups. You need to have iCloud turned on.
To get your messages back, go to WhatsApp Settings, Chats, Chat Backup and check that the missing conversation is there. Delete and reinstall the app, then follow the on-screen prompts to restore your chat history.
Get back Facebook Messages
You can’t recover deleted Facebook conversations, but if you search for the other person’s name, or enter some words you knew were mentioned in the chat, you may find that it’s still there. There’s also the chance that you’ve accidentally archived a thread rather deleted it. If you’re logged into Facebook on the web, click the Messages icon, then click See All at the bottom of the list. Click the Actions cog, and – if it’s there – select Unarchive.
Remember, when you delete a message thread it only gets deleted from your side, so you could try contacting the person you’ve been chatting to and ask them to send you a screenshot of the conversation.