It can happen to anyone. We accidentally delete an email that we really need. And it turned out to be an important work file, an attachment, or a picture. And now that? How can I retrieve that email? It’s possible? Surely, can it be removed permanently?

Well, there is good news and bad news.

Let’s start with the good news.

Restoring deleted emails

If you delete an email, you haven’t really gone anywhere. Even if you have emptied your recycle bin or the “Trash” folder in your Inbox, the email is still not deleted. It’s just that your computer system now has no way of figuring out where it is. But it’s there, still on your hard drive. By using special email recovery tools, you can recover deleted emails because these programs identify these ‘lost’ files and can revive them.

Now the bad news.

Act fast and increase your chances

The bad news is that you have to act fast. You only have a short period of time to try to recover your lost email. Every minute you waste and continue to use the drive for anything unrelated to your email recovery dramatically decreases your chances of a successful email recovery. Why?

Well, because your hard drive constantly overwrites files to make room for the new information you enter. If your hard drive is full and there is not much space or memory available, it is very likely that the email has already been overwritten and permanently deleted.

Other problems with recovering deleted emails

Not all deleted or lost emails go to the “Trash” folder. If you have suffered a computer crash or hardware failure or your operating system is corrupted in some way, then it is unlikely that the emails you deleted can be recovered.

Also, if you haven’t opened the email at all or it hasn’t been deleted in the usual way due to file corruption, you will probably have less chance of recovering and restoring the email in its entirety.

Nothing to lose

Recover deleted email programs search and locate the emails you have deleted. You can search by entering a specific keyword, for example. You can then choose to preview the email to see its content and whether the program has recovered it in its original state. You can also select to search for whatever email program you are using (and need to recover), be it web-based emails like Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail, or Outlook Express.

The best is this. Most of these email recovery programs can be downloaded for free. When they start scanning your hard drive for the deleted email and then they manage to find it and when you are completely satisfied that that is your lost email then you can proceed to purchase the software.

In essence, you have nothing to lose (if the email is not there, it is not there) and everything to gain.

Well, at least you can get your deleted email back.