3 Ways You Can Recover Email From Gmail

Since you’re reading this article, you’re most likely dealing with the loss of an important email in your Gmail. Maybe you messed up mistakenly, or perhaps Gmail’s 30-day expiration policy took effect. Whatever the reason, you want to know how to get that email back as soon as possible.

Well, maybe it’s not too late, even if you’ve permanently deleted your emails. You can use Google’s Gmail message recovery tool to seek Google’s help in retrieving your emails. Besides, if you’re a workspace admin or you have access to Google Vault, you can also restore a user’s deleted mailbox with a few simple steps.

Let’s go over some of the most basic to the most advanced strategies for recovering emails from Gmail.

How to Recover Deleted Emails From Gmail?

Gmail’s Trash folder retains deleted emails for 30 days after deletion. And the Spam folder keeps emails marked as spam for 30 days as well.

Our first method shows how to restore these deleted emails during these 30 days. Additionally, methods 2 and 3 explain how to retrieve Gmail emails that were permanently deleted beyond the 30-day period.

Method 1: Recover Deleted Email from Gmail Trash

As we mentioned, Gmail lets you undelete any message you delete from your inbox within 30 days. All you have to do is locate the message or messages you want to recover in the Trash folder. Here’s how:

From your computer, visit Gmail.com.
From the left sidebar, click More.

Click Trash. Move any messages you want by checking the box.

Select Move to Inbox.

And that’s it. The mail has just been retrieved from your trash and placed back in your inbox. You can also move your retrieved message to any preferred folder, like forums, promotions, personal, etc.

Method 2: Recover Permanently-Deleted Gmail Emails Using Gmail Message Recovery Tool

If the 30-day period has passed or you have permanently cleared your emails by clicking Delete Forever in Trash, the process gets a little complicated. If you still want to recover deleted emails, Google’s Gmail Message Recovery Tool can be helpful.

When used within approximately two weeks of a message being permanently deleted from Gmail, this tool can recover those messages. After that, it’s unlikely that Google will be able to help you.

Go to Google’s Gmail Message Recovery page by clicking this link. Make sure you’re signed in.

Explore the options offered by Gmail and try to retrieve your deleted emails. However, in most cases, the chances of retrieval are very unlikely.
If the above options didn’t work, click this link to bring up Gmail Message Recovery Tool. Then verify your account details.

As soon as you do that, the tool will instantly start working on retrieving your deleted messages.

As you can see, my retrieval effort was unsuccessful since the 30-day period expired more than two weeks ago. But I was lucky to get several of my lost emails back using the same method from another account. See the screenshot below.

Once the restoration is complete, you can simply locate your email using the Gmail search bar as usual.

Method 3: Recover Permanently Deleted Gmail Emails Using Google Workspace Admin Account

Google Workspace is a suite of productivity tools that includes Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and more. If you’re the administrator of a Google Workspace account, you can use the Admin console to restore a user’s mailbox. Here’s how:

Option 1: Restore Emails through the Admin Console of Google Workspace

Each Google Workspace plan comes with an admin console. In the first 25 days after a user deletes an email permanently, this admin console can recover the deleted email.

Access the details page for the user.
Then click “More”

Next, select “Restore Data” as it is shown below.

Deleted Gmail mails can be recovered based on a date range. (within a 25-day range).

From the drop-down menu, select Gmail.

Finally, Click “Restore.” And the user’s deleted emails will be restored.

Option 2: Recover Deleted Emails from Google Vault

Google Vault comes with the Enterprise and Business Plans of Google Workspace and as an add-on to the basic plan. This archiving application enables you to keep your Workspace data according to the archiving rules you specify.

You should already be using a retention policy before accessing ediscovery.google.com, creating a matter, and searching for deleted emails.

[Note: Vault works retroactively after setting it up/modifying retention policies, not for permanently deleted data at the time.]

Once you’ve ensured that, follow these steps.

Visit google.com and enter your search criteria before clicking Search.

Now Google Vault should show you the deleted emails that match your criteria. You can export this data by clicking on “Export results.”

Google Vault will now export your data; it may take a while depending on the size.

Now, name your export and choose a region for your export results to be saved.
Choose the format, PST or MBox, I prefer PST since it is easier to import. And click “Start Export.”

Choose “view completed files” for a more detailed view of your export.

Finally, download your email files as a .zip and save them locally.

You can now extract the PST documents from the downloaded file by unzipping your downloaded file. Also, Google’s Workspace Migration tool for Microsoft Exchange will help you move this PST file into your mailbox.

Have A Look: Can I Recover a Deleted Email Account?

Frequently Asked Questions

Below, we have answered some of the most frequently asked questions about retrieving lost emails from Gmail.

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Conclusion

In addition to showing you some practical ways to recover emails that have been permanently erased, we hope this article has helped you better understand how to recover emails from Gmail.

Therefore, whether you are using Gmail or G Suite, don’t panic when you accidentally delete an email immediately. Although the odds of permanent data loss will be higher due to the short data retention policies, you can still restore your emails within a certain period.

So you must remember- the longer you take to take action and find the email, the more difficult it will be to recover.