How to Delete and Recover Deleted Emails in Gmail

Gmail is one of the biggest email services in the world, with over 1.5 billion users. Of the 300 billion+ emails that are being sent every day, all over the world, some of them tend to end up in the spam folder and some of them get deleted by mistake. If you’re someone who lost your emails in your Gmail trash can and are looking for ways to recover them, you’re on the right site.

How to recover deleted emails in Gmail

The answer to the question “Can you recover emails that you deleted from your Gmail inbox?” is that it depends on multiple factors like whether the user is a:

1. Consumer Account user (@gmail.com)
2. Google Workspace Account user
3. Google Workspace Admin

The deleted email stays in the trash for a while and then gets permanently deleted. To restore messages that were deleted, there are multiple methods. They are given below.

_{Recover deleted Gmail emails as a User}

The deleted emails stay in your trash folder for 30 days before they get permanently deleted. They are lost to you if you don’t recover them in the last 30 days or if you empty your trash folder. It is quite simple to restore the mail you deleted.

1. Click on the Bin icon, to the left of the inbox window.
2. You’ll be taken to the trash bin folder. Select all the checkboxes, adjacent to the deleted email, that you want to recover.
3. A few options appear on top of the list of emails when you start checking them off.
4. Select the Move to the menu and choose Inbox. The move to the icon is a folder with an arrow in it, facing right. 

5. The UI will ask for confirmation from the user. Click OK.

The deleted emails will be sent back to your inbox.

Recover deleted Gmail emails as Google Workspace Admin

You get a larger number of options that help you recover deleted emails from your google account, as a Google Workspace user. 

Method 1. Recovering emails with the Workspace Admin Console

1. Log in with your credentials, to your Google Workspace Admin Console. Look for the user, whose mail was permanently deleted.  
2. On the User’s Information page, Click on more, on the left side of the window. Select the Restore Data button.
3. Select the number of days, approximately or accurately, within which the email was deleted. The number of days is the data range. It cannot exceed 25 in case of the data is days.
4. In the Application drop-down menu, click on Gmail and then select Restore.

Method 2. Using the Security Investigation Tool

This feature is exclusive to Google Workspace Users with Administrator privileges. You can check into the emails of the other users and help recover the mail from the trash folder.

1. Enter your Workspace Admin Console and select the Investigation tool, under Security settings.
2.  In the form that has to be filled up, Set Gmail Messages as the source; 
3. Select AND under conditions.
4. Choose the right date to recover the email. 
5. Select the receiver. 
6. Choose the Deleted label. Tap Search when you’re done. 
7. Click on the checkboxes of the mail you want to restore. 
8. In the Actions menu, choose to Restore messages and confirm it.
9. Once they are done, you can transfer them to your inbox by selecting them and choosing Send to Inbox.

Method 3. Google Vault

Google vault helps you archive your data from the Google Workspace. You need a set of retaining rules to keep them. 

1. Log into vault.google.com
2. Make a matter and search the mail you deleted, with the details you have. 
3. Once you type in the data, tap Search. You will be able to see the mail which was permanently deleted, as per the information you entered for searching. You may also see mail, which comes under the same criteria as you entered.
4. Select Export Results, on the top part of the window.
5. Once the Export gets finished, you will be able to download them in the form of a .zip file, which you will have to extract after downloading. You can keep the results for a period of 15 days. 

_{How to Recover Permanently Deleted Emails from Gmail Account}

When you delete a mail, it stays in the trash for 30 days. If you search for the mail, within a span of 30 days, in the trash folder, you’ll find it. But any day after a month, you can not recover deleted emails from your Gmail account. 

However, you might be able to recover the permanently deleted emails, if you use Google Workspace Vault. You can see the deleted emails but not restore them. You can also try recovering it with the Admin console, up to 25 days after the first deadline. 

The email Audit API feature of the Google Workspace can also be used to restore the deleted mail within a period of 30 days after deleting your mail.

How to Restore Deleted Emails in Gmails Within 30 Days

Method 1: The Mail & Spam & Trash method

1. Open your Gmail account. 

2. When you click on the downwards-facing arrow on the search bar, you’ll notice a drop-down menu with filters to sort out mail. In the search category, select Mail & Spam & Trash.

3. Type in the information you know about the lost mail, such as the name of the sender, the subject, the words in it, and more.
4. When you filled in the details you know, Click search. The emails with the details you entered will be displayed.

Method 2: Retrieving with the Editing/Deleting Filter

By chance, you could have enabled a feature, that filters your mail by deleting and archiving chosen emails. This feature could have the mail you deleted.

1. Use your web browser to open Gmail. Click on the Settings icon (cog). In the drop-down menu, select See all Settings.
2. Among the tabs, click on Filters and Blocked Addresses. In the list of filters, look for those with keywords Delete it and Skip Inbox.
3. At the filter’s right, you’ll see Edit and Delete. Click on Edit, and then Continue. 
4. Remove the check from the filters, that you think would affect the mail. Once done, select Update Filter.
5. You can also delete the filters by clicking on Delete and then confirm it by selecting Ok.

Method 3. Recover the deleted Mails from the Gmail Trash

1. Log in to your Gmail in a browser and go into the settings.
2. In the tabs, below the search bar, locate Labels and click on them.
3. In the Trash/Bin category, select show. This reveals all the mail in the trash folder.
4. Click on the checkboxes of the mail you want to restore.
5. Select Move, to send the selected mail back to the inbox. You can read and reply to the mail from the inbox, once you finish restoring it.

_{How to Recover Permanently Deleted Emails from Gmail After 30 Days}

When you delete an email, it remains in the trash for a month. If it isn’t recovered within a month, it gets permanently deleted. Fortunately, that is recoverable too. There are a couple of ways through which this can be done. 

 Method 1: The Support Team method

Seek help and send a report to the Gmail support team, if you want to recover your permanently deleted email. This is how it is done.

• Open your Gmail account and access the Gmail Message Recovery Tool.
• Type in the required details in the form and explain your problem.
• Click Submit, once you’re done. 

Method 2: Recovering from Gmail Server

Gmail offers Google Apps users the feature to restore deleted emails from their server. Every email you receive or compose gets a copy stored in the servers. You might be able to recover permanently deleted emails in your Gmail account. 

You can recover deleted emails from the Google server with the Mail & Spam & Trash method, which is also a way of recovering deleted emails in Gmail, within 30 days from the Trash folder. 

Delete Emails in Gmail on a Web Browser

Deleting the emails you received in your Gmail account is quite simple. This is how you delete your mail in your Gmail account through a browser from your computer.

1. When you open your Gmail inbox in your web browser, you’ll notice small, square-shaped checkboxes on the left side of the email. 
2. Check the boxes of the mail you want to delete from your inbox.

3. A few options would have appeared above the list of mail, right after you check the boxes.

4. Click the Trash Can icon to delete the mail you no longer need. The mail will be deleted immediately. You can undo it, with the undo button in the acknowledgment that appears and states that select mail has been deleted.

Delete Emails in Gmail Using the Gmail Mobile App

Gmail has an app developed for iOS and Android, for its users to receive, read and write mail in a compact version on their handheld devices. This is how you delete the mail you don’t need anymore, from your mobile phone, using the Gmail app.

1. Open the Gmail application on your android/iOS phone. The inbox is the first window that you see.
2. Touch and hold the mail that you want to delete. It gets highlighted and a tick appears to its left, meaning it is selected.
3. You’ll see the trash bin icon on the top of the screen, just below the notification bar. Tap it. The mail gets discarded, at once.

You can undo the deletion by touching the Undo button, which appears as a pop-up with the number of mail deleted. The pop-up remains for only a very short period of time before it disappears. 

Frequently Asked Questions

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