Outlook folders

Question

Outlook folders

Penny HOLBROOK 0

I have folders and sub folders in my Outlook mail that have nothing in them. these are items that I need to restore

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2 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

Hi @Penny HOLBROOK

I understand how concerning it is to see that your folders and subfolders are still present but appear empty.

To narrow this down, could you please confirm whether the messages are also missing when you sign in directly to Outlook.com using a desktop browser, or whether this only occurs in the Outlook app?

Please also try searching for one known missing message by its sender or subject and set the search scope to All folders. If the message appears, please let us know which folder Outlook shows as its current location.

This will help determine whether the messages were moved or are simply not being displayed in the affected folders.

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

Answer 2

For Outlook on the web or Outlook.com, restore the missing mail from Deleted Items or Junk Email first:

Open Deleted Items or Junk Email in the left pane. If folders are hidden, select Show Navigation Pane.
Select the messages to restore.
Select Move and choose the correct folder, or right-click and move them back.

If the items are no longer in Deleted Items, they may still be in Recoverable Items for a limited time:

In Outlook.com and Outlook on the web, email is automatically deleted from Deleted Items after 30 days.
Items removed from Deleted Items are recoverable for 30 days.
Junk email is retained for 30 days before automatic deletion.

If an entire folder was deleted, the messages might appear individually in Deleted Items rather than as the original folder structure.

If the folders are present but appear empty, also check Deleted Items carefully for the missing messages and use search to look for specific emails that may have been moved.