Sending, receiving, and organizing email in Outlook.com
For an Outlook.com account, the remaining self-service recovery paths are the ones already checked: Sent Items, Deleted Items, Recover items deleted from this folder, and search across folders.
If the messages are not in Deleted Items or Recoverable Items, they have probably been permanently removed and cannot be restored from the mailbox.
Supported recovery checks for Outlook on the web / Outlook.com:
- Open Deleted Items in Outlook on the web or Outlook.com.
- At the top of the message list, select Recover next to Recover items deleted from this folder.
- Select any items found and choose Restore.
- Also check Junk Email. If a message is there by mistake, select it and use Report > Not junk.
Important limits called out for Outlook on the web / Outlook.com:
- 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.
For sent mail specifically, Outlook stores sent messages in Sent Items, but older items may no longer appear if they were deleted or if only a limited period is being synchronized in some Outlook configurations. In Outlook desktop, sent items may also be missing if Save copies of messages in Sent Items folder is not enabled.
For Outlook.com, the available support guidance indicates that if missing mail is no longer visible in the mailbox after these recovery steps, it has likely been permanently removed. The available next step is to use Outlook.com support channels if further account help is needed.