How to find deleted emails in gmail

As a Google Workspace admin, you’re likely familiar with panic-struck end users asking you to restore Gmail messages that are lost. Here are some common Gmail data loss scenarios, with steps to use Spanning Backup to restore email messages in a couple of clicks.

Restoring Lost Email

Consider two examples for end user Gmail data loss:

• The end user accidentally deleted an email, then empties their Trash to free up space. Now they can’t find the missing email using any of Google’s built-in methods.
• An end user maliciously deleted important messages with critical information in anger; after hearing there are plans for company-wide layoffs.

In cases like these, if Spanning Backup for Google Workspace has been installed for your domain and the end user is assigned a Spanning license, you can restore that email in a few minutes:

• Log in to Spanning Backup for Google Workspace as an admin.
• Select the desired user’s account that you want to restore by using the dropdown in the upper right corner of the screen.
• Click “Restore” in the left sidebar.
• Search by date range or subject line for the email to be restored.
• Once you find it, select it, and then click Restore.

Self-Restoring Email

Spanning Backup for Google Workspace is purpose-built to allow Google Workspace administrators and their colleagues in IT to focus on high value projects. Giving end users the ability to restore their own emails does just that – freeing up IT admin time – while making recovery quick, easy and accessible for users.

Your end users can self-restore lost Gmail messages with these simple steps.

• Log in to Spanning Backup for Google Workspace with your user credentials.
• Navigate to Restore and select the Gmail tab
• Search by date range or subject line for the email to be restored.
• Select it, and then click Restore.

Restoring Email to Another User

The need to restore mail after an employee has left is a common scenario. For example, for restoring email from an ex-employee to their manager. However, it may be complicated by an employee deleting important messages, intentionally or accidentally. With Spanning Backup for Google Workspace installed, you can restore that mail quickly and easily.

1. Sign into Spanning Backup as a admin.
2. Select the desired user’s account that you want to restore by using the dropdown in the upper right corner of the screen.
3. Select the data you’re wanting to restore and click the “Restore” button.
4. When prompted, select the user that you’re wanting the email messages restored to.

Spanning supports easy recovery based on your requirement – restore from a point-in-time, search and filter for specific lost artifacts, restore to another account and restore from Team drives. Spanning Backup also supports Google Workspace account recovery. Most importantly, Spanning is so intuitive to use that the end-user can restore their own lost or misplaced emails, files, folders and content in Google Workspace with minimal training and no IT intervention.  Thus enabling faster recovery while reducing the load on the IT department. Don’t get derailed by data loss incidents related to Gmail, Drive (including Team Drives), Calendars, Contacts and Sites. 

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If you delete an email from your inbox, it will initially be put into the Trash folder. The email will only be permanently deleted if you delete it in the Trash folder or empty the trash, or if the email's storage time has expired. Permanently deleted email cannot be recovered.

The default storage time for email in the Trash folder is 1 day. However, you can customize the storage time for email in the Trash folder.

how can i retrieve emails i had deleted from my (GMAIL) trash folder?

There is no answer at this time.

Did you click "Delete Forever" on the items in your trash folder?

Then it is deleted forever.

google cannot access my account and restore them? what if the police
need to know what i have been deleting?

The police could obtain warrants to examine Google's server,forensic
recovery techniques could be used,they can get very expensive.

for me or for the police?

Generally speaking for them,you might want to talk to a lawyer if it's for you.

what can a lawyer do? force google to restore my emails?

Betodesign101,

I think we're getting a bit confused. 

Are you trying to make sure that the police can't read your deleted
email, or are you trying to force GMail to recover email that you
expressly deleted?

- Hammer

i deleted some emails by mistake and i want them back. if lawyers and
police can get them why can't I?

Betodesign101,

I don't work for GMail, but I do have some experience with these things. 

If a court orders GMail to produce your deleted emails, they *may*,
with a tremendous amount of work be able to locate some remaining
"residue" of your deleted emails in places like archives or backups.
This means that, if the timing was right, a deleted message or two
*might* happen to be floating around. If the case was tremendously
important, forensics might even be performed designed to recover items
that have been "deleted" but not yet overwritten/eradicated.  However,
this is not something they would even attempt to do under normal
circumstances.

Think of it this way:
A hospital has the ability to pump your stomach to remove poison or to
perform abdominal surgery to remove foriegn objects, but they wouldn't
do so because you ate something you didn't like the taste of.

When you pressed Delete, GMail deleted your messages, as you instructed.

- Hammer

You can(try at least)to convince Google to allow you access to it's
servers and then learn advanced data recovery techniques .Failing that
maybe the arresting officer won't show up at the trial or the judge
will have a heart attack etc.

Thanks : hammer-ga,that's what I was getting at.

so the odds of me getting my emails back are 1 in a million? if so
just say so. thanx.

Your chance of getting your deleted emails back are LESS than one-in-a-million.

~~Cynthia