Missing emails …….again

[Bennie_g]

Today, my wife’s webmail inbox only showing a weeks activity, hundreds disappeared. Sent emails were still there.  Checked everything I could think of and read other posts.  We’re using iPads and IPhones and a Mac desktop. 

Decided (rather stupidly as it turned out) to “chat” with a technician.  50 minutes and I had to give up after being send down numerous rabbit holes - check spam folder, check the “cog” wheel settings (?) and so on.  My impression is that iMAP emails stay on the BT server  unless the owner deletes them from there. Is that right?   Certainly my own web mails are all there.  Is there a setting that I should check?  We’re resigned to having lost the mails that are missing, but want to make sure we’re doing as much as we can that this won’t happen again. Any advice would be appreciated,

[NeilO]

Hi, @Bennie_g Welcome to the community and thanks for posting. I'm really sorry to see you're wife is missing emails, has she logged into the BT Email website to see if the emails are still there? If they're not in webmail it means they're no longer stored on the BT server.

Thanks

Neil

[Bennie_g]

Thanks Neil for getting back to me.

I’ve  since spoken with two BT technicians who both said the same thing - they are gone for good. I asked if it was a setting on my wife’s email account perhaps or a glitch in their system. Obviously I didn’t really expect them to admit to it being in their system,  but neither did they, in fairness deny it being a possibility either way. In fact the second guy walked me through various setting to check them.  I was under the impression that emails stayed on the server virtually forever unless we removed them.  I didn’t get a clear answer when I asked them about this, except that the loss may be as a result of a hack of her email account. I’m as confident as I can be that that’s not the case.  Thanks again

[gg30340]

This is bolting the door after the horse has gone but in future you should not use the Inbox as a storage folder. This folder is dynamic in as much as it is constantly being refreshed and changing every time it checks for emails and this, while it shouldn't be, could be the cause of the problem.

You should file the emails on a daily basis or at least a wekly basis in a folder(s) that you have set up in the account's folders even if it is just one other folder such as a pending folder. 

You should also consider backing up the emails so that in the event that something such as this happens again you would at least still be able to recover them.

[Bennie_g · Accepted solution]

Thanks for reply. Makes sense even though it doesn’t answer one of my concerns whether this happened as a result of a BT glitch as someone suggested in a similar thread, or if there is now a limit on how long emails are kept on the BT server bu BT, also which I have seen mentioned on other threads.  That said, I think we have gained in knowledge from your reply and from conversations with BT to at least be more prepared for this in the future. Thank you and others who have advised.