Emails not being saved in sent mail folder

[Stevetat]

I have just discovered that all of my sent emails except for the current month have all disappeared from my Outlook 2021 sent folder?

Can anyone please suggest how I can get them all back?

[gg30340]

You should check Outlook settings to see if there is a setting to delete the sent folder contents after a set period.

Is your Outlook set up as an IMAP account or a POP3 account?

If it is as an IMAP account you can check to see if they are on the BT server by logging onto your BTMail account using a browser. If they are not there then there is no way to recover them.

If Outlook is set up as a POP3 account it means that the sent emails would have been saved on your device. You would need to find where the Outlook folders are saved on your device and check there to see if the emails are there.

[Stevetat]

Thanks for your reply.

My Outlook is set up as an IMAP account. I have checked on the BT server as you suggested and it is only showing my last two weeks sent mails!

However, my partner who uses the same computer and Outlook has myself still has all of her sent mail availble to her in both out look and on the BT server?

It is really important that I recover all of my missing sent mail so is this at all possible? 

[gg30340]

If they are not in any folders, such as the Trash folder on the BTMail servers when you checked using a browser it means that they are deleted and can not be recovered.

Not much use to you now but in future you are best not to use the Inbox, Sent folder or Trash folder as storage folders.

You should instead create new folders, naming then appropriately and if you wish to keep emails move them into a folder you have created. 

[Stevetat]

So if I were to create an Archive storage folder in Outlook will the emails be safe there?

[gg30340 · Accepted solution]

I can not guarantee that they will be safe in any folder, nobody can as there are many things that can cause emails to be deleted, but they will in my opinion be safer than storing them in folders that are not set up as storage folders and are constantly being accessed and changed when you use your email account.

You should also consider including your email folders in your back up regime, assuming you have one in order to mitigate the loss should something similar happen in the future.