⤠How to Recover Deleted Emails in Mail for iPhone and iPad
Have you ever accidentally deleted an email within the stock mail app on your iPhone or iPad? Most of us have been there at some point. Thereâs even a good chance that if youâre reading this, youâre panicked because you couldnât immediately figure out how to recover an email you either accidentally deleted, or intentionally deleted but now want back.
Well, donât worry, because this tutorial will help you with that. As most of you may know already, there are plenty of email service providers to choose from today, like Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud, Outlook and more. The default iOS Mail application that comes preinstalled with your iPhone and iPad allows users to connect just about any email account they have regardless of the service they use. The Mail app is good enough where most iPhone and iPad users donât even bother installing the other email apps of their respective providers from the App Store, and instead stick to Mail app thatâs pre-installed on their deviceâs home screen.
In this article, we provide you with step-by-step instructions on how to recover the emails that you may have unintentionally deleted on iPhone or iPad, as well as provide you with additional tips and tricks to make sure you could avoid a similar situation in the near future. This might be particularly useful for users who find themselves accidentally deleting emails on the iPhone recently.
The stock Mail app, just like any other mail application lets users delete as well as archive their mails. More importantly, the apps are designed in such a way that itâs usually a lot more easier to archive a mail rather than just straight up deleting it. Therefore, weâve decided to cover steps on how to recover both deleted and archived emails.
How to Recover Deleted Emails on iPhone & iPad
The steps that weâre gonna discuss here are going to be fairly similar regardless of the email service provider you use within the Mail app. However, depending on the service, the deleted emails may or may not be stored under a different folder name. Here, weâve opted to use Gmail as itâs the most popular email service today with a user-base of nearly 2 billion.
- Open the âMailâ app on your iPhone or iPad home screen and tap on âMailboxesâ.
- Now, tap on âTrashâ (or âBinâ, depending on your region settings). If youâre using any other email service provider like Hotmail, you might not necessarily find Bin, but rather a different name letâs say Trash or Junk. So, make sure you check those two folders as well.
- As you might have guessed, your deleted emails are stored here in the Trash folder. Emphasizing this is deleted emails, because theyâre totally different from archived emails and those are stored elsewhere. Once youâre in the Trash / Bin folder, tap on âEditâ.
- Here, youâll be able to select all the emails that youâd want to recover. Once youâve selected them, tap on âMoveâ.
- In the next menu, youâll be able to choose where you want to move your recovered emails to. If you accidentally deleted the emails from your inbox, just tap on âInboxâ. If not, choose âDraftsâ or âSentâ depending on your preference.
Thatâs all you need to do to get back and restore your lost or deleted emails. Once recovered, youâll find them exactly where they once used to be.
Note that if you wait too long to attempt to recover a deleted email, they may be gone for good. This time can vary per email provider, so basically if you know you deleted an email and you want it recovered, you should try to restore it sooner than later.
How to Recover Archived Emails on iPhone & iPad
Archiving emails within the Mail app is a whole lot easier than deleting, so we wouldnât be surprised if you accidentally archived some of your mails while you were trying to swipe through them. These emails are stored in a completely different location though, so make sure you follow these step-by-step instructions.
- As you can see in the screenshot below, all it takes is an accidental swipe to the left and the mail would get archived immediately without requiring any further confirmation. To find them, simply tap on âMailboxesâ at the top-left corner of your screen.
- If youâre using Gmail like me, tap on âAll Mailâ as shown in the screenshot below. However, depending on the email service provider that youâre using, you may have a dedicated âArchivedâ section. Tap on this section if you can see it.
- Here, youâll find all your archived emails mixed along with your other emails, especially if youâre using Gmail. This can be a little confusing with some email providers, but depending on the different email providers it may give you a dedicated Archived mails section where youâll be able to easily find them. Once you find one of the archived mail that you want to recover, swipe left on it and tap on âMoreâ. Now tap on âOther Mailboxâ as displayed in the screenshot below.
- In this menu, youâll be able to choose where you want to recover the archived email to. Letâs say you want to move it back to the inbox. You simply need to tap on âInboxâ and youâll find it right where it used to belong.
Those are all the steps you needed to follow to recover and restore your archived emails right where it used to be. However, weâre not done with the article yet, as we want to make sure you donât end up in a similar situation and go through a hassle again, so next up is a quick trick to undo an accidental move in the Mail app on iPhone and iPad.
Instantly Undo & Recover Deleted Emails
The next time you unintentionally swipe and delete/archive an email, you donât really have to go through all these steps again. Thanks to this nifty iOS gesture that you may or may not have heard of, youâll be able to instantly recover a deleted mail within a second or two. When youâve accidentally deleted or archived any mail, simply shake your iPhone or iPad once for an âUndo Deleteâ option to pop up on screen. Just tap on âUndoâ to confirm and recover the deleted email and youâre good to go.
Itâs worth noting that you can only use this gesture to recover a deleted mail as long as you havenât closed the Mail app. So, make sure you arenât too late or youâll have to go through all the previously mentioned steps again, which is a hassle you wouldnât want to deal with. That being said, we hope this tutorial helped you to recover plenty of emails today.