Retrieving trashed messages?

[Bill Doern]

Can anyone tell me if it is possible to retrieve old messages after they
have been trashed? I¹ve deleted an important group of messages and want to
get them back. Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[Mickey Stevens]

Messages are moved to the Deleted Items folder when they are deleted (it may
depend which one if you use IMAP ­ check your account settings), so if you
haven¹t emptied the Deleted Items folder since you deleted these important
messages, you should be able to find them there and move them to another
folder.

If you have already emptied the Deleted Items folder and have not rebuilt
the database, it¹s possible you may be able to recover the contents of these
messages. First, go to Entourage -> Turn Off Office Notifications, and then
quit Entourage. Open a text editor (like TextEdit or BBEdit), and go to
File -> Open. Choose your Entourage database (HD/Users/<Your
User>/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office X Identities/<Your
Identity>/Database), and click ³Open². It may take some time to open. When
it does, use the Find feature to search for the messages you¹ve lost (enter
subject, text contents whatever). You may be able to salvage some of this
data by copying and pasting it into a new document.

Warning: Do not modify the Database file or make any changes. Certainly do
not save changes if asked. Doing so could render your entire database
unusable and result in a severe loss of data.

 

[Susan Doern]

Excellent! Thanks for the quick advice Mickey!

Messages are moved to the Deleted Items folder when they are deleted (it may
depend which one if you use IMAP ­ check your account settings), so if you
haven¹t emptied the Deleted Items folder since you deleted these important
messages, you should be able to find them there and move them to another
folder.

If you have already emptied the Deleted Items folder and have not rebuilt the
database, it¹s possible you may be able to recover the contents of these
messages. First, go to Entourage -> Turn Off Office Notifications, and then
quit Entourage. Open a text editor (like TextEdit or BBEdit), and go to File
-> Open. Choose your Entourage database (HD/Users/<Your
User>/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office X Identities/<Your
Identity>/Database), and click ³Open². It may take some time to open. When
it does, use the Find feature to search for the messages you¹ve lost (enter
subject, text contents whatever). You may be able to salvage some of this
data by copying and pasting it into a new document.

Warning: Do not modify the Database file or make any changes. Certainly do
not save changes if asked. Doing so could render your entire database
unusable and result in a severe loss of data.