microsoft deleting old emails?

[Blown2CV]

I've had a hotmail account forever. I think the current one I have been using potentially since the 90s, however if i try and search in the web app for emails way back in like 2005, say, there is nothing there. I can see online that microsoft claim to not delete any old emails providing you access your account regularly. I use mine every day. Any ideas?

[SimonKD]

Have you tried accessing your emails through other methods, such as using an email client like Outlook or accessing your account through a different browser?

Maybe the web app that you are using isn't capable to search that back into the past, it has it's limitations

[CanAm]

On Outlook, my mail only goes back to November 2003 whereas my hotmail account dates back to at least 2001, and possibly to the late 1990s.

[DickyC]

On my laptop I can see all my email history but on my phone I can't.

[Blown2CV]

CanAm said:

On Outlook, my mail only goes back to November 2003 whereas my hotmail account dates back to at least 2001, and possibly to the late 1990s.

sounds similar to what i'm experiencing

[Blown2CV]

DickyC said:

On my laptop I can see all my email history but on my phone I can't.

the mail app on iphone only syncs relatively recent emails unless you tell it otherwise. I am using a macbook and it's in a web browser anyway.

[Condi]

Using the Outlook/Hotmail website I can only load emails back to 2009, but using the desktop app it goes back to 2005, so try downloading the Outlook app and using that?

Not sure what use 20 year old emails are tbh, I tried opening the old Nuts and Zoo emails from way back when and all the photos had been deleted off their servers, and non of the web links worked any more. Once people stop paying to host the webpages and the photos then they just vanish.

[Sheepshanks]

Condi said:

Using the Outlook/Hotmail website I can only load emails back to 2009, but using the desktop app it goes back to 2005, so try downloading the Outlook app and using that?

If they're not on the server then a desktop app isn't going to have anywhere to get them from.

I have an old Hotmail account which basically just gets junk now and that seems to stop at 2007 even though the account is older than that - I have a moderately (but by no means very) un-common surname, and wife, both kids and me all have just our initial and surname as hotmail addresses. I'm sure I goit them in the 90's.

I looked at my wife's hotmail account and and hers does have the odd older email, oldest is 2003.

[Blown2CV]

it's more the personal emails really, not the marketing mailouts, that i am interested in.

in any case it seems a bit daft of MS to only allow access to older emails by downloading every single email you've ever received. I am anticipating running out of local storage!

[Condi]

Sheepshanks said:

If they're not on the server then a desktop app isn't going to have anywhere to get them from.

Obviously, but for them to be missing from the server then MS would have deleted them, which (so they say), they don't do. Tbh mine look like they go back to just about the beginning, not sure exactly when the email address was set up, but 2005 looks about right.

[Blown2CV]

just tried syncing MacOS Mail with my hotmail account and it has only downloaded headers for emails dating back to aug 2009... same date as the web client.

[singlecoil]

Outlook deleted an entire folder full of emails, folder still there but empty. Absolutely nothing in the settings to have provoked that. Fortunately it's one I can manage without.

[Blown2CV]

when i get round to it i will raise a ticket with microsoft as deleting 10 years' worth of emails whilst telling everyone they don't delete emails is fairly fked up.

[anonymous-user]

hew:

I thought this was another OneDrive convo for a minute!

[FMOB]

Blown2CV said:

when i get round to it i will raise a ticket with microsoft as deleting 10 years' worth of emails whilst telling everyone they don't delete emails is fairly fked up.

Not sure why people expect a free email service to store decades of email for them free of charge...

Maybe they had a policy of deleting emails and then changed their policy when they had cleared some space.

[Blown2CV]

FMOB said:

Blown2CV said:

when i get round to it i will raise a ticket with microsoft as deleting 10 years' worth of emails whilst telling everyone they don't delete emails is fairly fked up.

Not sure why people expect a free email service to store decades of email for them free of charge...

Maybe they had a policy of deleting emails and then changed their policy when they had cleared some space.

Here we go. Can't post anything without someone arriving at some point to start throwing st.

Well - it's because they SAID they don't delete emails. It isn't free anyway it's £1.99 per month.

[MrBen.911]

I don't know the answer as to Microsoft's policy, but I would recommend keeping a copy of your mailbox offline - be that on a physical drive or uploaded elsewhere in the cloud.

I use the desktop version of Outlook to pull down all email to update a .pst file every so often and then copy it elsewhere. If your email provider decides to delete a load of stuff, or indeed you get hacked and lose access to your account, you then have a backup.

[Blown2CV]

MrBen.911 said:

I don't know the answer as to Microsoft's policy, but I would recommend keeping a copy of your mailbox offline - be that on a physical drive or uploaded elsewhere in the cloud.

I use the desktop version of Outlook to pull down all email to update a .pst file every so often and then copy it elsewhere. If your email provider decides to delete a load of stuff, or indeed you get hacked and lose access to your account, you then have a backup.

it's a bit late now to create an archive of things that no longer exist.

[GCH]

Still all there when logged in via a browser.... all the way back to 1999.

[anonymous-user]

Useful advice though !