Recovering deleted/lost emails with Outlook Web Access

Recovering Deleted or Lost Emails with Outlook Web Access (OWA)

 

Recovering emails can be painful and bothersome for any Exchange administrator, but with the following steps in mind the end users can be more responsible for the recovery process.

This process should be able to recover emails removed within the last 14 days, but this would depend on your Exchange configuration.

 

Please note, this process has only been tested on Exchange Server 2003.

 

To recover items have the user to do the following:

1. Login to Outlook Web Access (OWA) with Internet Explorer
2. Navigate to the folder tree where they “shift” deleted the message from (for example, the inbox)
3. From the folder list, right-click on the folder that contained the message (eg inbox)
4. Choose “Open in New…”
5. In the title bar of the new window that appears add the following text to the end of the URL:
   &allowShowDeleted=1
   and press enter to load the new option on the page
6. Click on the new “Recover Deleted Items” button that appears on the OWA toolbar (it looks like the recycling bin with a black arrow)
7. A new window will open containing all of the files that have been deleted directly from that folder (bypassing the deleted items folder)
8. To recover items simply select the desired items and then click on the Recover button at the top of the page