Microsoft Outlook Sends Emails Directly to Deleted Items Folder

The Deleted Items folder is the trash for Microsoft Outlook. Until you manually delete the e-mail message or empty the folder, the messages from it are not permanently deleted. This folder holds the deleted e-mail messages, and thus, prevent data loss that may occur due to accidental deletion of e-mails. But if you empty the folder unknowingly, when it still contains important e-mails, there is no way other than backup or a Deleted Email Recovery tool to restore those messages.

To illustrate such issues of accidental e-mail deletion, you can consider the following scenario in Microsoft Outlook:

(1) You use a POP3 e-mail account in MS Outlook.
(2) You receive e-mail(s), but the Inbox folder doesn't show them. The messages are redirected to Deleted Items folder.
(3) You accidentally empty the Deleted Items folder and the messages are lost.

Cause

Microsoft Outlook might be redirecting the e-mail messages to Deleted Items folder due to a specified rule. If a rule is defined such that it tells all the incoming e-mails to go to Deleted Items folder, that can be one of the possible reasons for this problem.

Solution

You need to check the list of rules defined for Outlook. For this, click 'Tools' menu and then, 'Rules and Alerts'. You should then delete the associated rule from the list that is sending e-mail to the Deleted Items folder.

If the e-mails lost due to emptying the Deleted Items folder were important, you can request from the sender. If not, you can simply finish at the last step described.

However, if lost e-mails cannot be retraced back, you can use a third-party utility to Recover Deleted Email. There are specific tools available that allow you to recover deleted e-mails from Outlook file.

Deleted Email Recovery software are scanning-based utilities that analyze the Outlook PST file and recover deleted e-mails using safe algorithms. These software work on the principle that when Outlook deletes an e-mail message, it removes the message entry and not the actual data. This is strongly recommended that you don't compact the file after deleting the message.

Stellar Phoenix Deleted Email Recovery is a safe, yet powerful, recovery utility that locates and recovers deleted Outlook PST e-mails. The software uses advanced algorithms to Recover Deleted Email It is a safe tool that preserves the original formatting and contents of deleted emails. It supports Outlook 2007, 2003, 2002 and 2000.