Where have my emails gone to?

[Sharon]

I signed up for Windows Mail a couple of months ago and could send/receive
emails OK. I have just rebooted my PC back to factory settings (due to
numerous problems with Vista!!) and have signed in again for Windows Mail
using my original sign in details. I can still send/receive emails but I
cannot see any of the emails from the past couple of months. Where have they
gone? (I'm not very computer literate so please reply with simple
instructions - thank you).

 

[Dave]

If you restored your Vista computer to the factory condition, you formatted
the disk and everything was removed, including your old email messages. If
you didn't have them backed up, then they are gone. If you are accessing an
IMAP account, you can probably retrieve them from the server.

 

[Sharon]

Oh no...I hope I haven't lost them for good. I usually use MSN for emails,
and whenever I reboot my PC I never lose my MSN emails. I didn't know that I
needed to back up my Windows Mail emails before I rebooted. How do I know if
I have an IMAP account, and how do I retrieve them from the server? Thank
you.

 

[Guest]

Click on Tools, then Accounts, then your email account, then Properties,
then Advanced. Look under the server port numbers and see if it says
(IMAP): after one of the servers. Click on OK and then Close.

 

[Sharon]

Unfortunately, it does not say (IMAP). I have (SMTP) and (POP3). Does this
mean I cannot retrieve my emails?

 

[Guest]

It means you don't have IMAP now. If you had it before, there may
still be some chance of retrieving the mail. Otherwise, it's gone.

 

[Sharon]

Thanks for all your advice so far. How will I know if I had IMAP before?
When I set up Windows Mail today, I did exactly the same as what I did a
couple of months ago. Is it most likely that I have never had IMAP? Or is it
still possible that I previously had IMAP? Thank you.

 

[Guest]

Then you probably haven't had IMAP. You have to set it up a little
differently to get IMAP.

 

[Sharon]

Thanks again for your reply. Why does Windows Mail work differently to MSN?
My MSN emails were still there when I rebooted my PC.

 

[Guest]

Restoring to factory condition wipes out far more than just rebooting
does. I'm not familiar with MSN - it may work differently.

 

[Dave]

MSN is Hotmail, isn't it? WM can't access Hotmail accounts.

 

[Gary VanderMolen]

There are different varieties of MSN mail, some with POP access,
and some with only web access. If yours was the latter, it kept the
messages on the server. In that regard, web mail and IMAP mail
are similar in that the server retains the original message.