8 Months Of Yahoo Mail Wiped Out

[Digitalbanana]

I access my Yahoo mail account from either a PC web browser or Android app and noticed last week the most recent mails in the Inbox were only from May 2012. So 8 months of mail gone - not in trash or anywhere to be seen to be recovered. The wonders of cloud computing my arse! I am glad that all my critical emails are done with a Gmail account linked to Outlook on my PC hard drive that downloads everything all day long.

A Google search on Yahoo lost mail comes up with little clues, other than I've been hacked?! I doubt it, and more likely Yahoo has messed up. All my other Yahoo mail folders online that I created are still ok, just the Inbox with the missing stuff.

I wonder how people use public services like Yahoo mail and the such each day to conduct their work or important emails, relying for an internet connection just to open and hold all their old emails, can sleep at night? I'm a Luddite when it comes to cloud computing.

Edited March 18, 2013 by Digitalbanana

[JDGRUEN]

One can use Yahoo mail as a desktop mail program - pop3 mail. Yahoo used to charge $30.00 a year for this service. With pop3 mail you can use a desktop interface like Outlook Express or Mozilla Thunderbird. The Yahoo mail comes to your desktop and remains on the Internet server - you can use both interfaces. With pop3 mail you can back up the mail message data files in numerous ways very easily. Both these softwares are free. Gmail pop3 service is free - sets up in minutes. I like Thunderbird best - message data files are easy to back up and easy to restore.

[Chicog]

Try emailing Yahoo and asking them to restore it before you start to panic.

[BlackPuddingBertha]

Forget POP and Webmail; Imap is the answer and back it up too for good measure.

You can use Gmail with Imap for free though personally I dont like it. Ymail and Hotmail I like even less. Anyone who has a hosted domain will probably have multiple included Imap accounts coming out of his ears anyway.

[JetsetBkk]

Forget POP and Webmail; Imap is the answer and back it up too for good measure.

You can use Gmail with Imap for free though personally I dont like it. Ymail and Hotmail I like even less. Anyone who has a hosted domain will probably have multiple included Imap accounts coming out of his ears anyway.

Good article on How-To-Geek about POP3 and IMAP: http://www.howtogeek.com/99423/email-whats-the-difference-in-pop3-imap-and-exchange/

I use POP3 with Outlook Express. But then, I do have about 1.8 GB of emails stored locally.

[dave111223]

I use Thunderbird + Gmail IMAP.

Even if Gmail were to randomly lose all my emails, I'd still have my local Thunderbird copy. Plus I sync my local data to my network drive daily.

[Digitalbanana]

Try emailing Yahoo and asking them to restore it before you start to panic.

Yes, as you reminded me of this, I looked at their service support and there is a mail retrieval service they offer. But it says "We can only restore messages that were lost in the last 48 hours, and we

can’t guarantee a successful restore even in that time frame."!

I think I'll live with losing the 8 months of mails as any important stuff is still in my reply sent folder if I replied. Otherwise they might screw up all my other folders besides the inbox that was only affected.

Cannot say I have ever seen this before with yahoo in over 10 years of using it. One reason I switched to Gmail years back was I had it downloaded to hard disk using POP or IMAP. Yahoo doesn;t allow that on free version.

[Chicog]

Wow that's crap service. I inadvertently wiped my Hotmail account once. It wasn't that important, but I asked them to restore it and it was done in 24 hours.

Bin Yahoo if that's their attitude.

[JDGRUEN]

Forget POP and Webmail; Imap is the answer and back it up too for good measure.

You can use Gmail with Imap for free though personally I dont like it. Ymail and Hotmail I like even less. Anyone who has a hosted domain will probably have multiple included Imap accounts coming out of his ears anyway.

Good article on How-To-Geek about POP3 and IMAP: http://www.howtogeek.com/99423/email-whats-the-difference-in-pop3-imap-and-exchange/

I use POP3 with Outlook Express. But then, I do have about 1.8 GB of emails stored locally.

One could step up to using full blown Outlook and couple it with a fee for service online Exchange Server such as offered by 1and1.com

[endure]

Get yourself a copy of Mailstore - it will archive all your emails on your hard drive and it's free for personal use

http://www.mailstore.com/en/mailstore-home.aspx

[JetsetBkk]

Forget POP and Webmail; Imap is the answer and back it up too for good measure.

You can use Gmail with Imap for free though personally I dont like it. Ymail and Hotmail I like even less. Anyone who has a hosted domain will probably have multiple included Imap accounts coming out of his ears anyway.

Good article on How-To-Geek about POP3 and IMAP: http://www.howtogeek.com/99423/email-whats-the-difference-in-pop3-imap-and-exchange/

I use POP3 with Outlook Express. But then, I do have about 1.8 GB of emails stored locally.

One could step up to using full blown Outlook and couple it with a fee for service online Exchange Server such as offered by 1and1.com

I used Outlook for many years at work, but when I tried it on my own PC, I couldn't get it to access multiple accounts - both Hotmail and Gmail. So I stayed with Outlook Express.

I signed up to the Hotmail accounts long before they started charging for POP access so they are still free, as is POP access to the Gmail accounts.

[JetsetBkk]

Get yourself a copy of Mailstore - it will archive all your emails on your hard drive and it's free for personal use

http://www.mailstore.com/en/mailstore-home.aspx

Just did - boy, is it quick to search! What would take Outlook Express a minute or more to do - to search for text in the body of a message - this program does instantly.!

[Para]

Sorry to hear it mate but thats the joys of free email services.

I use keptprivate.com have been on it since day 1 and its only been offline 4 or 5 times in almost 11 hours and never for more than a couple of hours.

Cracking support full SSLand best of all IMAP so Outlook gets all the folders down. 40USD/year.......

[Digitalbanana]

Get yourself a copy of Mailstore - it will archive all your emails on your hard drive and it's free for personal use

http://www.mailstore.com/en/mailstore-home.aspx

Great idea for a free mail archiver, I have kept this as a reminder, but it seems superfluous for those already using and archiving with Outlook unless I'm missing the idea?

[endure]

Get yourself a copy of Mailstore - it will archive all your emails on your hard drive and it's free for personal use

http://www.mailstore.com/en/mailstore-home.aspx

Great idea for a free mail archiver, I have kept this as a reminder, but it seems superfluous for those already using and archiving with Outlook unless I'm missing the idea?

You can't have too many back-ups.

[mistitikimikis]

Yahoo! Mail deactivated your mail account because:

• You have not logged into your mail account during the past four months; or
• You have requested that Yahoo! Mail deactivate your account
• What does this mean?

All email messages, folders, attachments and preferences have been deleted and cannot be recovered

THIS is Yahoo, so better leave them in a corner Yahooooooooe!

[Digitalbanana]

Wow that's crap service. I inadvertently wiped my Hotmail account once. It wasn't that important, but I asked them to restore it and it was done in 24 hours.

Bin Yahoo if that's their attitude.

The Yahoo! Android app recently mentioned they are aware of emails being deleted from the server and working on it (<deleted>?!). More reasons to bin Yahoo mail.

[kkerry]

I've used Yahoo for years with Thunderbird and a handy free back-up tool that also back-ups your Firefox settings.

http://www.mozbackup.org/