Can You Recover Email That Wasn't Sent or Saved?

By Gina Poirier

Your unsaved email might not be lost forever.
i email image by Hao Wang from Fotolia.com

It happens to almost everyone who regularly uses email; you are preparing a long message when suddenly the program crashes or you accidentally exit or delete your draft. Whether or not you can recover your work depends on the program you use.

Automatic saving

Many email programs automatically save your work periodically in case of a crash or an accidental closure. When you re-open the program, you can recover the message up to the point when it was last "auto-saved." You can find it in the "Drafts" folder or something comparable.

Files for deleted or discarded messages

If you accidentally discarded an email message, you may be able to recover it in a "Discard," "Trash" or "Deleted messages" folder if your program has one.

Attachments

If you lost any attachments, you can easily re-attach them from your hard drive if you need to compose a new email message.

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