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Inbox auto deletes after 24 hours

IBB
Just joined

Hi - I got my wife a new Windows laptop a few weeks ago, but when she accesses Outlook or Virgin Webmail her inbox and sent mail only shows messages from the last 24 hours. I have checked 'view' and 'archive' settings but they seem to be set OK. The people at Virgin Gadget Rescue messed around for hours - and I'm paying for this - and said the messages would be re-instated, but that didn't happen and I don't think they know how to fix this. Any ideas anyone? Wife highly annoyed that she doesn't have a properly functioning email... Thanks for your help...

1 REPLY 1

coenoby
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

@IBB wrote:

Hi - I got my wife a new Windows laptop a few weeks ago, but when she accesses Outlook or Virgin Webmail her inbox and sent mail only shows messages from the last 24 hours. I have checked 'view' and 'archive' settings but they seem to be set OK.


I have never seen or heard of any options or settings in VM's Webmail that allows you to delete emails after a set period. You cannot even do that by using a filter / rule in Webmail.

That makes me suspect the cause lies within Outlook which is then being reflected in Webmail when you run the send / receive function in Outlook. Assuming your wife's account is set to use IMAP rather than POP3 of  course.

When you say "I have checked 'view' and 'archive' settings" I assume you mean in Outlook?

Did you check in the "Advance View settings" to see if there is a filter set for the Inbox and Sent Folders? A filter could hide emails in Outlook but would not explain why they are missing in Webmail.

If if you checked all those it rules out the most obvious causes in Outlook. By the way, if Outlook is set to Auto Archive, I would disable that for the time being even if it's set to archive after 6 months. Then see if the emails still continue to disappear. Outlook has its foibles so I would check that archive is not misbehaving for some reason.

Unfortunately, if the emails were not deleted by VM or Outlook that means you need to consider your wife's VM email account may have been hacked. The hacker could well be accessing the account regularly and removing emails to hide the fact that they are using her account for their own illegal purposes.

As unlikely as that sounds I would it would be wise to take precautions by following the advice here: https://www.virginmedia.com/help/virgin-media-mail-my-email-has-been-hacked   That will make the account as secure as you are able.

In addition to the suggestions in the link. I would suggest scanning with Malwarebytes  https://www.malwarebytes.com/mwb-download  as well as your normal Anti Virus.

That Malwarebytes link downloads a free trial but you don't need to provide credit card details and you can simply decline to sign up to their Premium (i.e. "paid for") service when prompted.

As far as getting the missing emails back, well, I can only suggest that the Gadget Rescue staff were telling you what you wanted to hear. VM do not keep backups so if the emails are not in a folder in Webmail or Outlook I'm sorry to say that it means they are gone for good. 😦

Coenoby

 

 

I'm a Very Insightful Person, I'm here to share knowledge, I don't work for Virgin Media.

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