Suddenly lost all my emails in Windows Live Mail

Anonymous
2012-03-01T12:17:58+00:00

Question Summary

Other Windows Live Mail issues

Please provide your impacted Email address :

elaine_******@ntlworld.com

Did you receive an error code or message?

No

Please enter the error code or message you received

None

Which version of Windows Live Mail are you using ?

Version 2011 (15.4.3538.513)

Choose your Operating System version :

Windows 7

Additional Details

Opened Windows Live Mail yesterday afternoon and all my emails had 'disappeared'.  My Calendar, Feeds and Contacts were all in place.  I had not deleted anything.

I looked in the Recycle bin and found a huge 20mb (ish) file called 'MSMESSAGESTORE' which I restored although, at the time it told me the file already existed so it recovered it to a secondary location.

Now if I search for '.eml' files I find some or all of the emails under

C:\Users...........\Windows Live Mail\Storage(1)\Recovered items..............

I do not have a Hotmail account.

Please help me recover these emails.

Thank you.

Windows for home | Other | Email and communications

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2012-03-08T13:26:13+00:00

It seems that the moderators that responded do not understand the WLMail maintenance procedure and do not understand what it means to not have a Hotmail account.

[quote user=Maudestan]The only thing that happened was that as I 'Shut Down' the PC the message 'Recovering unused disk space' came up which happens every few weeks.[/quote]

When WLMail closes some housekeeping is performed.  You should always close WLMail several minutes before turning off the computer.

After 100 closes, unused disk space is recovered.  You can change the setting by going to Alt, F, O, M, Advanced tab, Maintenance button, ..........

I am not clear on the maintenance procedure.

My guess is that a copy of 'MSMESSAGESTORE' is placed in the recycle bin and 'MSMESSAGESTORE' is rebuilt.   The rebuilding process was stopped which created your problem.

Follow this procedure and see if you have recovered all of your emails.

1. You will first need to select the Show hidden files option.

a. Open Windows Explorer and click Organize / Folder and search options. Click the View Tab.

b. Place a check mark in the Show Hidden files, folders and drives option.

Click Apply/OK.

c. Close and restart Windows Explorer.

2. Open the WLM Store folder.

a. Navigate to the following folder.

C:\Users\your name\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail

(Where 'your name' is the name of the account that you use to logon to Windows 7)

b. In this folder you will see all of the WLM storage folders. Each email account will have its own group of folders.

c. Any general storage folders that you created will under the main Storage Folders item.

3. Make a copy of the Windows Live Mail folders previous version.****

a. Right clickthe Windows Live Mail folder and select Properties / Previous Versions Tab.

b. After the list populates, select a version of the folder with a date and time prior to when the folders were deleted.

c. Click the Copy Button. In the Copy dialog box, select the Desktop as the location to place the copied folder.

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-01-20T21:35:35+00:00

    Because nothing else has worked in restoring my emails, I gave your instructions a whirl.

    It does show all my emails appearing to be in tack as far as the headers but the content of every email is missing.

    Any ideas of what I can do next?

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-12-15T16:08:44+00:00

    I followed your instructions and I was able to recover my inbox items.   However, my sent emails and drafts are still missing.   The sent folder and draft folder in Microsoft/WindowsLiveMail are empty.  Is there anything else I can do?

    Thanks 

    TomFV

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-10-15T07:16:34+00:00

    I agree Never use auto updates if your computer work fine I have seen many problems with updates

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