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
    2012-04-13T17:35:48+00:00

    The problem is simple: Why do everybody keep losing their email in the server while the option was correctly set to not to delete them while downloading using email client.

    Why does the answer got so complicated? Are you all windows people telling us that this is our mistake?

    Well, I admit it, this was all our mistake TO TRUST LIVE MAIL.

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  2. Anonymous
    2012-04-13T17:30:56+00:00

    Are you telling me that if you're not making a backup in the PC, I will lost all my mail on the server? Because that what has happened to me today.

    I never delete all my important message on the server because I need them to be save since I suffered to much from dealing with re-installing my Windows. Last week I, again, installed my Windows and today I come on Live.com to check my email and surprisingly THEY ARE LOST!

    Don't blame me for it, I'M NOT LOSING MY EMAIL FROM ANOTHER MAIL SERVER like Gmail or even Y!.

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  3. Anonymous
    2012-03-21T11:32:23+00:00

    Hi jayjay29

    If you are using a Hotmail account then the problem is not the same as mine. 

    If not please see Ron Sommer's previous and lengthy response regarding restoring the emails.  I believe him to be correct on this in that WLM makes a backup of the emails upon closing and then retsores after housekeeping.  If your PC shuts down before the restore is complete you will have a WLM MessageStore file in your recycle bin.

    I cannot help but feel this is a serious bug in Windows - how can it close down when an error as important as this possible.

    Maudestan

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  4. Anonymous
    2012-03-21T00:27:56+00:00

    Hi jayjay29,

    To investigate your concern, please provide us a brief description of the problem, error message if applicable and steps that you've done so far to resolve the issue.

    Thanks!

    Rate this Moderator

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