Hi Folks,
I’ve an odd one.
A family member, whilst doing some early spring email cleanup, has managed to delete all their (g)mails from an iPad.
I think this came about by them manually selecting emails for deletion but then hitting “select all” and then delete. In the gmail web version you only seem to be able to delete ~50 at a time but in the Apple mail app “select all” is apparently literal!
I’ve remotely looked at this both in the mail app and in their web browser version of gmail.
There is nothing in the trash folder (web version) despite this only happening Friday nor locally in the mail app bin. I thought they’d be there for 30 days. Reverse searching finds the emails that they have responded to but obviously this is less than ideal.
I’ve used gmail and Apple products for … well … years and I’ve never seen anyone manage this. I’ve always bulk deleted in the web version. I digress …
Is this person out of luck or have I missed something really smack bang obvious?
All help would be appreciated, I’m the go to IT support as I would guess many of you are and this is the first issue that’s stumped me!
I think this came about by
So you don't know. Any further information they can give you might be helpful.
Check other folders. Is there an Archive folder? An adjacent folder where they've fat-finger dragged it? Can you Search across the whole mailbox for something you know is missing, does that return anything (or is that what you just did)?
If they've definitely gone and they're definitely not in Trash or (anywhere else) then https://support.google.com/mail/workflow/9317561
Thanks Cougar.
I was being generous with “think”. I got them to reenact on a screen share. Think = know.
Searching all sadly doesn’t bring back anything e.g. finding an email I know they’ve responded to and then trying to find the original, they just aren’t there or it would appear in any other folder.
I’m as much miffed as I am surprised that the select all >> delete doesn’t have a safety net or why they didn’t go into the trash folder for 30 days.
One thing I am sure of is that they didn’t manually empty the trash folder.
Looks like they have indeed gone.
They could try contacting gmail support. The sooner the better, probably.
I was being generous with “think”. I got them to reenact on a screen share. Think = know.
Fair.
I’m as much miffed as I am surprised that the select all >> delete doesn’t have a safety net or why they didn’t go into the trash folder for 30 days.
One thing I am sure of is that they didn’t manually empty the trash folder.
This is why I was scratching. I've dealt with many "it just disappeared" support requests and very often this has proven to be a low-quality description. As presented it seems to be bloody weird behaviour, but that said I've never seen Apple's mail client so... 🤷♂️
I tink there is a warning on gmail if the amount of deleted stuff exceeds your trash folder - easy just to press the "YES - stop bloody nagging" button though. I'm fairly sure the warning also says it's irreversible 😬
@scaredypants - I'm confident that I have seen that warning when using the web browser version of gmail but it does not appear as a warning (or consequence) when using the Apple mail app.
We've explored all options and it looks like they have gone for good!
When I delete items in Apple Mail they go to the Bin where they stay until I empty the bin or recover items from the bin. BUT that's using an Apple iCloud account with emails re-directed from my domain to my iCloud account. It sounds like that is different if you have the Gmail account directly set up in Mail.
Barn doors and all that, but if they're truly gone, it might worth strarting afresh with a paid service that provides better support and backup.
I've been using Fastmail for almost 25 years (I don't particularly recommend them, as I think there are better ones out there now. I've just never moved on) and they've recovered emails for me once or twice when I've accidentally deleted something permanently.
Others may disagree, but personally I've never regretted paying for email. I also use my own domain, so in theory I could switch providers without changing email address if Fastmail annoyed me enough.
I have just tested this with a gmail account and the apple mail client - and it does exactly what you say: on the local machine they are sitting in Bin. They synchronise in the web client too.When I delete items in Apple Mail they go to the Bin where they stay until I empty the bin or recover items from the bin. BUT that's using an Apple iCloud account with emails re-directed from my domain to my iCloud account. It sounds like that is different if you have the Gmail account directly set up in Mail.