Have you lost email on gmail?

2012-12-10, fa: If you experience any lost email, first make sure to go through this troubleshooting guide

Recently I have been thinking about consolidating all my email accounts into a single one because I would like to be able to check all my emails from any computer, and check it quickly. The obvious choice was gmail, but there was an interesting incident that happened about two weeks ago which has made me a little skeptical about gmail as a possible choice. I was sharing a desktop session with a friend who heavily uses the whole gmail suite (calendar, gmail, etc.) and interestingly majority of his email suddenly disappeared! One second the email was there, and the next second it was gone. He looked around in the trash, the spam folder, and every other corner where it could have gone, but it was nowhere to be found. This was all happening in front of me… We searched on google groups for gmail and found numerous threads about lost email.

Thinking about it, I am wondering how many folks had this issue, but decided not to post on google groups (time is important). Have you had this issue? I am aware of a similar incident that was brought up about a year ago, and I am wondering if this is another wave, and in the end, whether gmail is reliable. Are you aware of any better alternatives? (Ideally free)

As with anything important, I am also researching my options of backing up my gmail account.

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We have developed a first version of a backup tool to retrieve all your emails from your Gmail account. It is still only command line tool but in some weeks we will add Graphical user interface. We will appreciate any help with testing. You can find the tool at http://www.gmail-backup.com/ . Thanks, Filip

hi, i have lost emails with gmail. to read the full story just click my name. gmail is good but you NEED a backup it seems....

On May 7th, I found out that all my gmail mails have been wiped out. Last time, I used it was on May 6th evening. I have no clue what happened. Everything is as usual.
HELP!!

Do you see the email under "All Mail?"

Take a look at this: http://support.mozilla.com/tiki-view_forum_thread.php?locale=sk&comments_parentId=334911&forumId=1

i have suddenly lost all mails sent to and from the above email address.

kindly help

I had the same problem and at about the same time you experienced it. My emails were there one minute and the next they were gone.

I've sent google numerous emails and never got a reply to a single one.

Today I woke up and logged in as usual to my gmail and all 1,500 odd emails were gone! I did look everywhere and went to the 'help' area, which was not helpful and it's very stressful due to the important emails that were there most recently.
Has anyone had any success retrieving emails to their inbox on gmail?
Hopeful...
Kristyna

Sorry, I haven't heard of anyone having recovered their emails successfully. Do you have a mobile device synchronized by any chance? Something like the iPhone or a Blackberry? You might be able to get the email from there.

Well, this happened to me this night... Yesterday the mails were there, today they were not. I lost all the inbox mails for the last 10 days.

For those who had this problem: Have you recovered your lost mails somehow?

i lost all my emails from my gmail accout .....

At afternoon i have check my mail......At evening when i login there is no mail in inbox,sent,spam ,trash.....my account is totally blank.....

I found lost emails in the All Mail Label. You must activate it from settings, labels -> Show All Mail

I have lost email via my gmail account, too. Google automatically some email they think that are junk or spam mail sources. Unfortunately, they are making this decision without giving me an opportunity to say no. As a result, I lost quite a few very important email.
However, google has very good spam mail filter and email search engine. It is a trade off while using gmail. I am thinking about leaving gmail. But, it's difficult.

About the time I was asked to change from googlemail to gmail, my account mysteriously dissapeared. I tried contacting google as I had a lot of important contacts on there, they did'nt give any reason saying that they'd look into the situation, heard nothing more. Not even an apology for loosing me valuable business contacts. Now trying to rebuild my contacts, am considering boycotting google and windows for a linux based system. I have treated very badly by google.

I actually use my gmail for my website: www.treviab.com and when I logged in the other night, I had lost over 12 VERY important e-mails. I looked in all my folders, and found nothing. I have readers who are waiting for content and it has put a very important section of my site on hold. I just googled "gmail lost e-mails" and found out this is a common problem with gmail. Be advised.

I lost my password and dont understand why I was made to change my whole gmail accout and have lost my old email and all my important info. If anyone knows how to contact google please let me know...

Does any one know how to back up Gmail ? or how to contact Google ??? I keeping loosing random emails on a daily basis ...!!!!

While I was checking my unopened emails, responses that I have been anticipating, alongside all the other important older emails VERY special stuff... GONE! All of it GONE!
Just like that!
I'm trying real hard not to let it get to me, trying REAL hard!!!

Hi Ceci,

I am sorry to hear that you seem to have lost your email. Here is the route that gmail's official help suggests: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=contact_policy See if that gets you anywhere. Good luck.

April 12th 2001

RE SERIOUS DATA LOSS 0300 APRIL 7 2010 TOTAL LOSS OF ALL GMAIL EMAILS SINCE 2005 2006 ON MAIN AND ADMIN GOOGLE GMAIL ACCOUNTS CURRENT STATUS MAIN NO PAST GMAILS 17% USED STATUS ADMIN NO PAST GMAILS@ 0% HELP

The irony today sunk in when I viewed today's Spaceship Astronaut GOOGLE banner. I TOO FEEL LOST IN SPACE and with my "chord cut," I am now left on my own trying to recover from the loss of proably 17k emails and attachments. My only hope right now as I see it is the 17% in my main account.

Every other website near bout has a tech support which is accessible. Not so with Google. I posted on their forum with nothing so far. Sincerely, ANOTHER ONE LOST IN SPACE.

how to make a back up tell me please sir its very urgent.

Sorry, I am not aware of any way to restore from any google backups. Your best bet would be to post on the gmail forums: http://groups.google.com/group/gmail-help-discussion/topics

Good luck.

I lost all the emails today night all of a sudden. From INBOX, SENT folder, Some personal folders. Any help is appreciated.

Hi Sridhar,

You can try contacting google, but I haven't heard any for sure way of getting their attention in this regards.

Good luck

I made Gmail my primary email address a couple of months ago. Gmail seemed to meet all my email requirements - until I realized that some very important business emails never reached me. I checked the spam filter which was fine. Also looked in the spam folder but could not find the missing emails. I then did s series of tests by sending emails to myself from other email addresses. Several of these emails never reached me! Naturally I have dropped Gmail for anything important. What a disappointment that Google still do not seem to be able to get their act together with their Gmail product!

Hi Petri,

I am surprised to hear that. I know of quite a few people using gmail (not google apps mail) for personal businesses without any issues. Are you possibly forwarding the mail from another domain? I have seen issues sometimes for my email address because of mandatory spam filtering that my web host does. Maybe you have a similar issue?

- Farhan

I have get many people saying that they do not get the email that is redirected from @mycompany.com to their name@gmail.com address at the mail server level (not in outlook)

For me it works fine and many times people just dont find the spam folder (because gmail supress the list even there is wayyy much space for not to suppressing it)
on the other hand, how do i know if i dont get my email ?

do you have any workaround, perhaps make rule/filter that "mydomain.com redirects are good do not always make them spam"

Hi Timo,

Sorry, I am not aware of a way. Your best bet would be to start with the gmail help discussion site.

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/gmail?hl=en&utm_source=HC&utm_medium=leftnav&utm_campaign=gmail

Good luck!

We lost all email prior to 2009 after trying the new gmail format.
We lost many after that but not all.
This happened instantaneously so we reverted back to the old gmail format to hopefully have our emails back. Did not happen. They were gone.
We have had no answers provided to solve this problem.
Businesses and personal were affected. And got others on board gmail because of that trust.
We trusted email so much we used it instead of our computer for important storage.
We hope that google will retrieve all lost mail.
Otherwise, it would not be prudent to stay with them.
We will share if and when mail is retrieved by google.

An australian friend of mine creTED A NEW EMAIL FOR HIM PHILLIPELWIG@GMAIL.COM and from them on I have beeen unable to use mine. Could you tell me how to get back my email? Thanks.

All my emails are GONE from my gmail account. I've done all the search techniques provided in the support, Checked all the folders. One second, I had tons of email and the very next second, No email. At first I thought it has something to do with my iphone settings and gmail not coming onthe iphone. but I just realized that the problem is greater than I thought. All my account informations, all my personal memories, my backup data that I trusted Google with..... GONE.

I'm left with 0 emails in my account and I dont know where to start......

Use http://spinbackup.com/ and don't worry! :)

I got an e-mail on my iPhone read it and next second it gone. I logged in to gmail account on PC and didn't find it anywhere.

Used to think Gmail was very reliable and use it for my business but the past few weeks I've had numerous emails not getting through either to customers or from customers. But the worrying thing is it's to and from OTHER Gmail accounts, so you'd think they would be the most reliable???
It's not consistent either - one gets through fine and then 5 mins later the next goes missing -causing all sorts of business confusion as the other party waits for a reply.
I'll need to use something else if it continues.
Couple that with the latest Pnguin update disaster to my business and I think it's approaching time-up for Google - inevitable for all businesses that expand like a balloon and eventually go bang... I've switched to Yahoo for searches now and may look at their other services.

I had over 1700 emails transported from windstream.net, began reading them, closed out of gmail, went back in and ALL my emails were gone. Based on the other reviews, I have no choice but to believe they are gone forever. SUCKS!

Hi Sheron,

Make sure that you have gone through the troubleshooting options listed at http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1195979 I have noticed that many times import tools add only a specific label and not "Inbox."

Good luck!
Farhan

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Have you lost email on gmail?

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