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Dominic LennonFlag for United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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Strange Email Deletion Issue

Got a really weird one with a client.  

He rang me middle of Jan to say that email from the last 8 weeks had been deleted from his mailbox.  I remoted on to his machine and checked all the fodlers, did a filter on the mail box for the last 7 days in case he'd bulk moved them or something, but to no avail

I decided to recover the mail from a backup.

Today he has had the same thing happen.  I check the deleted items plus any on the server but there are none to recover.  All the mail in subfolders and sent items appears ok but just mail from the inbox.

Autoarchive was selected but also set to prompt, but also the inbox was set to do not archive.

It's a real puzzler as to why his mail keeps going.  He is quite a mail strict guy who either deletes mail he doesn't require, or files it into subfolders

Before I go and do another restore is there anything I'm missing?  I dont what to do this and it heppens again in a few weeks!

Thanks

Dom
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Alan Hardisty
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It sounds to me as if this user has a mobile phone or a PC with Outlook / another email client configured with POP3 and that device / computer is pulling down the emails, then deleting them.

Do they have a mobile / other computer at their disposal?

Alan
Check for any rules also in outlook, if using cache mode recreate the OST file too.
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ASKER

Hi all,

Thanks for the comments

The user has an iPhone which is set to use an Exchange account.  I don't think there are any other accounts on there from when I last looked at it (Monday).

The only PC he has is his one at the office, the laptop he uses at home runs off POP3 with a completely separate personal domain.

I have checked in Outlook for any rules, and Auto Archive settings but there aren't any.  Yes, the client uses cached exchange mode, but as the client as synced to Exchange surely the OST is now useless?

If it's not how do I go about recreating it?

I have logged into his OWA to see if there was a filter issue or an OST issue but his OWA shows the same mail as missing

Thanks

Dom
Below are the possible cause, which you can look at user end.

1) Most common cause is filtered views, rules on the client, or an improperly configured Exchange account.
2) Anti-spam or content manager scanner removing suspect messages.
3) Check the default delivery location, if user have configure any pst.
4) If the delivery location is correct and you don't have another profile open on another computer getting you email, or aren't using an Exchange mailbox, check the rules in Tools, Rules Wizard. Disable all of the rules and re-enable them one at a time, verifying they work as expected.
5) AutoArchive can be the cause when older email is missing.
6) Lastly, human error many times we intended to drop a message in one folder, and just missed, dropping it somewhere else.
 
Hi All,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you all, I have been on site most of this week.

amitkulshrestha, a few answer for you:

1 - I have checked all of those and so far no views configured, and he has had an exchange account for a few years now without this happening
2 - They use a hosted anti-spam service provided by us
3 - The mail that gets removed is mail that has already been delivered and resided in the inbox for a number of weeks
4 - The mailbox has no rules applied
5 - Autoarchive was set to prompt, but the Inbox was excluded anyway
6 - I have checked all possible locations I can and even created a search folder that should show mail across the entire mailbox for a certain period and nothing shows

The client did inform me the next day that another user also had mail from the same period go missing, but theirs came back a few hours later, his however did not

I am in the process of creating a Recovery Storage Group in order to restore the missing mail

Still not sure what is going on though I am just trying to avoid it happening again

Thanks

Dom
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Dominic Lennon
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