Restore Deleted Outlook 2007 Mail Technique

Ran the archiver (set to permanently delete) on a bunch of folders tonight in Office Outlook 2007 and had a bad, bad experience. The mail I cared to spare from the archiver were in folders set so that the archiver wouldn't touch them. When archiving, the option to overlook those settings is presented, which I did not do (correct for my purposes). However, all my old messages with usernames and passwords were deleted forever, anyway...so I thought...

Not so fast. To the rescue :major a site called How To-Outlook.

Ok, yes the messages were permanently erased...not in the deleted folder. These were gone. So what did How To-Outlook have to say? Amazing...

First, messages aren't actually erased right away in Outlook. They are still in the same place. However, the space they claimed is freed for use by the PC when the messages are permanently deleted. Luckily, this means that technically they are still in the same .ost or .pst file they were in before. Using an amazing trick, they can be reclaimed...right back into the folders they were in (must act before they are overwritten, but who is going to wait around to reclaim missing mail? :foolish). So how you say? Here is the page with the trick. The second link is a little bit about the tool used...which comes with MS Office Outlook 2007. Here are the links:

http://www.howto-outlook.com/howto/restoredeleteditemsfromanoutlookpst.htm

http://www.msoutlook.info/question/77

This is for you if you use pop3 or imap to import and sync your mail. With Microsoft Exchange Server Accounts w/Outlook, there will be a "Recover Deleted Messages" entry on your "Tools" Menu right below "Empty Deleted Items Folder". Otherwise not so...

You might want to keep this somewhere if you use Office Outlook. The trick is finding the .ost or .pst where your mail was located before the messages were deleted. Once in the correct folder via the linked instructions, ignore the Archive.pst and the Outlook.pst. It will be one of the others. Look for the file (could be either .ost or .pst (in my case was an .ost)) that was changed on the day you made the mistake and at the correct time. If you just made the mistake, look to see which is the one with the appropriate day and time for the mistake for today. At any rate, then follow to the absolute letter the procedure outlined on the two pages. In my case, all the files were identically dated but one of them, which was dated and timed earlier tonight. The older ones had gone since July without a single change. That was when I set up Office Outlook on this PC.

A superb job by How To-Outlook, and, please, anyone who uses outlook, make a note of this trick. If you save messages, maybe it could help you somewhere down the line...

This is the most off the wall trick ever, but I promise, even if you know nothing about hex files (trust me), it works...

BTW...sorry, do not know if this works with Outlook Express, Office 2003 or 2010 :-o, etc. Surely, it's worth a try to see if it will though...