How to Obtain Old Emails

Hi Dennis Beiso,

I’m really sorry you’re dealing with this, especially after the wildfire. That’s an incredibly difficult situation.

Whether emails from Jan 2002–Aug 2012 can be retrieved mainly depends on where they were stored at the time:

• If they’re still with your email provider (meaning the mailbox still exists on the provider’s servers): Sign in to your email on the web (Outlook.com/Hotmail/Live, Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) and search there first. A helpful approach is to search for keywords tied to cost‑basis paperwork, such as “Closing”, “HUD”, “Settlement”, “escrow”, or the name of your title company or lender.
• If you used an ISP‑based email address (for example, older addresses like @comcast.net, @verizon.net, @att.net): Those messages may still exist in that provider’s webmail or they may have been downloaded into Outlook in the past.
• If you used POP email or archived mail in Outlook (very common in the 2000s): The messages may only exist in an Outlook .PST file (often named something like archive.pst) stored on an old computer, external drive, or backup. If you locate a PST file, it can be opened in Classic Outlook via: File > Open & Export > Open Outlook Data File.

If the messages were deleted long ago and aren’t present on the email provider’s servers or in any PST files or backups, recovery that far back is unfortunately not possible.

If you’re able to share what type of email address you used back then (Outlook.com/Hotmail vs Gmail vs an ISP address) and whether you still have any old drives or backups, I can help narrow down the most likely place to check next.

Please let me know if this proves useful to you, or if you would like further assistance.

I'm looking forward to your reply.

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For Outlook/Outlook.com, recovery is only possible if the data or account still exists in some form. Based on the provided information, use these options:

1. Check if the Outlook.com/Microsoft account still exists and is active

• If the mailbox has not been signed into for at least one year, Microsoft closes the Outlook.com mailbox and deletes all email.
• If the Microsoft account itself has not been signed into for at least two years, the account and associated services are closed.
• Once an account/mailbox has been closed for inactivity, email content and the address cannot be restored or reused.

2. Check Deleted Items and Recoverable Items (if the account is still active) If the Outlook.com mailbox is still active and the messages were only deleted (not lost due to account closure):
3. Sign in to Outlook.com on a PC or Mac.
4. In the left pane, open Deleted Items.
5. If the messages are not there, at the top of the message list select Recover items deleted from this folder.
6. Select the items to restore and choose Restore. Items go back to their original folders when possible; otherwise, messages go to Inbox.

Note: Items permanently removed from Deleted Items or Junk Email, or beyond the service’s retention period, cannot be recovered.

3. Search and archive behavior in classic Outlook (desktop) If classic Outlook for Windows was used with a POP/IMAP or Microsoft 365 account, older emails may still be in local data files:
4. Look for .pst files in typical locations such as C:\Users<username>\Documents\Outlook Files\ or C:\Users<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\ on any surviving or backed-up drives.
5. Open Outlook desktop and use File > Open & Export > Open Outlook Data File to open any .pst files found.
6. Use search in Outlook, and if older items are not appearing, increase the sync range and include Deleted Items in search as described in the search troubleshooting article.
7. If the account was inactive for many years If the email account has not been accessed for more than two years and was closed for inactivity, or if an alias/address was removed from a Microsoft account, the mailbox and its contents are permanently deleted and cannot be restored, even by Microsoft support. In that case, there is no supported way to obtain those old emails from Microsoft services.

For substantiating cost basis, if the mailbox/data cannot be recovered, it is necessary to rely on other records (e.g., financial institution statements, closing documents, insurance records, or any backups that might contain .pst files) rather than Outlook/Outlook.com recovery.

References:

• Email is missing from your Outlook.com inbox
• Recover and restore deleted items in Outlook
• Troubleshooting Outlook search issues
• How do I recover my old email messages, my contacts and everything else I had in Outlook? - Microsoft Q&A
• Attempting to access old email - Microsoft Q&A