How to Recover Permanently Deleted Emails on Gmail

Gmail needs no introduction. It’s a popular service used by millions worldwide and continues to improve. While Gmail makes it easy for users to manage emails with features like archives, labels, filters, search, and many more, Trash is another great feature to retrieve the emails you may have accidentally deleted. If your important emails are missing from your inbox, here’s how to recover deleted emails on Gmail.

Method 1: Check Trash to Recover Deleted Emails in Gmail

If you searched and checked all of your Gmail labels and still didn’t find an email, deleted emails are stored in Trash in Gmail and can be restored if you haven’t already deleted them from the folder. Here’s how to recover deleted emails from Gmail’s trash folder.

On PC

1. Open a web browser and go to Gmail (website).
2. Click on the More tab from the left sidebar to see all the options.
3. When this section expands, click on Trash to see if it still has what you’re looking for.
4. If you found the email(s) you accidentally deleted, select them by checking the boxes on the left-hand side.
5. Finally, click on the Move to button and select Inbox.

On Phone

1. Launch the Gmail app and tap on the hamburger icon.
2. Scroll down on the left sidebar and select Bin.
3. Select the emails you want to restore. You can do that by long-pressing on a desired email and selecting and tap on the 3-dots icon at the top right.
4. Finally, tap on Move to and choose Primary.

Method 2: Using the Gmail Recovery Tool

If you can’t find the deleted email(s) in the trash, try using the Gmail Recovery Tool. It’s an official tool from Google that can help you recover deleted emails, considering it hasn’t been more than 30 days since you deleted the email you’re looking for.

1. Go to the Gmail Message Recovery Tool (website) and log in to your Google account.
2. Click on Continue and your emails should be instantly restored to your inbox.
3. Go to your inbox and use the search bar to find the email you’re looking for.

Unfortunately, this didn’t work for me because I didn’t have any emails in Trash for the past 30 days. In case it doesn’t work for you, there’s no way to restore deleted emails. However, one last thing you could try is contacting Google. If you’re a Google One subscriber, it includes assistance from a Google customer support executive. If the email was super important, you may be able to restore it through them.

Were you able to recover deleted emails in Gmail using this guide? Let us know in the comments below.