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View Full Version : This is what I call a Gmail problem: nearly 2000 emails... poof, gone.



S3V3NTiNiN3
March 2nd, 2012, 04:27 AM
As much as I dislike Google, I have a Gmail account I created a few years ago. I logged in tonight to change my password. I changed it, and it wouldn't let me log back in. So I clicked "Can't Access Your Account?", answered my security question, changed my password again, and logged in.

No emails.

I have searched All Mail, Trash, everything. Twice. My nearly 2000 important emails are no longer extant.

WHAT?!

I'm very very close to switching to my own mail server, but I just lost a heck of a lot of correspondence. Can I get them back, in the face of Google's policy that once emails are gone they are gone forever, or should I cut my losses (Not thrilled by this option) and move forward?

Time to go pull my hair out.

Ganeshx
March 2nd, 2012, 04:44 AM
Gosh, I don't have a solution to your problem but this makes me even happier that I deleted my Google Account.

Currently I use lavabit for email, which has a ton less features than Gmail, and love it. They are so privacy conscious. I hope I have no problems like yours.

ugm6hr
March 2nd, 2012, 07:07 AM
If there was any suggestion your account was hacked - then all emails were probably deleted. I think perhaps this happens for "security" reasons?

I don't think you can even contact a live person to get help at Gmail either...

Erik1984
March 2nd, 2012, 09:16 AM
Ouch... that's bad. I'm always afraid of this sort of stuff happening. I even use Gmail to collect mail from other accounts, time to rethink my mail setup... again. Don't they have any support you can contact?

BeRoot ReBoot
March 2nd, 2012, 09:21 AM
Gmail isn't the problem here, the way you use it is. You shouldn't have used webmail, shouldn't have used IMAP, should have kept local copies of everything, and should have made sure as much of your email as can be arranged is GPG/PGP encrypted.

sharathpaps
March 2nd, 2012, 11:50 AM
Have you tried the 'All Mail' label on the toolbar to your left? They might have archived all your mails. Data can't just disappear like that..

Grenage
March 2nd, 2012, 12:11 PM
Assuming that this is an account you created years ago, and stopped using, perhaps they have a system in place that automatically clears down unused mailboxes - I would.

Is there a chance that you had two accounts, and are accessing the wrong one?

aeiah
March 2nd, 2012, 01:01 PM
your account went inactive and got deleted. google doesn't delete usernames, so you were able to recover the username.

S3V3NTiNiN3
March 2nd, 2012, 05:57 PM
Hi, all -

I think I misworded my original post. This is not a Gmail account I created years ago and stopped using. I used it very regularly, so it was not inactive.

I did try All Mail and everything else.

Does Google really delete all your emails if they think you may have been hacked? Ouch.

There is no support line, their official policy is 'It's your problem.'

And from now on, I will keep a local copy of everything. You're right, it was partially my mistake.

Ouch, again.

Grenage
March 2nd, 2012, 06:01 PM
Does Google really delete all your emails if they think you may have been hacked? Ouch.

As far as I am aware, no; things may have changed. My account was once compromised, but I recovered it and employed a badass unique password. I didn't lose any mail.

winh8r
March 2nd, 2012, 06:51 PM
One way to check if it is all gone for good is to log in and look at the bottom of the screen where it says "You are using xMB of 7999MB storage space" If that is showing 0% usage then it would appear that you have lost it all. If on the other hand it is showing anything other than 0% then your mail is still in there somewhere.

I also had another thought, this has happened to you at the same time as google are implementing their new privacy policy, so there may be a small possibility that there has been an error on the server whilst they are installing whatever new tracking and targetting stuff it is they are using.

Just a thought.

Paddy Landau
March 2nd, 2012, 06:57 PM
... You shouldn't have used webmail, shouldn't have used IMAP, should have kept local copies of everything, and should have made sure as much of your email as can be arranged is GPG/PGP encrypted.
The point of webmail and IMAP is that you can access your mail from anywhere, not just your one desktop, so that's not really a great option.

Is there a way to back up all your emails in case something like this happens? (I always worry about my emails "just disappearing" as the OP's did.) You can back up your calendars easily, but AFAIK not your emails.

And, yes, it sucks that you cannot get help from Google, even for serious problems that many people are suffering from as read on the Google "support" forums.

S3V3NTiNiN3
March 2nd, 2012, 07:30 PM
One way to check if it is all gone for good is to log in and look at the bottom of the screen where it says "You are using xMB of 7999MB storage space" If that is showing 0% usage then it would appear that you have lost it all.

Then, evidently, I have lost it all. AAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!

In that case, It's Horde + Evolution time...

Megaptera
March 2nd, 2012, 07:54 PM
Is there a way to back up all your emails in case something like this happens? (
I have my main Gmail account set to automatically forward all mail to a Yahoo mail account - that's my backup, not scientific but it works for me :D

BeRoot ReBoot
March 2nd, 2012, 08:13 PM
The point of webmail and IMAP is that you can access your mail from anywhere, not just your one desktop, so that's not really a great option.

I don't suffer from attention deficit and I don't feel the need to read my email on the toilet or while driving to work. If you do, I'd suggest seeking help from a medical standpoint would be a more effective solution than using IMAP.

And even if you're hopelessly addicted to IMAP, you can still run POP3 on copy-mode on your backup server to, you know, make backups. And you should still use strong encryption if it can be arranged at all, in any case.

Slug71
March 2nd, 2012, 09:55 PM
Sign up to Lavabit.

S3V3NTiNiN3
March 3rd, 2012, 02:54 AM
I've officially moved to Horde, being run off a ccTLD I purchased and pointed to an offshore hosting account with a large amount of space. Happy happy happy. :D So much better than Gmail!

ugm6hr
March 3rd, 2012, 04:53 AM
As far as I am aware, no; things may have changed. My account was once compromised, but I recovered it and employed a badass unique password. I didn't lose any mail.

Not sure this is a policy - but it has happened to someone I know personally.
Account was hacked, and the "hackers" changed the password, denying access to the genuine user.
Automated Gmail help reset the account - minus all the emails in there :(

Not sure how secure the 2-stage password is - but on the face of it, sending sms messages for confirmation of identity before allowing logging in seems like a fairly failsafe mechanism. It's my new best friend :)

DZ*
March 3rd, 2012, 07:56 AM
And even if you're hopelessly addicted to IMAP, you can still run POP3 on copy-mode on your backup server to, you know, make backups.

I use just IMAP with gmail (close to 20K emails) but have backups of everything. Clients like thunderbird and evolution support "download for offline usage" with IMAP, so, with frequent backups of local storage, it should not be a problem if gmail suddenly decides to delete emails on the server side.

Paddy Landau
March 3rd, 2012, 08:19 AM
I don't suffer from attention deficit and I don't feel the need to read my email on the toilet or while driving to work. If you do, I'd suggest seeking help from a medical standpoint would be a more effective solution than using IMAP.
That's one hell of an assumption you are making there.


... you can still run POP3 on copy-mode on your backup server to, you know, make backups.
Now that's an easy, should-have-been-obvious-in-hindsight hint, thank you. I shall indeed set that up!

Paddy Landau
March 3rd, 2012, 04:41 PM
@S3V3NTiNiN3: Have you gone onto the Google support forums to find out if other people have had the same problem?

Paddy Landau
March 3rd, 2012, 04:43 PM
... you can still run POP3 on copy-mode on your backup server to, you know, make backups.
I have tested this and found a flaw. POP3 cannot keep track of deleted emails or changed labels (a.k.a. folders).

Lightbeam7
March 4th, 2012, 01:00 AM
Plumb crazy. I'm on the verge of stepping away from my free account as well. It's too risky. Google's been making some brow-raising changes lately, and it's difficult getting help from them when their products go haywire.

aysiu
March 4th, 2012, 06:41 AM
To the OP, that's terrible! I hope that somehow you're able to get Google to get that email back.

I'm not sure if this setup would work for you in the future or not, but I basically have a non-Google account that I check by IMAP and then use Gmail to check that same account via POP3 and then keep the messages on the server. That way I don't have to download the messages to one particular computer (the way POP3 usually works), but I also have them in two separate places on line. So if Google goes down, I have it in the original email provider's place. If that place goes down, I have Google. The chances of both places going down is pretty low (though not impossible).

ikt
March 4th, 2012, 08:16 AM
Now that's an easy, should-have-been-obvious-in-hindsight hint, thank you. I shall indeed set that up!

Don't, it's a horrible hack, one corrupt message and you'll either get a fully corrupt mailbox or thousands of duplicate emails depending on how many emails are still left on the server

I've seen this happen countless times.

IMAP + download is a far better solution.


I don't suffer from attention deficit and I don't feel the need to read my email on the toilet or while driving to work.

Because checking your emails from more than one computer == reading emails on the toilet. :rolleyes: lol

Warpnow
March 4th, 2012, 09:48 AM
I don't suffer from attention deficit and I don't feel the need to read my email on the toilet or while driving to work. If you do, I'd suggest seeking help from a medical standpoint would be a more effective solution than using IMAP.


Some people, ya know, actually do things. They don't sit in front of a computer all day, but they might still need email. Maybe for work, even. It may be required of them to read emails on their phone or in the field.

That's life in a technological world.

CharlesA
March 4th, 2012, 03:32 PM
I don't suffer from attention deficit and I don't feel the need to read my email on the toilet or while driving to work. If you do, I'd suggest seeking help from a medical standpoint would be a more effective solution than using IMAP.

And even if you're hopelessly addicted to IMAP, you can still run POP3 on copy-mode on your backup server to, you know, make backups. And you should still use strong encryption if it can be arranged at all, in any case.

Aye. I've got mine set up for POP3 at home. I did try IMAP but everything got all messed up due to the way I have Thunderbird setup and how gmail uses tags instead of folders.

If I really need to access my mail on the road, I'll use my phone.

Grenage
March 5th, 2012, 09:46 AM
Not sure this is a policy - but it has happened to someone I know personally.
Account was hacked, and the "hackers" changed the password, denying access to the genuine user.
Automated Gmail help reset the account - minus all the emails in there :(

Not sure how secure the 2-stage password is - but on the face of it, sending sms messages for confirmation of identity before allowing logging in seems like a fairly failsafe mechanism. It's my new best friend :)

Then I'm guessing that something has indeed changed; I'm not really sure which system I prefer - probably the system where my mail is deleted (I treat e-mails as IMs).

The sms confirmation is great. :)

Paddy Landau
March 5th, 2012, 11:43 AM
@S3V3NTiNiN3: I went onto the Google forums, and there is form you can fill in when your GMail emails go missing.

In the past, users have reported that they are missing all of their messages as a result of unauthorized access.Fill in the form (http://support.google.com/mail/bin/bin/request.py?contact_type=bugs&ctx=bugflow_receive31) and cross your fingers.

Please let us know the outcome.

forrestcupp
March 5th, 2012, 01:02 PM
To the OP. You didn't say that you ever used IMAP in your post, and it looks like you just check your emails on the web site. But you didn't happen to set up an email client and use POP, did you? I ask because sometimes that gets set up to download the emails off of the web server and delete the ones there, so the only place those messages would be are in the client, like Thunderbird or Evolution.


I don't suffer from attention deficit and I don't feel the need to read my email on the toilet or while driving to work. If you do, I'd suggest seeking help from a medical standpoint would be a more effective solution than using IMAP.Some of us have to use multiple computers in different locations, and we need to check our emails on each of them. If you don't have that need, you don't have to assume that those of us who do are attention deficit.


And even if you're hopelessly addicted to IMAP, you can still run POP3 on copy-mode on your backup server to, you know, make backups. And you should still use strong encryption if it can be arranged at all, in any case.Like Paddy Landau said, it's not the best option because when you delete a message from the client, it stays on the server. I don't want to have to keep going to the gmail web page to delete messages; that defeats the purpose of a client. The other better options are forwarding to a different email address for a backup, to save a local copy of your IMAP messages.

samalex
March 5th, 2012, 08:02 PM
Wow, i'm not sure what I'd do if this happened to me. I've had my Gmail account since mid-2004 so I have upwards of 18K emails (though most are newsletters or automated messages I need to purge). I've on occasion downloaded them all via POP3, but I need to find a better way to archive everything locally so it's not locked into one Email client.

Please post if you find out what happened ....

ikt
March 6th, 2012, 10:28 AM
I've on occasion downloaded them all via POP3, but I need to find a better way to archive everything locally so it's not locked into one Email client.

That's what IMAP is great at doing.

You can have multiple computers arching data locally because IMAP can sync with the server and keep all the emails on it.

Paddy Landau
March 6th, 2012, 11:08 AM
You can have multiple computers arching data locally because IMAP can sync with the server and keep all the emails on it.
Hmm, the problem is that when one computer is your main computer (the others might have been library or hotel computers), there is only one with all the emails. If your emails should disappear, the next time you open your email client, poof! the emails have also disappeared from your client. You find out too late to archive the emails already on your computer.

I take daily backups, so I've realised that at most I will lose one day's worth of emails. At least that is a partial solution for anyone else looking for a solution.

The OP has not been here for three days; I wonder if he filled in the form to resurrect his GMails?

samalex
March 6th, 2012, 03:35 PM
Hmm, the problem is that when one computer is your main computer (the others might have been library or hotel computers), there is only one with all the emails. If your emails should disappear, the next time you open your email client, poof! the emails have also disappeared from your client. You find out too late to archive the emails already on your computer.

I take daily backups, so I've realised that at most I will lose one day's worth of emails. At least that is a partial solution for anyone else looking for a solution.

The OP has not been here for three days; I wonder if he filled in the form to resurrect his GMails?

IMAP has its advantages, but I agree email archiving isn't one of them. I've thought about writing a simple app that'll just connect to the POP3 server and download all email to text files with the From, subject, and possibly date in the filename then save them by month and/or year to the file system. This would allow me to save all the emails in a format that I could search through with any app. That's really all I need.

But yes, hopefully the OP find some solution, and if so maybe he'll share what it was.