Users in the Gmail Help Community often post about their emails that have gone missing. Depending on how one uses Gmail and the actions that have been specified or performed with regards to those messages, there can be many ways for messages to get misplaced and this can happen with both incoming or existing messages. In this blog, we take a look at the various aspects of this issue by dividing our discussion into the following three sections:
A message may get moved over to another inbox category based upon Gmail's classification of emails or an existing Categorize as filter defined by the user.
Messages may skip inbox because of an existing Skip inbox filter defined by the user or because of an archive Gmail's copy option selected in Gmail's POP/Forwarding setting.
Messages may get placed under Trash because of existing Delete it filters defined by the user or because of a delete Gmail's copy option selected in Gmail's POP/Forwarding setting.
Messages may get placed under Spam because of how the Gmail spam filter works or because of any addresses being blocked in Gmail.
Messages may also get moved through usual human activities, inadvertent or otherwise.
Messages may get moved through the actions of any apps or extensions the user may have authorized to access their Gmail service.
Finally, messages may also go missing from their usual location because of any rule defined in an IMAP client (if the user happens to use one) which may impact those messages and sync that action back to their Gmail account.
Messages may get placed under Spam because of how the Gmail spam filter works or because of any addresses being blocked in Gmail.
Messages may also get moved through usual human activities, inadvertent or otherwise.
Messages may get moved through the actions of any apps or extensions the user may have authorized to access their Gmail service.
Finally, messages may also go missing from their usual location because of any rule defined in an IMAP client (if the user happens to use one) which may impact those messages and sync that action back to their Gmail account.
2. How to search for those missing messages and prevent further occurrences
Given how Gmail stores our emails, missing emails can found under any of the following locations:
- Other inbox categories in Gmail (in case the missing messages are somewhere in the inbox)
- "All Mail" in Gmail (in case the missing emails are out of the inbox)
- Trash in Gmail
- Spam in Gmail
- The destination account or the email client in case the user happens to use POP/Forwarding or use a POP email client such as Outlook, Thunderbird, Apple Mail, Mac Mail, etc to access Gmail.
Any of the search operators mentioned in the help article can be used to help locate misplaced messages in Gmail. Depending on the situation, searches can be performed using sender, time, subject, or unique keywords that would best help locate those misplaced emails. Upon locating the missing email, they can be moved back to their preferred location in Gmail.
Other inbox categories in Gmail
The default Gmail inbox layout divides the inbox into five (5) separate categories, viz. Primary, Social, Promotions, Updates, and Forum where it classifies specific types of emails depending on the various signals it uses to analyze incoming emails.
These five categories collectively make up the inbox in Gmail. So, if emails are missing from its usual category, it is prudent to first search in the other categories to locate that email. The best way to search for emails within the inbox is to add the "in:inbox" term with the search criteria. To search under a specific category, the search term category:<categoryname> can be added and used with other search parameters suggested above.
A sample search query may look like in:inbox category:updates sender:pam@gmail.com Dinner
Searching under All Mail in Gmail:
In Gmail, messages are archived by removing the Inbox label attached to them and this archive action can be performed manually or through filters and POP/Forwarding settings. Once the inbox label is removed from the messages, the archived messages can then only be located either under All Mail or any other label attached to it.
To prevent further instances, one should check for existing filters under the Filters and Blocked Addresses tab - https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#settings/filters. Particularly those with the option Skip inbox mentioned in the "Do this:" section of the filter definition.
The other option is to look for the archive Gmail's copy option mentioned for the POP/Forwarding option under the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab - https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#settings/fwdandpop.
Searching under Trash in Gmail:
As mentioned above, messages can be placed under Trash through actions by a filter, a POP/Forwarding option, or human action. In case the Gmail Trash contains a handful of messages, it is easy to manually review them to locate the missing messages. Otherwise, a search query is most useful to locate those missing messages. The parameter in:Trash helps to restrict the search within Trash. Upon locating the missing email(s), they can be first moved back to Inbox, and from there to wherever the user may want them to be.
To prevent further instances, check for existing filters under the Filters and Blocked Addresses tab - https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#settings/filters, particularly those with the option Delete it mentioned in the "Do this:" section of the filter definition.
The other option is to check if the delete Gmail's copy option is mentioned for any POP/Forwarding option under the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab - https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#settings/fwdandpop.
Search under Spam in Gmail:
Messages can get placed under Spam via the Gmail spam filter, human action, or by previously blocking that address. Like Trash, if Spam contains a handful of messages, they can be manually reviewed to locate the missing messages. Otherwise, a search query is needed to help locate those missing messages. To search within Spam, the parameter in:Spam to better filter the result. When the missing email(s) are located, they can be moved back out of Spam.
To prevent further instances, an appropriate filter set to Never send it to Spam, can be created to prevent those emails from being collected under Spam. Here is an example:
If they are there because the user has previously chosen to block that address, they can choose to unblock that address from the section in the Filters and Blocked Addresses tab titled, "The following email addresses are blocked. Messages from these addresses will appear in Spam:".
Tip: To search for missing messages under All Mail, Trash, and Spam at once, the in:anywhere term can be added to the search query.
Messages getting moved along because of actions of any apps or extensions the user may have authorized to access their Gmail service
The user can visit this link to check for any third-party apps or sites with access to their account: https://myaccount.google.com/permissions and remove access if required.
Extensions and add-ons can be checked from the browser being used.
- In Chrome, click on the 3-dot (overflow/more menu) > Tools > Extensions.
- On Firefox, click the 3-bar (menu) button and choose Add-ons. The Add-ons Manager tab will open. Thereafter, select the panel for the type of add-on you wish to view or manage, such as the Extensions, Themes or Plugins panel.
3. In cases of unsuccessful search
Hopefully, things shouldn't come to this. In case they do and you strongly suspect foul play or have proof of account compromise, we ask the user to visit the link to the Gmail Undeletion Tool here - https://support.google.com/mail/workflow/9317561?rd=1&visit_id=637012807747386693-3884591415 to report their issue.
Remember that this does not guarantee recovery of the missing emails but looks at the possibility of recovering those missing emails. So, the earlier the incident is reported, the better. Also, this will not help in cases where you have deleted the emails from Trash yourself.
Additionally, one should also have some countermeasures in place. Taking regular backup of emails to another location can often bail one out of these situations. For backup purposes, my favorites are to:
- Fetch emails over to another account or email client using POP. For details, review these help articles:
- https://support.google.com/mail/answer/21289?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en
- https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7104828?hl=en
- Consider options similar to what is described here: Back up your email
- Use GYB (Got Your Back) which is a free Gmail backup/restore utility tool. Details are available here: https://github.com/jay0lee/got-your-back/wiki. It is a command-line tool for backing up Gmail messages to the user's local computer or to an external hard drive using Gmail's API over HTTPS.
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