Disappeared messages from GMail account

Irish Stones

I noticed that a couple of sent emails from my GMail account have disappeared.

I'm more than positive that I didn't delete them, I never do that.
And I'm more than positive that I had read one of them a few weeks back. One of the two also received a reply, so I didn't dream of it.
But now I can't find any of them.
Given what happened, I can suspect that other messages are missing, and I haven't realized of it yet.

Has anybody else experienced such an issue? Why does it happen? Where have they gone? Can I retrieve them?
Is GMail totally reliable?
Thanks.

FanadMan

Did you check Trash? Hopefully might be still there.

If you are worried about someone else having access to your mail, change your password and enable 2 step verification

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/41078?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en

https://www.google.com/landing/2step/

Irish Stones

Yes, I checked Trash and any other folder. And no, nobody else has access to my email.
So I think that some messages are being randomly deleted, or that GMail server isn't reliable.
I know that any deleted message is retrievable within 30 days from Trash, but what when they aren't anywhere?
As I wrote, I'm totally positive that one of those two missing messages was still there about two or three weeks ago, I had read it and I was wondering why it hadn't got a reply yet. In fact, my intention was to re-send it. But now it's gone.

ItHurtsWhenIP

Could they have been accidentally archived? Take a look for them in the "All Mail" folder.

Xterminator

Hi Op

do this.

How can I see who tried to access my Gmail?
You can monitor recent activity on your account. Log into your Gmail account and scroll down to the bottom of your inbox. Then click the Details link at the bottom of the page. That will bring up a log that displays the number of places you have logged in from — including your current session

see if any of the recent logins raises a flag. you should have 2 factor authentication setup anyway, so do that now.

if there is no suspicious activity, use the google help centre type in gmail messages are missing, brings up a useful article.

Irish Stones

ItHurtsWhenIP wrote: »

Could they have been accidentally archived? Take a look for them in the "All Mail" folder.

Sorry for delay.
I have looked in all folders, Trash, Outobox, Sent, Drafts, etc... No trace of that message at all. I know I sent it around mid-May this year, and I'm sure I had re-read it a bit more than 1 month ago.
I really don't understand...


I had sent this message to a business and I hadn't got any reply from them, so I was going to re-send them the message and tell them they are unreliable, but so far I'm the only at fault now... I can't prove I have sent that message to them in the first place.

Irish Stones

Xterminator wrote: »

Hi Op

see if any of the recent logins raises a flag. you should have 2 factor authentication setup anyway, so do that now.

if there is no suspicious activity, use the google help centre type in gmail messages are missing, brings up a useful article.

I have looked into "details", but the chronology doesn't go further back that a few days, it seems.
Anyway I am sure nobody has access to my account, or they would have deleted more than a couple of old messages, and also sent emails to other contacts.

ItHurtsWhenIP

Irish Stones wrote: »

Sorry for delay.
I have looked in all folders, Trash, Outobox, Sent, Drafts, etc... No trace of that message at all. I know I sent it around mid-May this year, and I'm sure I had re-read it a bit more than 1 month ago.
I really don't understand...


I had sent this message to a business and I hadn't got any reply from them, so I was going to re-send them the message and tell them they are unreliable, but so far I'm the only at fault now... I can't prove I have sent that message to them in the first place.

OK ... Just so we're clear, the All Mail folder is truly ALL MAIL, unless the mail is deleted. You need to click on the More drop down:

And then look in the All Mail folder:

If you don't see it there, then it's not in your mailbox. Sorry.

Irish Stones

ItHurtsWhenIP wrote: »

OK ... Just so we're clear, the All Mail folder is truly ALL MAIL, unless the mail is deleted. You need to click on the More drop down:

And then look in the All Mail folder:

If you don't see it there, then it's not in your mailbox. Sorry.

Yes, the place was right, but it's not there... I browsed back to the beginning of March, when it was impossible I had sent it, to late May when I am sure I already sent it.
No trace of it at all.

My God, what can it be happened?

Thanks for your patience.

The Nutty M

It ain't Ulster Bank by any chance?

I had a trail of emails with one person from Ulster Bank in my private mail account. About 3 months after finishing replying to this person i went in search of these emails. Not a trace whatsoever. So your story sounds very familiar to me.

Slippin Jimmy

Do you use different email accounts? If so, maybe you sent it from one of them.

eusap

Do you always use Gmail on the web or do you have it in a mail client on the laptop?

GBX

Were the messages part of a chain? Have they been included in a conversation view ? Search specific words that may have been in the messages and see if they turn up.

Irish Stones

The Nutty M wrote: »

It ain't Ulster Bank by any chance?

I had a trail of emails with one person from Ulster Bank in my private mail account. About 3 months after finishing replying to this person i went in search of these emails. Not a trace whatsoever. So your story sounds very familiar to me.

No, it was an email to a private small business. In that email I was complaining about something, and because I wasn't receiving any reply from them after three months, I was going to re-send the same email to them and tell them they were unreliable.
But I haven't any proof I wrote to them now...


Did you use a GMail account with the bank?

Irish Stones

Slippin Jimmy wrote: »

Do you use different email accounts? If so, maybe you sent it from one of them.

Very acute, thank you!


Yes, I have more than one account from different providers, but I'm sure I used GMail because I remember I sent it from my tablet.

Irish Stones

eusap wrote: »

Do you always use Gmail on the web or do you have it in a mail client on the laptop?

I always use GMail from the main Google page in my browser.
I had sent that email from my tablet, so I'm sure I did not use any client or a different account.

Irish Stones

GBX wrote: »

Were the messages part of a chain? Have they been included in a conversation view ? Search specific words that may have been in the messages and see if they turn up.

No, it was a first message, a new thread, if we want to call it that way.


What it's strange is that it happened before, when I sent an email (GMail) from my smartphone to a customer care of another business two years ago.
I never found that email in my box, but I have their reply on the same day. Unfortunately they did not quote my original message, so I have no proof of what I told them

ShauntaMetzel

I trust the gmail more than any other mailing service because of their high security and outstanding service. I think you should contact with their support team if you didn't make anything wrong.

Irish Stones

UPDATE:

I think I have found out what happened to my lost sent email.

Since the business people to whome I wrote weren't replying to my message, I tried to send them another message, forwarding the previous message as a reminder, but then I changed my mind and deleted the draft from the "Draft" Folder. And this deleted the original message too. But I didn't realize of it, not even thought it could ever happen.

So I have recently done a test, I sent a message from my Gmail to another account of mine (different provider), then I replied from this other account to my Gmail, then I started replying again from GMail to the second account, but didn't send it. The message was saved in "Draft". Then I opened the Draft Folder and deleted the message I was going to send, and the whole thread disappeared, No message in Sent, no message in Inbox.

I think this is a bug of GMail. How can a deleted draft make a whole thread disappear? This is crazy, I believe.
I wrote to the GMail service, but I doubt they will ever reply, let alone fix my problem!

28064212

Irish Stones wrote: »

I think this is a bug of GMail. How can a deleted draft make a whole thread disappear? This is crazy, I believe.

It's not a bug, it's how Gmail works. You delete the conversation, it deletes all the messages. You want to discard a draft, you need to find the individual message and delete that.

Why would you delete anything in Gmail? Just archive it

Irish Stones

28064212 wrote: »

It's not a bug, it's how Gmail works. You delete the conversation, it deletes all the messages. You want to discard a draft, you need to find the individual message and delete that.

I didn't want to delete the conversation, just didn't want to save the draft from the "Draft" Folder. And that's what I did, opened the folder of the Drafts, looked for the message I was going to write and send and deleted it.

This is what I usually do with Thunderbird or MS Outlook.
The different folders should be "isolated", what happens in Draft shouldn't affect Inbox or Sent Folders.

Why would you delete anything in Gmail? Just archive it

Because I wouldn't like to archive useless messages.

28064212

Irish Stones wrote: »

I didn't want to delete the conversation, just didn't want to save the draft from the "Draft" Folder. And that's what I did, opened the folder of the Drafts, looked for the message I was going to write and send and deleted it.

The Drafts folder shows a list of conversations that contain draft messages. Same as the Sent folder, which shows a list of conversations that contain sent messages, or if you do a search for "Ireland", it will show all conversations that have a message containing "Ireland". If you delete the conversation in any of those views, it deletes all the messages in that conversation.

Irish Stones wrote: »

Because I wouldn't like to archive useless messages.

Well, it would prevent situations like this