Deleted an email by mistake, or because you mistakenly believed it was no longer needed? Find out here how you can recover deleted emails in Gmail using the “Trash” folder.
First, a Turner Turned
It takes work and energy and sweat to turn a motor.
One can take the energy from the power grid or a battery, of course; one can also put the sweat right into turning the motor, however, and have energy come out at the other end of this motor turned generator.
This works on a bicycle’s rim, for instance, where the painfully harder pedaling made a light shine (more or less), and it works in an vehicle on rails or roads to brake and generate electricity at the sam time.
So, that’s how to recover some energy from speed in a useful manner; how about recovering emails, too—in speedy a manner?
How to Recover Deleted Emails from the Gmail Trash
Time needed: 2 minutes
To undelete an email that has been moved to the Trash folder in Gmail using a desktop browser:
- Open the label or folder Trash in Gmail.
Here’s how: You can press G L, for example, and type
trash. - Check the emails you want to recover.
Find: You can add search terms (and Gmail search operators) to the search field to find the emails you want to recover more easily.
Open: To identify (and undelete) an individual email you can open it, of course, and follow the next steps from there.
Not found: If you unexpectedly do not find an email either in the Gmail archive, the spam folder or the trash, you can request an investigation (and possible reinstatement) with Google. - Click Move to in the toolbar.
Gmail keyboard shortcut: Press V to open the moving menu.
- Choose the label to which you want to recover the message or messages.
Previous labels: In the Gmail trash’s message list, you will see the original labels listed; you can recover to one of these labels, of course.
Inbox: You can simply restore emails to the Gmail inbox, of course.
Archived: If a message was archived before, you can restore it to a temporary folder; see below.
Beyond restoration: After all emails you want to keep have been restored, you can empty the Gmail trash to permanently delete the messages remaining in it.
In the Gmail App
To restore a deleted email from the Gmail trash using the Gmail app for Android or iOS:
- Go to the Trash folder.
Here’s how: Tap the hamburger menu, for example, and select Trash. - Select the messages you want to recover.
Here’s how: Tap the avatar in front of an email to add it to the selection (or remove the message from it). - Tap the three dots menu.
- Select Move from the menu.
- Now choose a folder to which you want to restore the message or messages.
To the archive: To restore to the Gmail archive, tap + for a temporary label.
How to Recover Deleted Emails from the Gmail Trash: FAQ
Can I restore to the original labels from the trash?
Yes, though not perfectly.
While you can undo trashing a message immediately, after you delete it, recovering from the trash always means moving it to a Gmail label or the inbox. Custom labels present when the message was deleted will be kept throughout, so the email will show up in all folders after it has been restored to one of them.
Restoring archived email with no additional labels requires additional steps:
- Find the messages in the Trash folder.
- Restore them to a newly created label.
Here’s why: The temporary label makes keeping the emails united and dealing with them in bulk easier.
Here’s how: Select Create new from the menu to create a new label, say one calledrestored.
Inbox: You can also restore to the inbox, of course, and archive from there. - Delete the temporary label.
Archived: The emails have been restored to the All mail archive folder.
How do I recover emails using an email program and Gmail IMAP?
If you have set up an account in an email client using Gmail IMAP access:
- Move a message from the [Gmail]/Trash folder to [Gmail]/All Mail to restore it.
Trash and archive: Your email program may use different names for these folders, e.g., Trash or Deleted Items and Archive.
How much time do I have for restoring an email?
Gmail keeps messages in the trash for 30 days. Recover emails you want to keep within that time.
(How to recover deleted emails from the Gmail trash tested in a desktop browser; first published June 2024)