Recovering emails on exchange

[penfold]

The person who normally deals with Exchange is off this week and I just need to clarify something before I respond to a job that has been raised. We had a network failure last Friday apx 4.30 and someone raised a job that their emails that they sent after 4pm on Friday have not been delivered so they have asked for them to be recovered. Apparently the emails are not in their sent item and I've searched on Exchange for any emails going from that persons account between 4pm- 5pm which should cover the period they are saying they had problems and found nothing.

 

Now this person is getting annoyed that I have said I don't think they can be recovered as I can't see where they would be. Am I right in thinking if they are not in the sent items then they have never been sent and therefore I can't recover them? Or is there something I'm missing?

[Steve21]

Is the option to save copies to sent items turned on? (As in are others showing just not that one? Or is the option turned off in outlook?)

 

Also have you checked they don't have the "sent items" and "sent" folder? Depending on how it's setup/POP etc might have both.

 

If it's turned on, and it's not showing then yes I'd say it hasn't been sent.

 

Steve

[halbaradkenafin]

Could be in the Outbox waiting to be sent.

[penfold]

Other mails are showing, just not specific emails they sent at that time. So am I right in thinking that I can't do anything and it is likely they are now "lost".

[penfold]

Could be in the Outbox waiting to be sent.

That's what I said but they came back a bit aggressively for my liking. Hence the reason for checking I have the right thinking before responding.

[JoeBloggs]

Doesn't sound like they ever hit the server? (so nothing to recover)

 

Could be pending in his client? Like others have mentioned...

[halbaradkenafin]

That's what I said but they came back a bit aggressively for my liking. Hence the reason for checking I have the right thinking before responding.

 

You're on the right track, depending on the nature of the network failure then the emails are either sitting on the server waiting to be sent (which should have happened when connectivity was restored) or sitting in the client waiting to be sent to the server.

 

If the user is getting angry about this then approaching it calmly and stating that you'll need to check their machine for any issues with Outlook, should only take a few minutes and if the emails are that important then I'm sure they can spare that much time. If the user hasn't received or sent emails since then it's possible that a quick test of the outlook connectivity will fix it, hold Ctrl and right click the Outlook icon in the system tray and you'll get an option for it. A reboot is probably needed as well just to be sure.

[penfold]

Actually, doesn't matter. I have just had an update on the job that my boss has responded to basically saying the same thing I was about to. I have just noticed that there were others cc'd into the request which has made me chuckle as they have made themselves look a little silly now. He must have got an update on his phone