eMClient seems to have erased my webmail contents

Mail
1

Hi,
It’s me again.
In June I had issues with my mail client, eMClient. I had tried to update it to the latest version and followed the instructions to restore all my old emails to the Local Folders section, to no effect.

Yesterday I finally got eMClient to connect to the TalkTalk server and up came all my emails from the last five weeks.

So I arranged them all again in the Local Folders section of eMClient, but instead of being pragmatic about the loss of 8 year’s emails, I decided to try one last time to “restore” them to the new Local folders section. Up came a message saying that I might lose my recent emails if I “restored” my old ones. Thinking that there were now recent emails occupying the Local Folders that would enable the old emails to join them (why?), I stupidly pressed the “restore” button.

Bingo!! Not only did I lose my recent emails, but I lost the latest version of eMClient! Yes, you may well chuckle, but after nearly two months of trying to retrieve over one hundred emails containing valuable information, without success, while simultaneously moving house, after 40 years, I hope you’ll understand that I didn’t see the funny side of it.

With the old saying, “There is no fool, like an old fool” ringing in my ears, I sat down after lunch and came up with the brilliant idea of retrieving my emails from my webmail account, only to find that eMClient had sneaked into my account and erased everything. No problem I stupidly thought. Right click on “Trash” and chose the “Recover” option, except there is not one in my webmail!!

So I tried right clicking on every option, only to find that eMClient had done a thorough job.

Fortunately, I have yet to find my coils of rope that the removal firm had so skillfully packed a month ago, or I might have chosen a different route to the one I’m using now.

Can anyone put me out of my misery and help recover my recent (I’ve abandoned all hope of seeing my old emails) emails

John

2

Local Folders are not synced with the server. So as you moved the messages from the server to eM Client’s local storage, they no longer exist on the server, but only in eM Client.

And that is exactly what happened. You restored a backup, which will have deleted all the messages you just moved to local storage. So now they are no longer on the server, and the recent local data is deleted, reverting the database local data to what it was at the time that backup was made.

If you have multiple backups that individually have the server data, as well as local data, there is a way to retrieve selected data from each of the backups:

  1. Disconnect the computer from the Internet. This is important!
  2. Go to Menu > Settings > General > Backup. Disable Periodic Backup if it is selected and click on OK.
  3. Make a backup using Menu > Backup, so we can come back to the current database later.
  4. Restore the old backup that has the data you want to retrieve.
  5. Export that data you need. You can do that using Menu > File > Export > Export email to eml files. You can select whole directory trees, so it is fairly easy to do.
  6. Restore the next backup, and retrieve any data you want from that, etc.
  7. Once you have restored all the backups and exported the data you need from each one, restore the backup made in step 3.
  8. Reconnect to the Internet.
  9. Import the data from step 5 using Menu > File > Import > Email (eml).
3

Hi Gary,
Very many thanks for taking the time to help me and apologies for not having replied before now. (We’ve unpacked 70 boxes so far and counting. Moving after nearly 40 years is taking its tolll!)
Your instructions are great, but you lost me at step 4, so may I stretch your patience further please?
“Restore the old backup…”
When I hit Menu> File> Restore" using the present version of eMClient, all I get is the window warning me that I might lose my files.

In Windows 7, I am used to a window popping up asking me to nominate a file/folder to “Restore”.
(Yes I know that it is no longer supported, but, at least I still have all my hair, while younger men than me, who "upgraded to Win 10, have pulled out all theirs.)
Would you be so kind as to walk me through this restore procedure?
With thanks and very best wishes,
John

4

If there are backups in the default folder, you won’t be asked to select a folder, rather you will be offered a list of backups to choose from.

If there is only a single backup file in the folder, you won’t be offered a list to choose from, just confirmation that you want to restore it.

5

Dear Gary,
Thanks for the advice.
I have clicked on every icon I can find and searched through the Help Index, but cannot find the “default folder” that you refer to in your email. I have got a folder full of the many backups I’ve made and can display it easily on the screen, alongside the eMClient window. However, as soon as I hit Menu>File> Restore/Import, all I get is the dreaded dire warning window. There is no list offering backups. In fact, if I highlight a backup that I want, eMClient simply ignores it and displays the dire warning message.
(I know that each backup is full of File and DAT folders, because the contents of each ,in MB and KB, is displayed alongside each file.)
Is there any way that I can extract any of those files, “save as” in My Documents and then drag and drop into a"new folder" created in my “local folders” in the latest version of eMClient?
I realize that I seem very slow minded, but the procedure outlined above has always worked for other programs in the past. (In fact, that’s how I have “restored” my contacts list, but it does not work for all my past emails, in the Local Folders.)
Best wishes,
John