Today I was trying to setup a new email account by editing my older one that was being shutdown. It wasn’t working so I went to add account and then thought I would click delete the old account so that it wouldn’t be trying to access a shutdown server. I thought that would just clear the credentials. Instead it deleted all my emails and pictures from the last 8 years that I’d saved. Why wouldn’t there be a warning that caution doing this will delete all emails associated with this account?
I see there are dat files still there and stuff but from googling I can’t find anyway to restore it so I think all hope is lost for me. Backup isn’t on by default (that should be changed too) so no luck there. I’m just thinking about future people that might do the same thing, please add a warning message as I wouldn’t want anyway else to have to go through the same thing.
Sry that’s happened. eM Client does warn you before you actually removing the account and also tells you it will “delete all folders” for a POP or IMAP account as in the example screenshot below.
If you have a POP account without an eM Client backup, if you have done a recent eg: computer image backup of your entire computer, you could restore that to bring back your emails. The only other option, would be if your ISP or Mailbox providor keeps eg: daily mailbox backups they may be able to restore your mailbox. Contact your mailbox support. Some business isp providors do offer that.
If you have an IMAP, Exchange or iCloud account, just re-add your account and your emails will automatically come back from your mail server.
Suggest for futue to setup automatic eM Client “daily backups” via “Menu / Settings/ General / Backup”. Or at least do regular manual backups via “Menu / Backup”.
(How POP mail works).
If you have a POP account (using any email client) normally your emails are automatically deleted in the email client when you remove an account as they are (attached to the account locally). POP mail by default downloads mail from the server and then deletes all the emails from the server, so you only keep emails locally. This is generally done so you don’t take up alot of space on your mail server as most ISPs or Mailbox providors only give you limited mailbox space unless you pay extra.
Before removing a POP account you normally create a folder called eg: “Old Mail” down in (Local Folders) at the bottom left in em Client and then drag your current POP mail folders down to that folder intact so emails are then not deleted when you remove & re-add the POP account. Then once you have resetup your POP account again, you drag back up all your Old mail to your new POP account.
(How IMAP mail works)
If you have an IMAP , Exchange or iCloud account, you can remove & re-add accounts as you are merely “just reading email headers remotely” from your cloud mailbox. So the emails are not all automatically downloaded locally to your mail client when you receive mail and also (not automatically being deleted from the mail server) after downloading your email.
Thanks for the reply. I am almost positive I never got that message. I just clicked the garbage icon beside the name of my account and I think it just deleted it. I am usually very careful to read everything so would be surprised if I missed that. I would try it again with my new account but obviously am too scared It was a POP account that I was trying to edit into a gmail account and it wasn’t working, maybe because it saw gmail as the address it presumed it wasn’t POP.
It was a POP account that I was trying to edit into a gmail account and it wasn’t working, maybe because it saw gmail as the address it presumed it wasn’t POP.