:My sent e-mails are dropping off my system after about a month and I cannot locate them. I need them to stay in my sent box until I choose to delete them. They might be going into archives, but when I log into archives there is nothing there. I just need to be able to find them as they are critical to my business. Can you help me with this? — Shelley Hawthorne
Tech+ Thanks for additionally sharing that you are a Microsoft Outlook user who checks e-mail on a PC and phone. That means at some point, you set up a way to check the official online mail server for new messages so that both your PC and phone can get new messages.
Check . In them, you’ll find something that says “Leave a copy of messages on the Server,” which you’ve either enabled or you’ve chosen many days before e-mail is deleted.
To do this, follow the steps below (note: they may differ depending on what version of Outlook you have):
- Open Outlook.
- Go to the “Tools” tab at the top of Outlook and select “E-mail accounts.”
- Select “View or change existing e-mail accounts.”
- Hopefully, you’ll recognize your e-mail account. Select the one in question and hit “Change.”
- Now that you’re in a window that says “Internet E-mail Settings,” look for “More Settings”
- Essentially we are looking for a window that says “Internet E-mail Settings” at the top.
- In that window, go to “advanced” and you should see an option under “Delivery,” and the option to “.” You can also decide to remove messages after a specific number of days and/or remove deleted messages from the server.
These instructions are for older versions of Microsoft Outlook, which I realize many people probably no longer use.
However, the idea is the same. If your e-mails seem to disappear after a certain number of days, it could be the server doing some housecleaning. Search for your specific e-mail program and “delete e-mail” or “leave messages on server” to hunt for tips on how to tweak this feature in your specific e-mail program.
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