Manual Guide to Find or Recover Old Emails in Office 365

Updated On - October 25, 2024 by Nasir Khan | Reading Time: 4 minutes

The Office 365 service is an extensively utilized and protected service that allows for uninterrupted mail transmission. Emails are just data exchanges among internal and external organizations. Sometimes, individuals may need to recollect some extremely old data in conjunction with a major project or for other reasons that are essential at the moment. However, they are having difficulty find or recover old emails in Office 365 on their initial attempt. This article will shed light on potential remedies to this problem as well as explain how to keep an eye out for other connected issues.

03 Manual methods to find or recover old emails in Office 365

Basically, in this post, we are going to discuss three manual and free-to-use techniques to find and access old emails in Office 365 Outlook. You can either use the Outlook app or the Outlook web app. We will discuss both topics one by one. Keep reading

1st method: Use the Outlook App to find and access old emails

It is fairly simple to find old emails of Office 365 in the Outlook program. You may create a search directory and organize all your earlier emails by following the directions below.

• Start Outlook (2016/2013/2010 or whatever version you are using) and go to the ‘Folder’ tab, and after that, choose the “New Search Folder.”
• Then, on the opened tab, navigate to “Organizing Mail” and pick “Old Mail”. By default, Outlook groups email older than one week. However, you may select any time frame from which to group messages. In addition, if you have more than a single account in Outlook, you may choose that particular user account and press the OK icon.
• When you hit OK, you’ll notice that such a new directory is generated and placed in the “Navigation” window. The directory title will determine through the time-frame you provide when generating a search directory.

It’s one of the easiest techniques to find old emails of Office 365 in Microsoft Outlook. However, if you remove this directory after seeing the emails, only the directory will be deleted, not the emails themselves.

2nd method: Use the Outlook Web App to find and access old emails.

The Outlook web app is now the most convenient method to view your Office 365 emails. To sign in to the Outlook Web App, however, you must have administrative privileges. Learn how to use the Outlook Web App to locate old or deleted emails.

1. Firstly, consult the administrator to obtain Outlook Web App login details and access Outlook Web App.
2. Whenever you sign in to Outlook, the “Folders” option will appear on the left. To enlarge the directory, hit the arrow icon.
3. The directory list will appear; hit More to view the earlier emails.
4. When you tap “More,” you’ll see a directory labeled with your email address. To access all of the folder’s sub-directories, enlarge it.
5. All previous messages under the given folder title, such as that of the Inbox objects, which will be visible in the INBOX folder, may be found in the sub-directories.

This appears to be a simple task, and it is. However, Office 365 customers frequently remove older communications, necessitating the need to restore lost emails.

If lost documents are still present in the office 365 mailboxes, they can be retrieved rapidly. They may, however, be unavailable at times. Therefore, backups of Office 365 mailboxes are highly recommended, and you can use the Regain Office 365 Backup tool for this purpose.

3rd method: Use the Cache Exchange mode

Basically, the Cache Exchange mode is an Outlook feature that governs how long emails are kept on the internal disk when Outlook is configured on a device for accounts that utilize MS Exchange email accounts.

• To adjust features for a user, go to the “File” tab, then reach the “Account Settings” option. If Outlook is set up to utilize several accounts, pick the appropriate email account from the drop-down option on this screen.
• Locate the required account on the “Account Settings” screen and press the “Change” option.
• Examine the “Cached Exchange Mode” options that are only accessible to Exchange users. By policy, the Outlook software in Windows stores email messages for one year on an internal disk on a desktop. Afterwards, the older messages were removed from the Outlook client’s internal memory.
• Drag the slider from 1 year to all the way to the right. Press Next to finalize configuring Outlook, then restart it. Afterwards, your deleted old emails won’t be permanently removed after three or twelve months.

Archiving Old Emails in Office 365

If you have a lot of old emails that you want to keep but don’t need to access frequently, you can archive them. Here are the steps to follow:

Step 1: Understand archiving and retention policies

Archiving is different from retention policies, which are used to automatically delete emails after a certain period of time. Archiving allows you to store old emails in a separate mailbox or folder without deleting them.

Step 2: Set up retention policies for old emails

Before you can archive old emails, you need to set up retention policies for them. You can do this by creating a retention policy that applies to a specific folder or mailbox.

Step 3: Archive emails to a separate mailbox or folder

Once you have a retention policy set up, you can archive old emails to a separate mailbox or folder. To do this, create a new mailbox or folder and move the old emails to this location. You can also set up automatic rules to move emails to the archive mailbox or folder based on specific criteria.

Step 4: Retrieving archived emails

If you need to access an archived email, you can easily retrieve it by searching for it in the archive mailbox or folder. You can also move it back to your primary mailbox or folder if you need to access it more frequently.

Tips and Best Practices for Managing Old Emails in Office 365

• Regularly clean up and organize your mailbox to avoid clutter and make it easier to find important emails.
• Use folders and labels to categorize emails based on project, client, or other criteria.
• Set up automatic rules and filters for incoming emails to help keep your mailbox organized.
• Regularly backup your mailbox to ensure that you can recover any lost or deleted emails.

Are you looking for your Office 365 backup?

Office 365 backups are really efficient, especially when you mistakenly delete your Office 365 emails and those emails are vital to you. Instead of any manual approaches, we strongly recommend you use the Regain Office 365 Backup software.

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The software can backup all your Office 365 data in your device’s local directory. Besides, it has more advanced facilities that are more effective, fast, and reliable than other manual techniques. So, if you are in need of any Office 365 backup, you must use it to convert Office 365 Mailbox to PST file.

Conclusion

Office 365 offers a variety of tools and features to help you manage and organize your emails. By following the steps outlined in this manual guide, you can easily find old emails in Office 365 and recover them. Additionally, by implementing best practices and tips for managing old emails, you can keep your mailbox organized and ensure that you never lose an important email again.