How to recover deleted email files (EML, MSG) and Outlook mail

Step by step

1. Check Deleted Items and Trash

   In Outlook, open the Deleted Items folder; in webmail or other mail programs, open Trash or Bin. Search by sender or subject, then move the message back to the Inbox. This only applies to mail deleted inside the program, not to files deleted in File Explorer.

2. Recover from the mail server

   With Microsoft 365, Exchange and Outlook.com accounts, Outlook usually offers Recover Deleted Items From Server in the Deleted Items folder, and the web version has a similar option. Items stay there only for a period set by the provider or your administrator, so check soon.

3. Close Outlook and stop writing

   If the lost mail was a file on disk, close Outlook and other mail programs, because they write to their data files constantly. Do not save attachments, downloads or new exports to the drive where the files were.

4. Run the Balanced scan

   Run the portable FileFix Ultimate from a USB stick, open Deleted file recovery, choose the drive and start the Balanced scan. Filter by the extensions eml, msg, pst, ost and dbx. Files found through file system records keep their names and folders.

5. Try the deep signature scan if needed

   If nothing useful appears, run the Deep signature scan. It looks for the known structure of PST, OST, MSG, EML and DBX files in free space. Results have generated names, so sort them by size and date and use the preview.

6. Save and open the copies

   Save the results to a different physical disk. Open .eml files with a mail program, open .msg files with Outlook, and open a recovered PST through Outlook's open data file option. Keep the recovered originals untouched and work on copies.

Deleted in a mail program or deleted from the disk

These are two different situations and need different tools. When you delete a message in Outlook, Gmail or another client, the message moves inside the mailbox, first to Deleted Items or Trash and then, on Microsoft 365 and Exchange accounts, to a hidden recoverable area on the server. No file is deleted from your PC, so a disk recovery scan does not help, and the server is the right place to look.

When you delete a saved .eml or .msg file, an exported PST, or the folder that held them, the operating system removes a file. That file stays on the disk until the space is reused, which is the situation a recovery tool is built for. Knowing which case you are in saves time and avoids scanning for something that was never a file.

What each email format holds

An .eml file is one message in plain internet mail format, with headers, body and attachments encoded as text. Many mail programs save or export messages this way. An .msg file is one Outlook item stored in a Microsoft compound file. PST and OST files are whole mailboxes: PST for archives and POP accounts, OST as an offline cache of a server mailbox. DBX files come from the old Outlook Express.

Attachments live inside the .eml or .msg file, so a recovered message usually brings its attachments back too. EML files are text and have no strong binary marker, so a signature search recognises them by typical header lines; small or partly overwritten messages may be missed or come back with a lower confidence level.

A message deleted inside a PST is not a deleted file

If the PST file still exists and you deleted messages within it, FileFix Ultimate cannot pull those messages out of the PST, because the file itself was never deleted. Check Deleted Items in that data file and any older copy of the PST from a backup or Previous Versions. For an OST, the usual way back is to sign in again and let Outlook download the mailbox from the server; recovering the OST matters mainly when the server account no longer exists.

When it won't work

• Messages removed from the server's recoverable items after the retention period are gone from the mailbox, and a disk scan cannot bring them back.
• On an internal SSD with TRIM, deleted mail files can be erased within moments.
• Large PST files that were partly overwritten often come back damaged; Outlook's Inbox Repair Tool may help with a copy, but results vary.
• Mail stored in encrypted containers or in formats outside the supported list cannot be found by signature.

How FileFix Ultimate helps

• No recovery limit and free for personal use, with a portable version that runs from USB so Outlook's drive receives no new writes.
• Recovers EML, MSG, PST, OST and DBX files with names from NTFS, FAT32 and exFAT records, and finds them by signature when the records are gone.
• Reads the source read-only and saves only to another physical disk.
• Shows confidence and an honest status for each file, so you know which mail files were checked and which were only extracted.

Frequently asked questions