How to Retrieve Deleted Emails on iPhone?

“In the process of deleting spam and promotional messages from my mail on iPhone, I mistakenly deleted some work messages. It’s very important that I recover them before traveling for our monthly summit. Please, how can I get deleted emails back on my iPhone?”

Deleting emails on iPhone can happen in the blink of an eye. It takes only one mistake; just a wrong tap or swipe and you may lose your emails. This can be very disturbing if the emails are very important. Fortunately, there are ways to get them back.

Read on to discover how to retrieve deleted emails on iPhone and how to prevent your emails from getting accidentally deleted in the future.

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How to Recover Deleted Emails on iPhone?

Discussed below are the various ways on how to retrieve deleted email on iPhone. Follow the guidelines step-by-step to bring back your lost emails.

Undo the Deletion by Shaking the iPhone

iPhones have an extremely amazing feature that allows you to undo a recent action by shaking the phone. This includes shaking your iPhone to undo recently deleted emails. So, when you mistakenly delete an email, you can simply shake your iPhone to undo the deletion.

👉Here’s how to retrieve a deleted email on iPhone by shaking:

Shake your iPhone immediately after the deletion. Make sure you haven’t performed any action since the email was deleted.
A message will appear, asking you to Cancel or Undo. Click Undo and your email will be returned to its previous location.

❗NOTE: This method only works if you just deleted the email and haven’t left the Mail app. If you perform any other action after the email deletion or close the Mail app, it won’t work.

Retrieve Emails on iPhone through Trash

When an email is deleted on an iPhone, it goes to Trash. This is a folder in the Mail app where deleted emails are stored for 30 days before permanent deletion. Unless the Trash folder is emptied, rest assured that you can still restore deleted emails and move them back to where they were previously located.

👉Follow the steps below for how to retrieve emails on iPhone through the Trash folder:

Open the Mail app and click on Mailboxes at the top-left corner of the screen.
In case you have more than one account linked to the Mail app, select the particular account which your emails were deleted from.
Click Trash or Bin.

Find and select the deleted emails you want to restore. Click Move and select the folder you want to transfer the emails to.

You can also use this method to recover deleted emails on Yahoo and Gmail, but deleted emails on Yahoo Mail are kept in Trash for only 7 days. Just like the Apple Mail app, the Gmail Trash folder keeps deleted emails for 30 days.

Get Deleted Emails Back on iPhone with iPhone Recovery Software

Perhaps you’re looking for how to recover emails deleted from trash on iPhone, or you’ve tried the two methods above and you didn’t get back the emails, another solution is to use an iPhone recovery software like Anyrecover (iOS 18 supported). This is a professional third-party iPhone recovery tool that can retrieve deleted emails on iPhone no matter how long they’ve been deleted.

👉Here’s how to recover deleted emails on iPhone using this iPhone recovery software:

Download and install Anyrecover (iOS) on your PC.
Launch the Anyrecover (iOS) app, connect your iPhone, and select iPhone Recovery.

Choose Recover From Device.

Pick the type of file you want to recover. In this case, select Messages.

Anyrecover (iOS) will scan for deleted messages and emails on your iPhone. After the scan, check the results, and select the emails you want to retrieve. Choose Restore to Device or Recover to Computer for where to store the emails.

Using iCloud Backup to Recover Permanently Deleted Emails on iPhone

Using iCloud backup is a very reliable method for how to recover permanently deleted emails on iPhone 13 and other iPhone variants. However, you can only retrieve emails from iCloud backup if you’ve previously set up iCloud to automatically backup messages on your Mail app.

iCloud backup can even be used to restore deleted emails on Mac.

👉Follow these procedures for how to recover permanently deleted emails on iPhone:

Open Settings on your iPhone. Go to General, select Transfer or Reset iPhone, and click on Erase All Content and Settings. This action will delete all the data on your iPhone, making it clean as new.

Now, follow the on-screen instructions to set up your iPhone. On the Apps & Data page, select Restore from iCloud Backup.

Sign in with your Apple ID and select an iCloud backup that contains the emails you want to retrieve to start the recovery process.
After the process is finished, check your Mail app to confirm the recovery of your deleted emails.

❗NOTE: You can’t recover only the deleted emails from your iCloud backup. This solution requires that all the content and settings on your iPhone be erased. So, it’s advisable that you save important data to an external storage device for easy retrieval.

Bonus Tips: How to Prevent Emails from Being Accidentally Deleted?

You can use the Archive feature to prevent emails from being deleted again. Once this feature is enabled, all deleted emails will be archived in the “All Mails” folder where you can easily retrieve them.

👉Here’s how to get deleted emails back on iPhone through the Archive feature:

Open Settings on your iPhone and select the Mail, Contacts, Calendars option.

Click your mail account. Toggle ON Mail (it will turn to green). From now on, you will be able to find all deleted emails in the “All Mails” folder.

Now exit Settings and open the Mail app on your iPhone.

Click on the three horizontal lines at the top-left corner of the screen and select the email account you want to restore mails from.
Click the All Mail folder to see all your emails, including the deleted ones.

Select a deleted email you want to recover, navigate downwards, and click on the second icon from the left (the arrow icon). Your list of folders will appear; select the folder to move the email to. Do this for all the deleted emails you want to recover.

Conclusion

Losing an important email on an iPhone can sometimes seem like the world is against you. But don’t let it weigh you down. In this article, we’ve uncovered some effective methods on how to retrieve deleted emails on iPhone, which include shaking your iPhone, recovering through the Trash folder, iPhone recovery software, and iCloud Backup.

FAQs on iPhone Emails Recovery

Read on to get further answers about questions related to how to retrieve deleted emails on iPhone.

1️⃣How to Recover Deleted Mail from Gmail?

Just like there are easy ways to recover deleted Gmail drafts, recovering deleted mail from Gmail is pretty simple.

👉Here are the steps involved:

Open the Gmail app and navigate to the top-left corner to click the three horizontal lines.

Select Trash and check for the deleted email you want to recover.

Click on the email and tap the three dots at the top-right corner of the screen. Select Move and choose the destination folder to save the email.

2️⃣How Long Do Deleted Emails Stay on iPhone?

This varies for different email providers. For example, deleted emails on Apple Mail and Gmail stay in the Trash folder for as long as 30 days before they are permanently deleted. Whereas, AOL and Yahoo are only kept for 7 days before permanent deletion.

3️⃣How Do I Restore Archived Email?

👉Follow this process to restore an archived email:

Open the Mail app on your iPhone.
Go to the top-left corner to select Mailboxes and click the mail account where the archived email was stored.

Select Archive and find the archived email that you want to restore.

Click and hold the email. Then, select Move Message… and choose the folder you want to move the email to.

Zedd

Passion about writing and computer. Aiming to provide more useful posts to readers. 3 years of experience in data recovery, file conversion and computer issues fixing. Hope to deliver clear, accurate, and actionable content. Enjoying swimming and playing badminton in free time :)