I have spent the last 5 hours trying to help some guy retrieve email that they thought they had accidentally deleted in Outlook.  After some research, I find that this is possible…when users delete email in Outlook, you can retrieve it as long as you don’t compact the PST file.  By the way, this only works if you have set up POP3 as the method of retrieving email.

The way POP3 works is that it stores email in a PST file, and when you delete emails (even after you have emptied the Deleted Items folder, the email aren’t really deleted, they are simply flagged as deleted and that they are not shown by Outlook.

Below is the method of retrieving your email

1. Turn Outlook off
2. Locate your PST file
3. Run corrupt.exe YourOutlookfile.pst (you can download corrupt.exe here)
4. Start “c:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSMAPI\1033\SCANPST.EXE” or whichever version you have.

Please note that if you are using Outlook XP, you will have to use the scanpst.exe from Outlook XP, scanpst.exe from Outlook 2003, will not be able to recover a pst created from Outlook XP.

Below are sources with more info on this topic:

http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-5054599.html

http://www.gettingclever.com/2008/06/corrupting-your-outlook-pst-file.html

blog posting, technical notes Deleted Email, Outlook, PST