SOLVED! Outlook/Hotmail Deleted Emails Keep Coming Back

If your Outlook/Hotmail deleted emails keep coming back, your account settings could be responsible and you should check them out. Aside from that, you may want to clear the cache of the app/browser, switch to IMAP connection, etc. Read to the end to learn what must be done to put an end to the issue.

What is Hotmail?

Hotmail, now known as Outlook.com, is a personal information manager web app that does more than just a normal email service. It came to life in 1996, but Hotmail was acquired by Microsoft in 1997. Since then, it has become a popular free online email service by the company. It was then named as MSN Hotmail, then, rebranded to Windows Live Hotmail. In 2011, Hotmail was phased out, but in 2012 it was relaunched as Outlook.com.

Hotmail was originally spelled as HoTMaiL to emphasize HTML — the markup programming language used to create web pages. It was one of the first webmail services along with RocketMail, now Yahoo! Mail. After it has become part of Microsoft products, it has slowly gained popularity and become the widely used webmail service with more than 30 million active users in February 1999.

Aside from its security issues in 1999 that was called “the most widespread security incident in the history of the web,” there’s another annoying Hotmail problem. That is, deleted emails keep coming back. Some emails seem to be successfully deleted when you hit the Delete button, but they will resurface in days or even weeks.

How Hotmail Works?

When you access Hotmail or any other email services, you are either using POP or IMAP protocol. If you get your email through a website, you are using IMAP. If you are using a mail client, not with the web browser, you are probably using POP3. You can choose either of them. To save storage and if you are using a single device only, you can use POP3. On the other hand, IMAP is the best protocol to use if you need to access your email from more several devices.

POP3 access protocol allows you to download your emails from the server to the device you’re using. Then, emails that have been downloaded will be deleted from the server, if you’ll set the server to do so. Hence, this isn’t ideal for those access emails from another device. Likewise, if you have problems with your device and you’ll access your email from a new device, chances are, you have missing emails.

For IMAP, on the other hand, you can access your inbox from multiple devices. Your inbox is like a live view of the server. This is not a download-and-store-local mechanism, rather, you got to get a real-time view of your email regardless of where you access it.

Why Hotmail Deleted Emails Keep Coming Back?

There are two main reasons why your Hotmail deleted emails keep coming back — emails are re-downloaded or you’ve got a corrupted inbox. Especially if you’re using POP3 access protocol, re-downloading of the emails could be inevitable.

With POP3, you have the options to delete emails immediately after downloading or you can set to delete the emails at a later time. If you opt to keep the emails in the server, chances are, it could be that deleted messages are re-downloaded to your device. But, if you set to delete emails upon download, yet, you still have this problem, it could be a problem on your account.

Solutions

Before thinking that your account has been hacked or has been inflicted by some sort of computer virus, this problem could be solved by checking the following:

Check Settings on Your Account

Make minor changes in the Server Settings (Account Settings). Go to File>Account Settings>Account Settings. In the E-mail, tap checks the POP3 account (if POP3 is your settings) and select Change. Then, go to More Settings and get straight to the Advanced tab under Delivery. You can see Leave a copy of messages on the server checkbox with two sub-options — Remove from server after __ days and Remove from server when deleted from ‘Deleted Items.’ Uncheck the former and only select the latter.

Clear Cache on App and Browser

If the error persists, you can clear the cache in your app and/or web browser. For app, go the Settings>Apps and find the app you are using when you experience Hotmail deleted emails coming back. You can see Clear Cache and Clear Data button that you can easily tap to clean your app.

In a web browser, you must clear the cache and temporary internet files. Different browsers have different ways to clear cookies. For Google Chrome, for example, press CTRL + SHIFT + DEL, then click Clear Browsing Data.

Switch to IMAP Connection

If you are currently using POP3, try using IMAP Protocol. The process can differ per app or browser you’ll use. You must use IMAP instead of POP. Go to File>New>Mail Account. Enter the credentials needed. Ensure to use automated suggestions for IMAP or you can also manually set it up to IMAP.

The Final Say

No matter what email service you are using, deleted emails shouldn’t come back to your Inbox, unless you restore them. Yet, this seems to be a common issue with Hotmail, now known as Outlook.com. Hotmail deleted emails keep coming back could be a problem syncing with the server, especially with POP3 access protocol.

To solve this problem, try checking the server settings and make some changes there, as specified above. Second, clean the app or the web browser that you use. You can also refresh your connection or restart your device. Lastly, switch to the more versatile access protocol — IMAP. You definitely won’t think of this problem from now on.