Not all emails showing in inbox

[JoyK82]

I use tiscali mail and for the past 3 days most emails are not showing in my inbox. I am still receiving new emails but I have lost all the old ones. Approximately 3,000 emails have vanished and now only have 7 in my inbox. How can I get the old emails back?

[Gondola]

Hi JoyK82 

If there was a redirect / auto-forward set up then that wouldn't delete older messages that had already arrived in the mailbox.

Select here:  Sign in to TalkTalk Mail

Enter your email address and password, select Sign in.

Worth doing a self-send test to see what happens. And you can check to see if there are any Rules in the mailbox.

Select the New email button to compose and self-send the same mailbox a mail message. Check that the message sends without error, is copied into the Sent folder and arrives and stays in the Inbox.

Mail not reaching the Inbox could mean there's a Filter rule, including an Auto forward which is a special filter rule, that's diverting, discarding or blocking mail.

• Select the Main settings menu cog icon      top right on the blue header
• Select All settings
• Select Mail and scroll down to Rules
  Select the chevron icon > to see all defined Rules
  If there's no rule defined, that's perfect
• To delete a Filter rule including any Auto forward
  select the X icon to the right of the rule
  The icon background will turn red  X
  
• To confirm you really want to delete this Filter rule
  Select the blue Delete button

Let us know of any error message, or if mail did not arrive in the Inbox or disappeared from the Inbox. Collecting mail messages with a POP3 mail account or mail collection service, like Gmail, may be deleting messages from the online Inbox.

As a precaution I would upgrade the password. This will lock out any unauthorised devices / services.

[JoyK82]

Thanks for getting back to me.

Normally I use the Talktalk mail app on my browser and can see there are only a few emails there. 

I haven’t set up a new mail redirect and I had all the emails when I last looked on Thursday night but when I logged back in on Friday morning there were only a few new ones there. Is there any way to check if the mail is being redirected somewhere else? The only devices listed as logged in when I checked the settings were my devices.

I have checked trash and there are no emails there and my latest archive folder is 2023.

Is there anything else that I can check? I wondered if it was a server issue as can see some emails from Saturday but not all and an email from my sent items has now appeared in the inbox.

[Gondola]

Are you signed in to TalkTalk Mail via the browser sign in to your online primary tiscali mailbox? There is a count of the messages in the Inbox under the Inbox title.

Check in the Trash folder just in case there has been an inadvertent deletion of messages. In the folder view do you have Archive as a folder under the Trash folder? If so that will have year by year sub-folders so check there for a 2024 sub folder.

Important question about how you use TalkTalk Mail. Have you set up a new device or new mail collection service? If the device or service is collecting mail messages as a POP3 email account then the default for POP3 is to download all messages from the Inbox and then delete all bar the most recent from the online Inbox. In that case all messages will be in the Inbox of the new device or collection service.

Worst case scenario is that your mailbox password has been discovered and an unauthorised person has downloaded and deleted the messages. If you think that has happened or perhaps an old device of yours was recently reactivated a few days ago and did the download and delete actions then upgrade the password.

Whilst signed in to TalkTalk Mail to the online mailbox you can select the cog icon (desktop browser) and All settings menu item and then select Security in the left side of the modal that opens and then look at Your devices to see what's signed in to the mailbox. If you don't recognise a device from the hints given then sign out all devices and upgrade the password. 

Let me know what you think may have happened.