Board index » Outlook » I deleted the whole group by error - can I get it back?

Outlook671
I had a group set up but a member chaged email addresses. I added the new but

when I tried to delete the old- the whole disapeared.

Please can I get it back?

Urgent!


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If you deleted the entire item it would be in your Deleted Items folder.

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Russ Valentine

[MVP-Outlook]

"Bettyjean Kling" <Bettyjean Kling@discussions.microsoft.com>wrote in

message news:8112EA7A-49BA-469F-866A-CDEEEFA92C63@microsoft.com...



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Thank You however, that is the first place I looked and it was not in Deleted

items folder. That is why I sent this urgent request. Is there any whehere

else to look?



Also , windows did an auto update and restarted the computer which is set to

empty deleted items. I had searched it long before that .



"Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]" wrote:

You could have added those details and saved us some time.

Once they are removed from Deleted Items, they are gone.

Restore from a backup.

--

Russ Valentine

[MVP-Outlook]

"Bettyjean Kling" <BettyjeanKling@discussions.microsoft.com>wrote in

message news:4DACF882-4C1E-43AC-B736-DB1755329DB7@microsoft.com...



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Russ- I checked the Deleted items folder immediately and THE GROUP I DELETED

was not there.

It was not until hours later that the computer did a restart.

Is there anyway? I did not understand the suggestion regarding Restore from

a backup? I am not sure what that means.

Sorry- if too difficult I will try looking for an old send with the group

in it- In that case how would I collect those and make a new group of of them?

Thank you for your help!





"Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]" wrote:

Bettyjean Kling <BettyjeanKling@discussions.microsoft.com>wrote:



The only chance you have is here:

http://www.howto-outlook.com/howto/restoredeleteditemsfromanoutlookpst.htm



It means that periodically you make copies of all your important data,

placing them on a medium OTHER THAN your hard drive so that, in the event of

a problem such as you have, you'll be able to put that data back on your

hard drive. There are plenty of tools, many free, that can help you

accomplish this.

--

Brian Tillman



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Odd. How did you delete this DL? Every DL I've ever deleted went straight to

the Deleted Items Folder.

However, DL's are notoriously fragile and unreliable. Few of us use them for

that reason. This might be a good incentive for you to learn about using

more reliable ways to group Contacts such as Categories or separate Contact

Subfolders.

--

Russ Valentine

[MVP-Outlook]

"Bettyjean Kling" <BettyjeanKling@discussions.microsoft.com>wrote in

message news:2D71EC0D-DFD6-4986-B355-86B8CEA056B7@microsoft.com...



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Oh thank you Brian,

I have backed up my hard drive on Maxtor not long ago. Can you tell me

where I would look for the contacts file? That is where it would be right?

I am just a lil old lady and not very computer litterate. Thanks you so much.



"Brian Tillman" wrote:

I sent out a mailing to the group. I got back an email saying all mail to a

certain address was to be sent instead to another address.

I opened up the group to show all the names in the group

I hit add and added the new email address then I scrolled down to the one

that needed to be removed and highlighted it- I saw a delete button and

clicked it .

The entire grooup was gone.

I looked in the folder "Deleted Items" all that contained was deleted

messages.

Am I looking in the wwrong Deleted Items folder? What do you mean by "DL"



"Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]" wrote:

What you mean by "group?" DL = Distribution List. That's what you're using.

There is no such thing as a "group."

There should only be one Deleted Items Folder. I suspect your DL is gone. No

great loss. They rarely survive very long anyway. I'd recommend using an

alternative to a DL instead of trying to recreate it.

--

Russ Valentine

[MVP-Outlook]

"Bettyjean Kling" <BettyjeanKling@discussions.microsoft.com>wrote in

message news:2BF9E7A8-106D-4FC5-9704-8689521FE6E5@microsoft.com...



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Bettyjean Kling <BettyjeanKling@discussions.microsoft.com>wrote:



There is no file specifically for contacts in Outlook. All Outlook data,

contacts, mail, tasks, notes, calendar, etc. are kept in the same file: the

"Personal Folders" file, oor PST. The default location for a PST in WIndows

2000 or XP is

C:\Documents and Settings\usename\Local Settings\Application

Data\Microsoft\Outlook, which is a hidden folder. If you have made a copy

of your C drive on another disk, say the D drive, that is installed in your

PC, then change "C" above to "D".

--

Brian Tillman



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I've done the same thing as you and managed to delete a Distribution List. I

know just how you feel. However, I have spent, and now discover I have

wasted, perhaps 2 hours putting it right. First I panicked and looked up

Microsoft's help on the net, and among other things discovered your letter.

Then I looked at my Outlook folders and got nowhere for a while, and then

realised I could (and did) retrieve almost all the addresses in the list by

going to the last email I had sent the group, where it was easy to copy all

the addresses back into my Outlook contacts and from there Select the members

into a new DL.

However, I found I could have avoided all this trouble because when I

started to do a new email to the group, and began to type into the address

line the first letters of the group name, the original group came up because

it was cached in the system. So nothing was lost after all.

I have saved all the list as a Word document in the relevant folder under My

Documents, and will now update it regularly, which you can do directly from

Outlook Distrib List (File/Save As). I'm no expert and don't know what Russ

is suggesting as his alternative.

All I haven't discovered yet is the solution to one last problem, though I

can easily get round this by copying the few addresses I don't have into the

new DL. That is, although the DL I want is cached, so not lost, I can't seem

to get it back into my Outlook Address Book. This will not prevent me getting

a much better night's sleep than I thought I would earlier this evening.



"Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]" wrote:

An employees at my office had his contact folder overwritten, how can I

extract contact info from an old date? Does exchange back up contact lists at

any point in time? Any thoughts?



"Brian Tillman" wrote:

Excuse me..I had this same problem. It's not in my Deleted file because I

deleted that but I have all my names in an Attachment. How can I get them

back in a certain distrabution file again like it used to be? One at a time?

Ugh, I hate that thought. But, if I have to, I will. WOO



"Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]" wrote:

If you deleted the DL from your Deleted Items Folder, it is gone. You will

need to recreate it.

--

Russ Valentine

[MVP-Outlook]

"WOO" <WOO@discussions.microsoft.com>wrote in message



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WOO <WOO@discussions.microsoft.com>wrote:



If you have all the names in an attachment, open the attachment, open a new

DL, click Select Members, and copy-and-paste the members from the

attachments into the Members field, separating the entries with semicolons.

--

Brian Tillman



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