Entire contents of Yahoo mail account have vanished

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Entire contents of Yahoo mail account have vanished

littleheaven

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#198836 25-Jul-2016 10:12

This isn't strictly Spark or Yahoo Xtra, but I wasn't sure where else it belonged. I have a yahoo.co.nz address which I use daily, and it held all sorts of things, from order receipts to archived email from dear friends going back about 15 years. I logged in this morning and everything is gone. The entire contents of my inbox, my sent items, and all my folders. There's nothing in deleted items or archive... it's all gone. I've put in a request to have it restored, but I was curious about how this has happened. Anyone else had a similar experience? I've found it quite upsetting.

Also... does anyone have a recommendation for a decent way of backing up Yahoo mail? Either to Google Drive or a local folder? If I get it back I want to make sure it's secured. I have three-fold backup on my computer (two local and a cloud) but I never thought I'd need it for something like Yahoo mail.

Geek girl. Freelance copywriter and editor at Unmistakable.co.nz.

LittleGiant

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#1598005 25-Jul-2016 10:25

I had similar problems. But luckily I didn't lost all of my email but some of it. still really frustrated when that happen

Technofreak

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#1598011 25-Jul-2016 10:30

Yet, everyone is hell bent on cloud storage.

Slightly off topic now.

Does anyone think that in the future there will be less and less historical information retained from this age than previous times as we now rely on storage systems that do not have a long life. e.g. photos saved on DVD's. Remember 3.5 inch floppies or even 5 inch floppies, how many people still have the ability to read these discs, assuming the discs haven't been corrupted. DVD's will go the same way.

It's not like other media, like books or printed photos that can lie in an attic for years and years and years, and still be able to be read years later.

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ghettomaster

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#1598013 25-Jul-2016 10:35

Technofreak:

Yet, everyone is hell bent on cloud storage.

The problem is not cloud storage. As the OP mentioned, people just don't think to backup their cloud storage. If cloud storage is cheaper than local storage, and your backup costs are the same, you're ahead!

Technofreak

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#1598017 25-Jul-2016 10:39

ghettomaster:

Technofreak:

Yet, everyone is hell bent on cloud storage.

The problem is not cloud storage. As the OP mentioned, people just don't think to backup their cloud storage. If cloud storage is cheaper than local storage, and your backup costs are the same, you're ahead!

True. Most people don't think to back up, full stop.

Sony Xperia XA2 running Sailfish OS. https://sailfishos.org The true independent open source mobile OS
Samsung Galaxy Tab S6
Dell Inspiron 14z i5

xpd

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#1598046 25-Jul-2016 10:52

Hmm appears my account was emptied out recently as well, I dont use it anymore but did have a few emails there I kept with login info for a few sites. Only stuff that was there from the past week, was oodles of spam....so their spam filter is obviously on the fritz as well.

Oh well, don't care, don't need it anymore.

XPD / Gavin

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littleheaven

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#1598107 25-Jul-2016 11:35

Technofreak:

Yet, everyone is hell bent on cloud storage.

Slightly off topic now.

Does anyone think that in the future there will be less and less historical information retained from this age than previous times as we now rely on storage systems that do not have a long life. e.g. photos saved on DVD's. Remember 3.5 inch floppies or even 5 inch floppies, how many people still have the ability to read these discs, assuming the discs haven't been corrupted. DVD's will go the same way.

It's not like other media, like books or printed photos that can lie in an attic for years and years and years, and still be able to be read years later.

I've just printed out all my favourite photos from when I got a digital camera through to last Christmas (about 13 years' worth) because the hard copies will probably outlast any kind of digital media they're on. We've got family pics from the 1800's that are still in good condition, whereas I doubt you will be able to say the same for today's technology.

I also need to get out my old video camera tapes and digitise them, before we have nothing left to play them on.

Geek girl. Freelance copywriter and editor at Unmistakable.co.nz.

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afe66

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#1598122 25-Jul-2016 11:49

I had my lycos email account wiped a couple of weeks back which has been running since 1997..

Restored a few days later much to my relief. ( several of the emails are from people who have since died. Rereading the emails is disconcernting)

Downloading the data wont be fun.

littleheaven

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#1598206 25-Jul-2016 14:05

And it's back! I'm backing up using Thunderbird on my Mac with a POP3 account and not deleting email from the server. But so far have only pulled down the last couple of year's worth of mail. Not sure how to get the rest of it out.

Edited to add: It's the contents of the folders that haven't synched, so I am retrieving them by transferring them, one at a time, into my inbox, fetching them, and then putting them back where they belonged. I'm saving the Thunderbird mail in a folder on my Mac that backs up to a time capsule, a bootable clone drive, and a cloud backup system. Feel happier now.

Geek girl. Freelance copywriter and editor at Unmistakable.co.nz.