....I routinely ask such questions of members that don't post enough information. I do so because I want to get the best description of the user's environment and the question they are asking. In this case, the user didn't say whether he/she had deleted the e-mail message directly from an e-mail client, whether someone else had deleted it from the e-mail client, whether it had been automatically deleted from a webmail program, or whether the message had been "saved" to a CD or the hard drive and had been deleted from there.
Indeed, "deleted" could mean a number of things. Maybe the message simply "disappeared" while attempting to send it. Maybe the thread will evolve into fixing a modem, or reinstalling the e-mail client, or who knows what. You've been around here long enough to know that the thread could change to something entirely different than the subject line began with.
And most importantly, I like to know everything about each user's computer because I hope to help them again some time in the future on these forums. I'm not here every day, but I am here most days, and I will probably help most member multiple times. If I'm working on a customer's computer sitting in front of me, I don't have to ask those questions, because I can check for myself. Unfortunately, on these forums, we can only work with what is given us and I try to take a personal interest in the responses I give.
"Useless"...."pointless"...maybe to you. Not to me.
Hope this helps.
Grif