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How to retrieve a deleted e-mail on your iPhone

If you accidentally delete an e-mail using the Mail app on your iPhone, fear not: it's not gone forever.

Matt Elliott Senior Editor
Matt Elliott is a senior editor at CNET with a focus on laptops and streaming services. Matt has more than 20 years of experience testing and reviewing laptops. He has worked for CNET in New York and San Francisco and now lives in New Hampshire. When he's not writing about laptops, Matt likes to play and watch sports. He loves to play tennis and hates the number of streaming services he has to subscribe to in order to watch the various sports he wants to watch.
Expertise Laptops, desktops, all-in-one PCs, streaming devices, streaming platforms
Matt Elliott

I frequently archive e-mails on my iPhone by mistake. If you accidentally tap the delete or archive button using the Mail app, there is an easy way to bring that e-mail back.

First, you should know that you can set up your mail account(s) to either delete or archive e-mails in the Settings. Deleted messages go to the Trash; archived messages go to the All Mail folder. Either way you set it up, you can retrieve messages that accidentally exit your in-box.

Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET

For deleted messages, you will need to find the Trash folder. If you are viewing your Inbox, tap the Mailboxes button in the upper-left corner to return to the main screen of the Mail app. Next, tap your account below the Accounts header and then tap the Trash folder to view all of your deleted messages. Tap on the message you'd like to retrieve, and then tap the folder icon button at the bottom (second from the left). From here, you can tap to move it to your Inbox or any other subfolder you might have created.

Tap your account below the Accounts header to get to the Trash or All Mail folder. Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET
You'll find your deleted messages in the Trash and archived messages in the All Mail folder. Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET

The process is the same for archived messages, but instead of digging an e-mail out of the Trash, you'll need to go into the All Mail folder to locate your missing e-mail.