How to Recover Deleted Items from any Outlook Folder

In Outlook versions prior to Outlook 2007, deleted item recovery is possible only from the deleted items folder. This means if you permently delete an email from your inbox, you wont be able to recover it - which is stupid! You will notice when you go to "Recover Deleted Items" it will be greyed out.

To enable it so a user can restore deleted items regardless which outlook folder they delete the email from perform the following steps:

1. Run regedit on client workstation and locate following hive
2. HKLM---Software----Microsoft----Exchange-----Client-----Options
3. Add a DWORD and name it DumpsterAlwaysOn
4. Give the newly created DWORD a value of 1
5. If Outlook is running, close it and restart it.
6. Set Outlook Client to open user’s mailbox
7. Highlight inbox
8. Select recover deleted items from the tools menu
9. Select the messages that need to be recovered and click on the recover button.

What happens if you want to make this option available to all users in your organisation?

You can create an ADM template and deploy this registry change to all your workstations. To do this flow these steps:

1. Open regedt32.exe on your local machine.
2. Navigate to
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange\Client\Options"
3. Choose Edit - New - DWORD Value
4. Name the value to "DumpsterAlwaysOn"
5. Right click the value and choose Modify
6. Set the Value Data to 1 and make sure the Base is Hexadecimal
7. Click OK
8. Highlight the value DumpsterAlwaysOn and choose File - Export
9. Export this .reg file to a location e.g. c:\temp
10. Name the file DumpsterAlwaysOn.reg

Next step is to install NUTS on your administrative workstation. NUTS stands for Network UTilities Set. It is full of awesome free very powerful tools for system engineers. Download it from http://yizhar.mvps.org/files/NUTS.EXE

Once NUTS is installed on your administrative workstation, create an adm file from the DumpsterAlwaysOn.reg file you exported previously by following these steps:

1. Click Start - Programs - NUTS - Reg to Adm
2. Choose File - Import REG file
3. Choose c:\temp\DumpsterAlwaysOn.reg
4. In the "REG Source" window, delete the following text:
"ExcludeCustomKeys"="FaxSep1;IMEX;SP0;SP1;WinRules0"
"FullAddressInText"="SMTP COMPUSERVE FAX"
5. Choose File - Regenerate ADM text
6. Choose File - Save ADM template
7. Save this file on the domain controller in c:\%windows directory%\inf as DumpsterAlwaysOn_template.adm

Now that you have the ADM File created... you just need to import it into Group Policy.

1. Choose Start - Administrative Tools - Group Policy Management
2. Expand the domain
3. Right click on Group Policy Objects - choose new
4. Name the new object DumpsterAlwaysOn
5. Right Click on the new Group Policy Object (DumpsterAlwaysOn) and choose Edit
7. Expand Computer Configuration
8. Right click Administrative Templates - choose Add/Remove Templates
9. Choose Add
10. Select file \\%domain_controller%\%windows directory%\inf\DumpsterAlwaysOn_template.adm
11. Click Open
12. Click Close
13. Highlight Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates
14. Choose View - Filtering - untick "Only show policy settings that....." and choose OK
15. Expand Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange\Client\Options
16. In the right panel, right click DumpsterAlwaysOn and choose Properties
17. Ensure Enabled is checked
18. Ensure DumpsterAlwaysOn value is set to 1
19. Click OK
20. Close the Group Policy.