I use outlook with my webmail set up as an IMAP4 account which has worked perfectly until last month. Now when I delete emails from the inbox instead of going to the trash folder they disappear altogether as though the purge box has been checked but it is NOT. Anybody help?

Are you sure they're deleted? http://www.officeforlawyers.com/outl.../missmess.html If you log into the webmail in your browser are the messages gone from the Inbox?

Yes - they have gone when I look in my webmail on line. Have now talked to MS Support who have uninstalled and reloaded MS office/outlook and the problem persists!

Did you try the link I gave you in the last message? If the messages are still in the Webmail Inbox then it's likely you just have a filter applied of some kind.

To add to this thread, Outlook Web Access or Web mail has a feature that stores most recently deleted items on your Exchange Server. this feature does vary from hosted providers.

If you are using a full version of the OWA for exchange 2007 or 2010 and not a lite version, Select options the Deleted options. There should be a field with delted items that have been removed from your client or web mail client. you can use this to restore messages accidentally removed.

Normally this feature is present in the IE8 browser.

Hope this helps.

Sorry, I misread your response above. So they're GONE in the webmail mailbox too. If your provider has Deleted Item Retention running you might be able to recover them from there. If you go to Tools | Account Settings | E-mail Accounts select your IMAP account, click Change then More Settings do you have a Deleted Items tab? Do you have a radio button for "Mark items for deltion but do not move them automatically? Do you have any rules running?

Yes - gone. I can check with provider to see if it is possible to recover deleted items.
No deleted items tab in Accounts/More settings - only able to change folders for sent items. Not sure where I would find a radio button. No rules except a default rule to clear categories on mail.
Interestingly I also have Thunderbird client with the same webmail account set up as an IMAP account and everything works fine - deleted emails go to trash as usual!

So I reallly have no idea whats happened with Outlook especially as its been reinstalled!

For SpiderTech - not sure what OWA is - I use "ordinary" outlook as a client with my webmail set up with IMAP protocol

When you're in the Inbox, if you go to Edit | Purge | Purge Options do you have "Purge Items when switching folders when online" checked?

Outlook Web Access- is a web based portal to an exchange mailbox. Most providers allow their users to access a deleted items retention policy for accidentally deleting messages of any content for that matter.