user_leaf92's profile

Frequent Visitor

 • 

10 Messages

Tuesday, June 11th, 2024 12:51 AM

what does "recovered-lost-folder" mean

At the end of my list of Folders, I have several items that say 'recovered-lost folder" followed by a long string of letters and numbers. I never received a message that a folder was lost or how to recover it. The folders appear to be empty. If the files are stored somewhere, how do I retrieve them?  Why did it happen? Why does it keep happening? Thanks.

Expert

 • 

29.6K Messages

5 months ago

Are you using a desktop email client of some kind, (like Thunderbird or Outlook) or only the webmail interface and a browser?

Frequent Visitor

 • 

10 Messages

I'm using Comcast email on an iMac and Galaxy 23 Ultra smart phone.

Official Employee

 • 

1.7K Messages

Good evening @user_leaf92 and thank you for reaching out on our Community Forums with your email concerns, we appreciate it. Did you previously delete any folders from your email account? If there are files sorted somewhere, they can only be retrieved if they are less than 30-days old. After 30-days, deleted emails become permanently unavailable. 

 

(edited)

I am an Official Xfinity Employee.
Official Employees are from multiple teams within Xfinity: CARE, Product, Leadership.
We ask that you post publicly so people with similar questions may benefit from the conversation.
Was your question answered? Please, mark a reply as the Accepted Answer.tick

3 Messages

I just had the same thing happen as leafowlie.  I had a folder called 'misc' with subfolders underneath it.  I had emails saved in the 'misc' folder, now they are all gone and the "misc" is in italics (was not before) and is grayed out.  You cannot move an email to that folder anymore.  

2 folders that we subfolders of 'misc' also had subfolders and those two had recovery folders made.  For example "insurance-recovered-lost-folder-e30b5874f4f466963439dec70d113b4"

It is great that the 2 subfolders were recovered, but I am missing everything that was in the main 'misc' folder.

Nothing previously deleted.  Seemingly happened on its own.

Visitor

 • 

4 Messages

@XfinityAlyssaA​ - I had this happen yesterday as well, along with several folders totally missing and not showing at all.  It looks like whatever was removed has been restored with these folders, but now you can't save into the old folders (which are empty) and you can't delete them either..  I have been trying to contact tech support, but can't get to a human being.  Are there any KB articles about how to fix these or remove them?

10 Messages

2 months ago

I just had the same thing happen.  i had about 5 emails that were read sitting in my inbox last night and this morning they are all gone.   There are a handful of folders that are grayed out and in italics.  What happened?  Where are my emails that i saved in the inbox?   I was saving them to reference something I needed.  How can I get them back? Why is this happening???

2 Messages

Same exact thing happening to me with no word from xFinity on why.

Official Employee

 • 

2.2K Messages

Hi there, user_zdbg1o! Thank you for reaching out about the emails that are missing and the folders that are grayed out. Have you tried to recover any deleted items? This will bring back any emails we have on our server in the last 30 days.

  1. Sign in to Xfinity Email using your Xfinity ID and password.
  2. Right-click on the Trash folder or click on the More Actions icon (three lines) next to the trash folder.
  3. Select Recover Deleted Items.
  4. Select the messages you want to restore and then click Move Selected Items.
  5. Select the appropriate destination folder and click OK or Move.
I am an Official Xfinity Employee.
Official Employees are from multiple teams within Xfinity: CARE, Product, Leadership.
We ask that you post publicly so people with similar questions may benefit from the conversation.
Was your question answered? Please, mark a reply as the Accepted Answer.tick

10 Messages

@XfinityRay

Hi, I was instructed to do this twice while talking via X direct message to Xfinity Support.   I did attempt it twice, with no success.  Isn't the key to this working that I had to have sent these emails to trash and deleted them myself?   That's the issue - no one here with access to our email deleted anything - the emails just vanished overnight.  I also did not delete any folders, nor did I request them to be recovered.  Some of these folders were buried deep within subfolders so one would have had to drill down to even find them and delete them, much less try to recover them.  I think it's very clear that this was not anything we did. I still want to understand how it happened and how to get the missing emails back!

Official Employee

 • 

936 Messages

user_zdbg1o Can you please send us a DM. You can start by clicking the chat icon located in the top right corner of your forums' page when signed in. Once there, you can direct your messages to "Xfinity Support." Please add your full name and service address to help us locate your account. Let me know if you have any questions.

I am an Official Xfinity Employee.
Official Employees are from multiple teams within Xfinity: CARE, Product, Leadership.
We ask that you post publicly so people with similar questions may benefit from the conversation.
Was your question answered? Please, mark a reply as the Accepted Answer.tick

Official Employee

 • 

1.3K Messages

Hey there, @jamesh12! Thanks for leaving a comment with your shared concerns. What troubleshooting have you attempted so far?

I am an Official Xfinity Employee.
Official Employees are from multiple teams within Xfinity: CARE, Product, Leadership.
We ask that you post publicly so people with similar questions may benefit from the conversation.
Was your question answered? Please, mark a reply as the Accepted Answer.tick

10 Messages

2 months ago

Your only hope is to contact Security Assurance and get someone that knows more than Go to Trash, Recover Deleted Items. None of these folders were in Trash, they just disappeared. This is an Xfinity serious problem as I have lost folders of emails that are vital and irreplaceable for my work. A number of subfolders have just disappeared, although some of the main folders are listed again as "recovered". The subfolders and their emails are not in the recovered folder. I was given a Case Number and told to give them 48 hours to try and locate my folders and emails. Unless the servers were destroyed this should be doable and I am hopeful but not confident. 

(edited)

10 Messages

Snarky reply to my own post. I suppose if I REALLY, REALLY need to get them I could always politely ask the NSA for them. I'm sure they have them somewhere. ;-)

10 Messages

@user_9d95ej​ Thanks for the advice.  How does one contact Security Assurance?   Your description is exactly what happened to me.  I've not had much luck with anyone else understanding it so far.   But I also agree that resolving this should be doable.  Certainly, at my work we've never had things ever permanently disappear, so I would hope a company the size of Xfinity would have similar safeguards.

10 Messages

@user_zdbg1o​ I have no idea how to speak directly to Security Assurance. I spent hours speaking to 2 different people in "support" explaining the situation and finally the second one said she could do nothing and was "kicking it up the ladder" and gave me a Case Number. They are supposed to call me today and let me know what is happening. Like before I have very little confidence this will happen, Xfinity has a serious f-up on their hands and will never own up to it. I asked her for a direct number to the people in charge and she said I had to go through 1-800-xfinity, the only number she was "allowed" to give out.

10 Messages

@user_9d95ej​ I agree - people are coming out of the woodwork with this specific problem now so it seems obvious that something went very wrong yet they won't admit it.

10 Messages

@user_zdbg1o​ Have you had any success? I'm about to begin my fourth go round with Security Assurance. Three times they have run what I assume is the same program and have come up with nothing, except the second time they restored emails I had just deleted since this began ... LOL ... so they were still in Trash. None of the missing emails or folders have been recovered. I will update again when and if I know any more.

(edited)

Frequent Visitor

 • 

10 Messages

2 months ago

I also have this issue.  I now have 5 or 6 folders that show up grayed out in the Xfinity web email page and each has a "recovered-lost-folder" folder that appeared autonomously within the last couple of days.  All of these folders also had subfolders, and I cannot delete them via the Xfinity web page because they are grayed out.  I am using the "new" Outlook for mac on my MacBook Pro.  Although the second-level subfolders still appear to have email, any emails in the grayed folders is missing on the Xfinity page.  Strangely, in outlook on my mac I did still have some emails in one of these folders, and was able to copy them into my inbox and access them from there, although some showed up deleted.  Something is definitely messed up - Xfinity shouldn't allow me to have grayed-out folders I can't delete, where are these "recovered-lost-folder" folders coming from, and why is there a discrepancy between the email on my laptop via outlook and that on the Xfinity web page?

10 Messages

@rarling​ wow seems like something happened to a bunch of us this past week.  You have the exact same questions as me - I got no help from Xfinity Support after asking these direct questions multiple times

 

Frequent Visitor

 • 

10 Messages

2 months ago

How does one escalate this issue to an actual Comcast employee who is equipped to investigate it?  It seems that randomly losing email files and having grayed out IMAP folders that cannot accept emails on comcast servers would be a "slight" issue!

10 Messages

The "recovered-lost-folder" folders should have the associated emails in them even if your original folder is grayed out. If it is a grayed out folder with no associated "recovered" folder and any missing sub-folders from any main folder recovered or not that you are sorry to say SOL. They are gone forever if they did not come back with their recover program. If you want them to run the recovery program for you, try 1-844-963-0185, the Illinois Recovery Center. Good luck to you, I've lost my business. Please let me know how it turns out.

(edited)

10 Messages

2 months ago

rarling and zdbg1o ... I posted replies on how to contact the security people. Apparently this is verboten since they have taken down both my posts. I also explained in it that if the recovery program has been run on your account and there are folders grayed without a corresponding recovery folder or sub-folders missing you are f'ed. This is straight from an hour-long conversation with a nice woman at security. She was at least apologetic and sorry that there is nothing SHE can do. They have run recovery four times on my account and nothing I can do now except take legal action.

(edited)

10 Messages

@user_9d95ej​ well this is not great and how annoying that your posts have been taken down.   It would appear that there are efforts to hide the problem...

10 Messages

2 months ago

rarling and zdbg1o - Please let the thread know if you have any greater success recovering your folders. Thank you.

Frequent Visitor

 • 

10 Messages

The folders in question have disappeared from my folder list. I didn't do anything. Maybe Comcast in monitoring this chat and did it???

Visitor

 • 

4 Messages

2 months ago

I was able to recover my emails/folders.  The next day, several more re-appeared as recovered.  As for how to do deal with folders that were in italics/grayed-out, I went and used an email client via IMAP and was able to update those in the client.  I moved everything to new folders, then deleted the old folders, so I could use the web client without issue.

10 Messages

@user_mb1224​ That's great to hear for you. Unfortunately, for user_zdbg1o and myself we had many layers of subfolders and some of them have gone completely missing even when the main folder has been "recovered". Hopefully zdbg1o has better results, mine are apparently gone forever, which still makes no sense to me if Xfinity has REAL backups.

(edited)

Frequent Visitor

 • 

10 Messages

@user_mb1224​ I would be careful!  I notice that with my email client ("new" Outlook for MAC) I can also move email to, delete, etc. these grayed out folders.  And the client is perfectly happy.  HOWEVER, if I go back to the Xfinity email web interface or check on other devices that are logged into that email account the change did NOT occur.  This seems to indicate the folder structure on my client is different than on the server, which is a very big problem in itself!!!  I would check that the folder structure you set up using your email client is actually represented on the server and other connected devices, and that the grayed out folders are actually deleted on the server.

10 Messages

2 months ago

Well, nothing has changed with my situation.  The emails are still gone, the recovered folders are still there, and the greyed out folders are still there.  Lots of chatter in direct messages here and on X, but still, after almost two weeks, no one will explain what happened or how to fix it.  An attempt was made to restore something, but again, all that was restored were the emails that I deleted, which makes sense, and obviously indicates that something else happened here, yet no one will state that.   I have no idea if all of the emails in the deleted, and apparently recovered, folders are completely restored, but I have no faith that they are.  It's extremely frustrating and disappointing, as user_9d95ej stated.  I certainly, but clearly naively, expected more.

10 Messages

2 months ago

There is no explanation, just they are gone. I received an apology and empathy from ONE person. There is supposedly a backup going back for 14 or 15 days. This is obviously not the case. I thought a backup meant every thing, every day; then the oldest gets purged. A backup for 14 individual days existing at all times. You have 14 chances of recovering most every email saved in that time frame. As the word gets out that there is no safety net on xfinity email, no one will trust comcast.net email for anything important and will replace it with something reliable. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is their goal all along since email is all expense, no profit for xfinity.

10 Messages

@user_9d95ej​ wow!  Yeah I just gave up and based on what you were told it seems obvious that my emails are just gone too.  Unbelievable.  I guess I will be looking to migrate to a better and more reliable solution.

forum icon

New to the Community?

Start Here