I’ve Got Mail! Oh, wait . . . where’d it go?

Computers – and all other modern-day electronics-seem to have become a necessary evil in our everyday lives. Most of us have at least one computer, some sort of tablet, and cell phones, all catering to the need for instant information and instant gratification.

This is not necessarily bad, mind you. The advantages far outweigh the the annoyances…generally.

We can bank online, eliminating the need for stamps, writing checks, addressing envelops, going to the post office..well, you get the idea, and the beauty of direct deposit is wonderful.

We can go online for research on just about everything without having to make a trip to a library.

And e-mail, oh my. Instant contact!  The people we communicate with often are alphabetically listed in your email program’s contact list. No running around looking for your well-worn paper address book. There’s no denying that all this stuff has its advantages.

It has also become the bane of my existence, especially E-mail. I work mostly on my 23” desktop computer because of its size. With failing eyesight, that’s my biggest blessing. I use my laptop when I want to take my writing elsewhere.

Okay, back to E-mail.

I use I use Outlook, part of my MS Office suite, and I love it! Until recently. Notice the title of this post?

I have multiple folders and sub-folders, each with a ‘rule’ that’s (supposed) to automatically sort incoming mail. Some I’ll check immediately and keep the others unread until I have more time to deal with them.

But lately those rules have become unruly. The other day I created a new sub-folder to save an email I wanted to keep, away from my main Inbox. After setting it up, I clicked on Move To, selected the new subfolder and POOF! it disappeared. Gone. I checked to see if I’d clicked on the wrong one, looking in other folders…nothing. It was nowhere to be found.

So instead of doing that, I simply did a drag and drop. That seems to be working okay…this time.

But what got my dander up today, prompting this post, was an incoming email I’d read, marked as UNread, because it had information I needed to follow through on but didn’t have the time to work on it. A bit later, I clicked on that unread email to open it. It did open but a second later it…vanished. Gone, never to be seen again. Not in my deleted items folder; not in a different folder; not in my recycle bin…absolutely G.O.N.E. And that’s not the first time this has happened. I’m one hair away from screaming.

Has anyone reading this ever experienced anything like this? If so, I’d love to hear from you.

Please share, I’m at my wits end.