Until recently, if you accidentally deleted an email or chat message in Google, it could not be recovered. Worse, if a hacker gained access to your account and deleted messages, they would be gone for good. And this happened to one of our users!

Email and chat messages for all Wellesley College Google Apps accounts are now being backed up using Google Vault. Google used the same name for their service as our secure Vault file server on campus (unfortunately we did not copyright this name), but they are not related. Google Vault was approved by the ACLTP and senior staff. If you lose email or chat messages and would like them restored, please contact the Computing Help Desk.

If you have not manually emptied your Gmail Trash, you can recover emails and chats on your own within 30 days of deleting them. Click Trash in the lefthand menu, open a message and click the X next to the Trash label. For several messages, click the checkbox next to each message in the trash you’d like to restore, then click the Move to… (small folder) icon and select your Inbox or a folder.

Please remember that all data, including data in Google Vault, may only be accessed by LTS staff when a restore request comes from the user or when we are under legal obligation to do so.

To: Faculty, staff, students
From, more info: Veronica Brandstrader, LTS, x2171