Computer help forum: Recovering Lost AOL 9.0 Email Folders saved to My PC

how do I try to restore the email messages that I have deleted. I was deleting a few messages and accidently lost some very important ones.
Thank you

What MizjWolf posted worked like a charm for me. I thought the cause was hopeless as I had reinstalled AOL and thought those old emails were gone for good. Sentimental mails from a friend who has since passed away were retrieved. Priceless! Thank you Mizjwolf!

...are in the Organize folder, which is somewhere in C:\Documents and Settings on a Windows XP machine.

You won't be able to read those, as they're in some AOL-unique format - although you might make some sense of them if you open them in Word Pad. Try to copy that folder to somewhere else, then reinstall AOL 9 and then copy the files you saved back to the new Organize folder and see what that does. Good luck!

This is a recurring problem yet it's extremely difficult to find a solution. Suddenly all of my AOL "Saved on my PC" file prior to March 7 disappeared on only one of our five AOL screen names. After searching for answers, I followed suggestions to seek the files in C:Documents and Settings/All Users/Application Data/AOL/C_America Online 9.0a/organize/(screen name).abi .
Located file but am unable to open using AOL, Receive error message saying that file is too large for AOL. I too am stuck. Any solution to this out there? Thanks.

No insights or solutions yet. Exchanged online chat with AOL, but since I'm no longer a paying subscriber, the tech said that he couldn't help.

After you have lost your Mail in your Offline Saved Mail. I don't how to get it back but to keep from loosing it in the first place do this.
After you have REDONE your AOL connection go and click on Read Mail and a sign should come up asking you if you want to save your Off Line
Mail. By Clicking Yes I always keep my offline saved mail.

I always save mail I want to keep on Save on AOL. Later this mail can be opened and go to Edit at the top and click Select All - Go back to your Mail saved on AOL and at the bottom click Save - Save on my PC -
Save - All of this mail will now be recorded on your Offline Saved Mail. It will take a good while for this to get done. Pictures especially will slow it up. If you have to much to do at one time you will have to hold down on the CTRL Key and start left clicking to select what you want.

MONDAY.30.JULY.07

THE KEY FACTOR HERE IS SYNCHRONIZE:

Synchronize features look at what exists if copies or duplicates immedieately detects it and asks you what would you like to do keep it, delete it, replace it.

You can synchronize your contacts, calendar, tasks, emails, ... It can synchronize any folder type for example between a laptop and a desktop

These are helpful suggestions from others who have been there done that and then some...

http://www.filedudes.com/Laplink_PDAsync-download-44455.html

You can get some really helpful insights for your specific needs also call:: 1-866-834-4677 AOL TECHNICAL SUPPORT

THEY KNOW EXACTLY HOW THIS IS DONE ON AOL.

You would think that by now this common problem would have a well-publicized solution. But, I have not found one yet.

In the future as a preventative measure I will not download AOL to my computer but rather simply access its mail function via www.aol.com. Then I will save all mail on AOL rather than on my computer.

But I very much would like to recover those lost email files still no doubt buried somewhere on the hard drive just waiting for the right magic to be revealed.

What mizjwolf posted is the way to get your PFC File back.
This depend on you having and locating your organize file.
Add .pfc at the end and send to desktop if it not already their.
Right click organize and open with America Online after you
have signed on to AOL.
You can go to File - open - desktop - open it to organize -
right click it and click select and it will open with your
Favorites and your saved email.
I didn't need it because I save emai that I want on
(Saved on AOL) When using AOL Quick Restore you sign on and
click on Read email and a popup will come up and you should
click yes to the question.

how doe recover theses. i dont know where they went. i also cant open dat files or pfc files. help!!

I cannot retrieve my "saved mail" on AOL. Please advise how to retrieve.

I can't seem to see saved mail

... This one out for myself. I recently uninstalled AOL v 9.5 (after having 9.0 for a while) and remembered I needed the saved emails from my saved to my PC folder. I installed v 9.6 and alas, they were gone. However, When I uninstalled AOL, it moved all the PFC related folders to a folder titled AOL Saved PFC's onto the desktop. I seriously struggled with this for hours trying to figure out how to reintegrate this file into the AOL saved email. I tried all the AOL help file recommendations but alas, no luck. What I had to do was start the AOL system information program. From there I hit the AOL Software tab. There will be a "Open Data Folder" button on the right hand side. Hit this button, and copy down the path you see in the address bar. I would recommend saving this text onto a text file and keep it on your desktop. From there, shut down the computer, and start it in safe mode by restarting and start pressing the F8 key after your manufacturers logo appears on screen as the computer starts (Why will be explained later). Select start in Safe Mode, and let it load. Now, open up the Saved PFC folder which is on your desktop, and look through all the AOL installations listed. There could be AOL v. 9.0, then AOL v. 9.0a and so forth for any and all AOL installations you have ever installed on your system. Look for the last one, the last folder/version listed (in my case before the AOL v. 9.5a folder was the one I needed) Open the folder, and open the Organize folder, and find the file that is listed with no extension. It should take the file name of your screen name, and no extension listed. Usually if you have any amount of saved mail, it will be a file several Mb's in size. The other files in this folder will be only several hundred Kb's. Now, leave this window open. Next, open up the my computer icon on your start list. Open the text file with the path you saved earlier from the AOL Software Information program. Copy that path into the my computer windows address bar, and hit enter. This should bring you to the current AOL installation data folder for organizing computer preferances and files. Now, go back to the window I said to keep open with the extension-less file that's named after your screen name. Drag that file and drop it into the current installation folder. It will ask if you want to replace the existing file. Click yes. Now, restart your computer, and start AOL. If you did everything right, your saved emails should pop up right where they used to be in your mail box. Best of luck!

Cheers,

Walter