I recently had a client who lost their incoming email and all contacts within Gmail by inadvertently opening or clicking on what appeared to be a document.

We have all been there?  A reminder to us all to be diligent, careful, slow down. If not sure, assume it is a potential hazard and check the sender.

  1. Check who the attachment and or link came from
  2. Check the extension on the attachment
  3. Check the email address
  4. Stop. Slowdown.

If you are unsure about 1, 2 or 3, then do not click on anything and contact the sender.

Back to the Gmail Hack, we spent some time trying to figure out what had happened since email was still coming to the mobile device.  I decided to check the Setting within Gmail (click on the Gear icon, upper right, then Settings).

Wella! I found under Gear icon > Settings > Filters and Blocked Addresses that two filters had been created.  One to delete all email coming into this Gmail address and another deleting all email coming into the name on the account.

Pretty ingenious making it appears disaster had hit.

I removed those filters, then restored Gmail Contacts (Contacts > More > Restore Contacts).  Google allows you to restore contacts up to 30 after the event. Pretty cool?

Missing emails from the hacking filters being created were found in the Trash folder, if auto-delete is not setup.

Steps again…

  • Check for Filters setup under Settings
  • Restore contacts

Be Safe Out There!