Accidently deleted some aliases

[sync00]

I deleted some aliases thinking I was deleting identities. Is there any way to recover them? I only remember the last one I deleted.

[n5bb]

The only think a user can do directly is an account restore. This restores deleted folders and email messages, but does not restore any of our settings (such as Aliases or Identities).

Adding an alias normally creates an associated Identity. Deleting an alias normally removes the associated Identity. So if you deleted several aliases, those identities should also be now missing. Other people can now capture control of those aliases, so you need to act quickly.

If this happened recently (the past week or so), I think that Fastmail support staff can probably help you. File a support request at:
https://www.fastmail.com/support/

Bill

[sync00]

FM couldn't do anything about it.

[BritTim]

It looks as though your next move is to try to make a list of all the aliases you have used. I believe this is possible through clever incremental use of Advanced Search. You want a list of all the distinct X-Resolved-to headers I am short of time, but the basic approach I suggest is:

1. Start by looking at the raw message of any email, noting the X-Resolved-to header's value
2. Do an advanced search that excludes all messages with the known X-Resolved-to header.
3. Examine the raw message of any email in the list and note the second X-Resolved-to header
4. Amend the search to exclude messages with both the known X-Resolved-to headers
5. and so on ...

[Terry]

Go to your identities if its not to late, the list will be in there.

[n5bb]

Originally Posted by Terry

Go to your identities if its not to late, the list will be in there.

I don’t understand this claim - why do you think it’s true? When you delete an alias, the associated identity is immediately deleted automatically.

Try this yourself - create a new alias and an identity is automatically created. Delete the alias and that identity is automatically instantly removed.

Bill

[n5bb]

Originally Posted by BritTim

It looks as though your next move is to try to make a list of all the aliases you have used. I believe this is possible through clever incremental use of Advanced Search. You want a list of all the distinct X-Resolved-to headers...

The idea is good but that’s the wrong header. You need to use X-Delivered-To to discover the address used to deliver a message to the Fastmail incoming SMTP server. The X-Resolved-to header shows the target address of the alias, so it hides the actual alias address.

Bill

[sync00]

Thanks for the suggestions.

90% of my aliases are receive only and I've deleted the identities for them. I guess that's irrelevant though if they get deleted when you delete the alias.

I'll try the idea for making a list of used aliases.

[sync00]

Originally Posted by n5bb

You need to use X-Delivered-To to discover the address

I'm finding the alias in the email. Is it common to have to go into the raw message to get the alias?

[sync00]

ignore-----

[sync00]

I have a lot of aliases. I reached a point where the search result was "No Results Found" when it should have found lots of results. I assume I exceeded the maximum search size.

[sync00]

I figured out how to narrow down my search for which aliases might have been deleted. I found one of them.

Most of my aliases are only used once and I don't care if they get deleted. So the other deleted aliases probably aren't important. I have my own domain so I can always create them again if I discover one that I want to resurrect.

[BritTim]

Originally Posted by sync00

II have my own domain so I can always create them again if I discover one that I want to resurrect.

Deleted aliases in your own domain are much less of a problem than when they are in one of FastMail's domains. You can avoid lost email just by having a catch all alias (albeit at a cost of receiving some spam sometimes).

[Terry]

Originally Posted by n5bb

I don’t understand this claim - why do you think it’s true? When you delete an alias, the associated identity is immediately deleted automatically.

Try this yourself - create a new alias and an identity is automatically created. Delete the alias and that identity is automatically instantly removed.

Bill

Oh Ok, I had an alias which I deleted and the identity stayed there but it was a couple of years ok, I will try now and see what happens.

Yes they get deleted now.....sigh

I once had terry@fastmail.com but it got spammed badly so I deleted the alias BUT the identity stayed there for a few months until I deleted it, but in saying that is was a few years ago.

[n5bb]

Originally Posted by Terry

...I once had terry@fastmail.com but it got spammed badly so I deleted the alias BUT the identity stayed there for a few months until I deleted it, but in saying that is was a few years ago.

Yes, Terry — I wasn’t sure, so I tested this before I made my first post about the topic. Fastmail has been cleaning up and simplifying things the last couple of years, and they probably changed this behavior many months ago. The email search feature is much faster now and you can quickly search across all folders on a large account without locking it up due to server overload. The calendar search feature is awesome! I can now easily go backwards and see the previous times I did something.

Bill