Thanks very much Foggy and again I've replied in bold below:
1. I don't know much about Incredimail. You can check the Incredimail
part of this site to see if the issue has been raised before. (I checked only briefly and didn't find anything.) Incidentally, do you have the email account set up as a POP account (all email dowloaded to your IM client and removed from the server) or an IMAP account (where the IM client 'mirrors' what's on your provider's servers)?
I have a POP account.
2. I'm afraid I know nothing about Optusnet. Perhaps Ray (popowich) does and will respond here. Does Optusnet have a webmail interface that you can check to see if anything was put into
its trash folder? (This would only be relevant - maybe - if your account is a POP account.)
I do have Optusnet webmail and checked the trash folder, but again no luck.
3. If it's
only the text of the email that disappears and nothing else changes (i.e. the recipient's address and email subject are still showing in those field in your compose screen), then you might try the "Ctrl + Z" trick (assuming you have a Windows machine). If/When this disppearing act happens again, STOP TYPING. Then while holding down the Ctrl button press the 'z' key. This is an "undo" function and
might restore whatever was inadvertently deleted.
I think this might be the best solution and I've stuck it next to both monitors !
But whether that works or not for future instances of this, I can't say I know where IM might be hiding any
already deleted compositions.
Here's an article about deleted
folders, but I don't know if that would help in your case. :-(
I've saved that article as it may help.
4. You say you don't remember what keys you pressed.... For some email clients pressing the 'delete' button while holding down the 'shift' key is a way of permanently deleting an email (or draft). Could you and/or your wife have accidentally hit that combination of keys?
I don't think so as the keys are too far from each other.
5. I don't know how Incredimail's own support forums rate as far as helpfulness, but you could always open a topic
there, too, and see if you get any good input.
They seem to be un-helpful, using mostly a bot instead of people.
I don't know if any of this helps, but stay tuned for Ray's (popowich) reply. He'll have a better idea of how to go about searching for IM's 'lost' messages -- despite the fact that he doesn't like Incredimail very much.